Here is a closer look at sales data for Home & Lifestyle magazines from 20 newsagencies that provided data for the latest benchmark study for April 2020 vs. April 2019. This data is from some of the newsagencies It is part of a deeper dive into category level performance, specifically focussing on break-out trends.
The growth for most retailers of Home & Lifestyle category titles is a broader opportunity beyond the magazines themselves. The growth in sales indicates, I think, greater interest in nesting or dreaming about nesting.
The growth suggests opportunities in the homewares space. Elsewhere, I have seen a surge in sales of candles, diffusers, wall signs, mugs, plates, throw rugs, cushions, lights and similar from the home and lifestyle product category. Some of this product data is from newsagencies while I have other from businesses outside the channel.
We can all leverage our magazine category data to inform gift and homewares ranging in our shops. we can make more money from the growth in a magazine category than from the sale of magazines themselves. This is where the real value of this information lies – in our leveraging of it.
This approach of buying stock based on magazine categories is not new. It’s something newsXpress has done for many years and something I have talked about here before. What is different now is this April data is relevant today, revealing trends different to the pre COVID-19 trajectory.
I’m sharing this data here to encourage newsagents to look at their own data for opportunities like this.