Author: Mark Fletcher

We have had the Snowman Christmas ornaments on the shop floor for less than two weeks and they are selling very well. In fact, we are reordering to ensure we can sell deeper into the Christmas season.

What’s interesting in this success story is that we have the stand half-way in the store, near our magazine department, since we have had Halloween in the front.

They are working beautifully as a basket builder, adding valuable margin dollars to sales.

We have the latest issue of men’s style magazine with the full cover on show to leverage the shot of Modern Family star Sofia Vergara. The Vergara cover should get more people picking it up than usual.

We are also giving GQ excellent positioning because of the Daniel Craig cover and the release of the new James Blond movie.

We have not returned any stock of the Girlfriend branded One Direction part series from Pacific Magazines and this weekend we saw the value in having the full series available and on-show. I personally saw our display drive impulse purchases two of which were worth more than $20.00 in part series titles.

I know of newsagents who have early-returned stock of these titles. While the early return opportunity is embedded in the model, I have no doubt that interest in this series is far from satiated. Yesterday, one set was purchased by a grandparent for a grandchild and the other was purchased by a parent who had finally given in – she told me she’d resisted for weeks but had not given up. I was happy with that.

Our social media campaign promoting the series is also showing that interest in the series remains strong. Several fans have said they are buying second copies of the series – one to read and another to collect. I hadn’t thought about this, that people could purchase multiple sets.

On eBay I found mint condition issue #1 is priced at $24.99 plus postage.

The set from Pacific Magazines is also helping calendar sales – we’re past 150 copies of that sold, adding around $4,000 to the One Direction related sales this year.

I plan is to keep the five-part set in-store for the entire on-sale. The indication is that it will easily pay its way.

With Halloween selling so well we had to consolidate all product to one display. This freed up space at the counter. We filled the available space with a carefully selected range of magazine titles like to work well in this impulse purchase location. It worked a treat with magazines being added to the basket at the sales counter.

Too much time in the newsagency channel is spent complaining about what we can’t do when every day there are (even small) moves we can make to drive success.

The current issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly is the first with a male on the cover in fifteen years. It will be interesting to see how much Hugh Jackman helps them move stock. We have been supporting the title with several locations including placement with newspapers. Sales are okay, no spike at this stage but it’s early in the on-sale.

Up through to the end of today we have AWW in four locations. That will be pulled back from tomorrow.

We have arranged for supply of 15 magazine titles from IPS following a review of what they have available and the categories of magazines we see selling in-store.

I love the ease of doing this and the control I have. Gotch and network could learn from IPS.

We were fortunate to receive a floor display unit for promoting Better Homes and Gardens and we are making the most of it. We have placed the unit near the counter, next to our busy photocopier.  After a week here we will place it at the front of the store, facing into the shopping mall.

We also have Better Homes and Gardens located with newspapers as well as in the usual location for the title. Sales are strong – we’re seeing excellent growth as has been the case for most of the year with this title for us.

I want to mention the display unit – it’s physically strong. This is important especially in the Christmas season with traffic up and things getting knocked about.

We received four copies of SugarCraft magazine a few days ago and have already sold three. The last issue sold out in two weeks. The success of this title is an indicator of interest in all things baking, something I doubt will decline for some time yet given the new cooking shows announced for Tv next year.

SugarCraft is a terrific title for people serious about cake decorating. I’m glad we have it as it reinforces our magazine specialist status in a category that is important to us.

So, amid all the hubbub from newsagents about margin and supply, here is a title off of which I am making a good financial return – both from its sales and from related business thanks to the cred the title provides the newsagency.

With the final part of the One Direction part series from Pacific Magazines now out we are making the most of the opportunity with promotion at the front of the shop on the lease line. This prime placement plus placement in three other locations in-store has been key for us in making the most of the 1D opportunity.

The buzz created by the Pacific marketing team is generating welcome destination shoppers. This also makes it easier for us to promote the titles as we are.

1D will have added more than $20K to our sales this year.

We have noticed photography magazines with a feature of portraits selling well and are leveraging this knowledge withplacement of Digital Photography, featuring a cover story on portraits, next to The Essential Guide to Portraits – another in the magbook series.

Every magazine purchased on impulse is margin dollars in the bank.