Our promotion of the Mormon cover story on the latest Time magazine is working. I expect we will sell more copies than usual as a result of placement where the whole cover can be seen. Of course, Mormonism is in the news thanks to the US presidential election and questions about what Mormons stand for.
The Background Briefing program on Radio National on the weekend took us behind the scenes on how the Fairfax business responded to the challenges of the Internet some years ago.
You can listen to the program here. Indeed, I urge newsagents to listen – or read the transcript when it is loaded Tuesday.
While the program is an excellent reflection at the decisions those leading Fairfax made early in the challenge of the Internet to their business model, it is equally a challenge to newsagents today who continue to run business models that owe more to the past than the future. This program is a business lesson for us about the need to embrace the changes around us today and to pursue changes we don’t yet see in a mission critical goal focused on being in business five, ten and more years down the road.
How people shop, when they shop and where they shop is changing, faster than most of us know. Plenty of the products on which we currently rely are engaging with shoppers in mays we are yet to fully comprehend. These are some of the challenges we face … challenges somewhat similar to those faced by the leadership of fairfax years ago in the period covered by the documentary.
Newsagents are too often late to the party. Look at T2020. News has been briefing newsagent associations about this for more than two years yet it is only since mid this year that there has been any activity resembling substance.
What are the associations doing about the fundamental changes in retail? Nothing that I can see. Yet the shift occurring here is more serious, more far reaching, than T2020. I am more concerned abut how newsagents are reacting than their associations. Too many just don’t know what is happening.
I have covered some of this in the Newsagency of the Future workshop.
Listen to Background Briefing and learn what Fairfax got wrong. We need to engage so we don’t make the same mistakes.
PaidContent is reporting that magazine publisher Future has achieved more than £5 million in sales of digital editions of its titles on Apple devices in the last year. This excellent result is due to Future publishing content mobile device readers want. Kudos to them.
Not all publishers are enjoying this level of success and not all magazine categories lend themselves to the mobile platform. this is why I see magazines selling well in newsagencies for years to come – well, in newsagencies that support magazines.
We are making the most of the interest in the launch issue of the five-part One Direction series from Pacific Magazines by displaying titles likely to appeal to 1D fans in this secondary promotion location in-store.
Driving basket depth by using successful, traffic-generating, products as I pointed out yesterday is vital to any retailer.
We regularly do this – place other items next to, around and near items we know are popular. It works with basket depth at an above average level.
