Looking deeper at the November 2021 sales data compared to 2019 for the newsagency businesses in the benchmark mix I wrote about last week … crosswords is a powerhouse segment in newsagencies.
While sales of women’s weeklies (New Idea, Woman’s Day etc) is far greater, crosswords account for, on average, 8.5% of all magazines sold. This is significant with most of these sales being for titles that are only in newsagencies.
Crossword shoppers are loyal, more likely to return to you if they know you stock the niche titles in which they are interested.
Crossword shoppers are more valuable. Our of all the magazine shoppers, they are more likely to buy cards, a high margin category and more likely to buy jigsaws, another good margin category.
Crossword shoppers respond to loyalty offers. Whether it’s an amount off based on purchase value or a future benefit from today’s purchases, they engage with loyalty programs and therefore are stickier to the business.
Crossword shoppers dwell. Dwell time increases shopper visit value in a well laid-out shop.
Crossword shoppers stick together. They talk, share their love of the puzzle and this word of mouth can help you find more shoppers.
The performance of crossword titles is better than most other magazine segments. This also makes it valuable.
While the paltry margin from crosswords is frustrating, it’s a product segment we can leverage and from which we can drive value by being engaged retailers and following the opportunities revealed in data.
I recommend having crosswords in two places within magazines, their traditional home and in a column next to weeklies. I’d also post about crosswords on social media as different titles speak to different co-horts of value: large print, cryptic and word circle are good examples of these. Talk about them as a good gift for young and old.
One of the best things you could try is a crossword lover club that meets up at your newsagency. I suspect they’d love this to meet fellow puzzlers and to be seen, it shows that you as a specialist retailer see their interest and respect it.
Crosswords are valuable in the newsagency. Take a look at your range and consider working with the distributor to expand it. Growth in crosswords will deliver growth elsewhere in the business.
Totally agree, many customers know exactly the date the next issue of their favorite title is due and are in on the day..
The same could be said for newspapers – I have regulars who only buy the daily for the crosswords! Interesting that all News Corp papers today have a wraparound promotion for an app ‘BrainGains’ which seems to be a puzzling compendium with new daily puzzles. Could this be News’s latest ruse to drag people from the hard copy?
And, crosswords is a category we can own as other magazine retailers do the bare minimum.