We are promoting the latest issue of Your Garden with a tactical co-location strategy – in with gardening titles as well as at the counter this week.  being a seasonal publication, it’s natural that customers will not be thinking of Your Garden when they visit.  This issue has been out for a couple of days and so far is showing promising sales.  We plan to run with the co-locatio strategy for the next two weeks space permitting.

While there are strict restrictions on the sale of handguns in Australia, there appears to be no such restriction on handgun magazines. This latest issue of Concealed Carry Handguns went on sale yesterday.

While I don’t know if this magazine is promoting guns which are illegal in Australia, I would certainly be uncomfortable with this title on my shelves.  It is from the US, a country with a very different approach to handguns compared to Australia, a country, too, with far more handgun related deaths than we see in Australia.  In the US they report 15.22 firearm deaths per 100,000.  In Australia we report 2.94.

While I am no prude, this magazine crosses a line for what I’d consider reasonable in an Australian newsagency.

The Parliamentary Library publishers a helpful guide on resources available on firearms in Australia.

We have seen a sales lift for Gardening Australia with the latest issue.  Hopefully this is due to the revamp of the title and sales continue at this higher volume.  We have the title in three pockets of prime position in our gardening section – there is no room for co-location in our temporary smaller location.  The new look cover works particularly well in traditional newsagency fixturing.

The royal engaagement announced overnight should give us some good sales of weeklies and maybe even AWW from now through Christmas.  Diana sold a forest load of magazines.  Selfishly, this engagement has come at a good time for magazine retailers.

Local magazine distributor Wrapaway snuck this vintage truck title in under the radar. While I am happy to cater to the special interest group targeted by the title, I and other newsagents should have been consulted on volume. My other issue with Wrapaway stock is that it does not come through XchangeIT, meaning manual processing. Groan. There should not be a single item getting access to newsagencies outside of an electronic invoice process.

Our temporary layout benefits Zoo Weekly as it enables us to better promote special issues like this week’s $1.95 offer with an in-location poster placement.  The text based poster is less likely to offend customers and that’s a good thing with our mix of customers.  While I am not a fan of these regular price cuts – as I think they educate customers – I still support them with displays such as in the photo.

Every couple of years this happens, New Idea and Woman’s Day looking very similar.  The similarity is evident when responding to questions from older customers who cannot find one of the titles. I’m not that concerned, just surprised to see it happen.

While the coming together of Magazine Publishers’ of Australia and Publishers Australia is a good thing, the two bodies do not represent all publishers.  Indeed, many publishers which give newsagents their point of difference would not be at the new table.

Here is what I would like to see the two publisher groups focus attention on:

• A review of the retail channels from the perspective of the continued dilution of newsagents as the magazine specialists.
• Support for a retail campaign supporting magazines.  Currently, Magazine Week is an advertiser centric event whereas it should be consumer centric and run through newsagencies – as is done successfully in the UK.  Only newsagents can engage in a way which will drive consumer engagement.
• Provision of more useful data with which newsagents can make business decisions.
• A commitment to requiring magazine distributors to allow newsagents to make business decisions around magazines.
• Recognition and reward for newsagents and groups with a magazine strategy beyond the traditional for a newsagency.