A check of year on year sales at one of my newsagencies shows that we’re achieving 10% year on year unit sales growth for magazines and even more at some category, segment and title levels.
Woman’s Day sales are up 6%, New Idea up 15%, Who 31%, Take 5 up 7%, TV Week up 7.8%, AWW up 4.5% and craft overall up 40% off a good base. While magazine sales are challenged for many, things are working well for us. Here is what we do to drive magazine sales:
- We obsess about the category because it’s a key traffic driver. We manage it as a point of difference and not as an obligation. By obsess I mean that more than 50% of my time in the shop is spent on magazines.
- We react to covers. I topical cover gets extra attention.
- We regularly relay magazine categories and titles to keep the layout fresh and relevant. For example, we moved craft from deep in the women’s section to be opposite our weeklies. Bam! Sales went nuts.
- We co-locate titles to chase impulse purchases. For example, That’s Life puzzle titles with That’s Life and the AWW crossword book with AWW. Anyone reading my recent posts will know this one move is driving double digit year on year growth.
- We often promote magazines on the lease line to passers-by – sometimes weeklies, other times categories.
- We use smaller format in-locations displays more so than the publisher preferred billboard displays.
- We reward genuinely loyal shoppers for above average behaviour. There is no doubt that the discount vouchers facility is driving good growth for us. Every day we see shoppers purchasing a magazine on impulse as a result of a cash discount opportunity we give them.
I don’t mean to sound big-headed but to me it’s these initiatives publishers should be promoting to newsagents. Our channel can grow magazine sales if we all engage in the kind of activity noted above.
The most important reward any newsagent can win is sales growth. We all must chase this for magazines as this product category continues to be very important to our businesses despite the sales declines reported in many newsagencies.
I’d be happy to help any newsagent address magazine sales challenges.
Mark how many magazine pockets do you have?
It is now 3 weeks since GG and Network have changed their supply chain to 2 deliveries not 3 and my Wednesday’s have
hit rock bottom (not as good as a poor Sunday).
I know this is a direct result of no stock because the customers come in for a mag that they are expecting and when I tell them “it will be in tomorrow” they are disgruntled (they think it is just my shop) and they say “but we always come to the Village on Wednesday”.
Obviously someone somewhere else is picking up those sales that I am losing so maybe the sale is not totally lost but it is
certainly impacting on my business.
Anyone else feeling this negative impact?
June, our Wednesdays are slow now, sometimes really slow, but, Thursdays and Fridays are up.
Wednesdays are now my favourite day of the week, I have time to re arrange gifts, tidy our card displays, schedule reps to visit, basically I spend the day working on areas that actually make me money in time for the peak thursday – sunday trade. Thursdays are now the most stressful day of the week.
how is being busy stressful? personally I would like to be stressed out every day of the week if that the case
It’s not the being busy part that is stressful but the being busy plus doing magazines that is stressful, but of course worth it for the money in the bank.
Jessie, I know what you mean but it always seems “unproductive” to me to
spend the day on tidying or MYOB etc.
I would rather be run off my feet and doing the unproductive work after I shut the shop.
June, when you moved to a smaller shop in your centre how much smaller is it and have your magazine sales suffered as a result?
I love two week days in a row with out magazines, it’s nice working at a more relaxed pace than on Thursdays.
Jenny, 750. Very deep pockets holding three times what many traditional fixtures hold. 720 titles.
Are there changes comeing to wed lotto in qld
Wed lotto in Qld is under review yes
Jenny, our shop is only half the size of our
previous premises (next door) and we had
1900 pockets of mags and now we have
700 pockets so the answer is “yes” we are
down in our mags. I will tell you the % we are down when I check them.
I am in the process of ensuring that if a customer asks for a mag that isn’t on the shelf I immediately email for that mag (with the code and the qty desired) and I get it in as a “no obligation” for the customer. I am doing this 4-5 times a day depending on the requests.
I just checked and we are down 25% which isn’t too terrible seeing as we have lost 66% of our facings.
Magazines umm let me think I put them up there with Newspaper sales really as the Profit is 25% there is no doubt there is profit in them but I think of them as traffic drivers really.
Would I obsess over them no sorry I won’t as I would be more inclined to do that with Gifts and looking at other add on lines for real profit.
Are you just making your magazine Loss Leaders?
Having said that if its paying off? Good stuff!
Just moved 216 pockets that I have wanted to swap for ages, and stole 36 pockets for calendars.
Mags looking good, me looking wrecked!
Bretts, magazines are one of the most important traffic generators in any newsagency. Without them you would not have the gift sales you have. Look at gift shops, many are struggling because they do not have the traffic generators we do.
Today’s newsagency is a finely balanced business. Ignore magazines at your peril.