We experienced a greater pre-Christmas magazine sales spike in the four days before Christmas this year than in previous years.  Magazines for men were particularly popular as gifts as were special interest titles.

Compared to a regular week, the pre-Christmas lift we see in the week prior is traditionaly around 50% – more this year.

We facilitated growth in the pre-Christmas magazine sales with a merchandising strategy which included well thought out displays as well as co-location of titles which we thought would work well as Christmas gifts.

Amazon is running their usual and amazing last-minute magazine sale offering year-long subscriptions for a fraction of the already discounted subscription price. For example: Good Housekeeping – 66 cents a copy; Southern Living – 38 cents a copy; and, Bazaar- 67 cents a copy.

We are promoting the latest issue of Australian Women’s Weekly in the front of the newsagency.  In the first day of sale, yesterday, we achieved a double digit lift on last year. We will leave this display up until early next week.  It is good to have collateral with which to promote a title so close to Christmas.  Most other publishers seem to think that we don’t need material with which to promote their titles this time of the year.

The Scrapbook Series: BSA demonstrates the importance of special interest titles to our businesses.  We have achieved a 66% sell-through in three weeks.  For a $20 title this is good.  I knew it would sell well based on sales of classic motorcycle titles.  The challenge is getting the right special interest titles which fit with successful categories.  the scale out algorithms used by magazine distributors don’t always work.  I am sure there are titles in their mix which I could sell and which their systems don’t flag for us.  There needs to be a way I can easily select new titles without running the risk of  opening the floodgates for titles which will not sell.

This is a problem with the push magazine distribution system.  Those of us newsagents who want to be magazine specialists cannot create the businesses we want.

Last month’s Mindfood magazine had Michelle Obama on the cover.  We were sent four times usual supply.  The latest issue came out yesterday and supply has been adjusted back.  Sales of the Michelle Obama issue were double usual sales.  Michelle does have pull when it comes to selling magazines.

The plastic car which came bagged with the latest issue of mania magazine was trashed yesterday.  Indeed, the cars in every issue we received were trashed.  Rather than give the kids a broken car, we removed it.  The alternative was to early return the whole issue.  Publishers and distributors need to take more care when packaging cheap plastic trinkets.