This display unit for Australian Geographic Little Kids and Australian Geographic Explorers seems like a waste to me. I don’t know of many newsagencies which would have the space necessary in either their children’s section or their science section. The children’s section is especially challenged already with unusually shaped packages taking any available flat space. The unit itself looks half made with one of the titles not even properly fitting the unit.

Despite the complaints noted above, we have put this unit our, in our since section, for the next week or two to see how it goes.

Publishers need to think carefully about how they want display units used and the space available in newsagencies for what they have planned. Too much money is wasted sending fixtures which may be put out for a photo and the trashed.

We try and use everything sent and even then if we do not use it for the long term we store it and often bring it out for a second and third go.

We are promoting the Australian Women’s Weekly at the front of the newsagency with a bold display. The Obama cover is sure to draw plenty of attention. The issue itself looks excellent. That said, I would have gone with just that and not the free cookbook as I think they are overdone as free gifts – but more on that another time.

To make the most this on-sale week for AWW we also have it in a full waterfall in its usual position and in a pocket with our newspapers. We know that is our newsagency AWW is a good impulse purchase product. We will know by the weekend if this space allocation is working for us.

We are promoting Girlfriend magazine at the counter (from yesterday) thanks to the skincare treatment pack included with this issue. I expect this to sell well to parents. This is why we have it at the counter. We also have a good display in the usual place for Girlfriend with teen magazines. We expect to run this co-location at the counter until Monday.

There is no connection between Prevention magazine and horse racing titles. It just so happens that our horse racing titles face our greeting card department.

Realising the importance of promoting impulse opportunities as shoppers move through the store and knowing the demographic of our card shoppers, we have placed Prevention magazine facing the card department. This is the only magazine offer between the card department and the counter.

Too often, I think we look at display opportunities from the one direction. Once you analyse traffic in a newsagency you can see many display opportunities, in multiple directions – like this place next to our racing titles.

Next time, we will be more careful in selecting a newspaper stand – to make sure that it provides display flexibility regardless of how it is positioned.

We are promoting New Idea next to our main newspaper display today since the cover story on Trishna and Krishna the formerly conjoined twins will be popular with our customers. The twins have dominated news stories and talkback radio since their separation four months ago. We also have the magazine available from our two busiest counters as well as its usual location with weekly magazines. We will pull this back on Wednesday morning to just two locations for the title.