Like most newsagents, we start the week with a full waterfall for all major weeklies.  As the week unfolds, we scale back and use the empty pockets to promote titles from other categories.  We carefully select and place titles.  Click on the image for a larger version of how our magazine space looked on Thursday this week.  See how we block titles and use logic in adjacencies – Real Living and Home Beautiful together for example.  We always double-pocket these co-located titles – to give them a chance of being noticed in this most shopped magazine real-estate.  We know our approach works because we track sales from these pockets.

Newsagents I talk with usually do not have a strategy for filling space as the week unfolds.  I have found that a consistent process for this works well, others in the business can follow the process.  Putting thought into the titles you co-locate is more likely to drive the sales outcome you want than letting anyone put any titles into the spare pockets.

Magazines are vitally important to us because the range in an average newsagency is our only product-based point of difference.  If we embrace this by working the category  we make our business a destination. While print has challenges, these are more long term.  Aggressively managing magazines today provides a valuable point of differeence for newsagents over other magazine retailers.

In the Night Garden is a welcome new launch from ACP Magazines this year.  While not high in volume, it appears to be gaining traction.  we are having more customers ask for the title.  This tells me that the TV show and other coverage for the brand is paying off.  Given the customer requests, we now place this title prominently in our children’s section.  We are going to request a doubling of our supply on the back of customer interest and recent sales.

Children’s magazines are somewhat forgotten in the magazine department.  Rightfully so given the approach of some titles.  The magazines are junk as are the gifts with every issue.  Quality titles do well but there are not enough of these around which to create a strong presence.  I hope that In the Night Garden continues to focus on quality and attract new readers.

I was skeptical when I saw the Men’s Health DVD / Magazine special on Monday morning this week.  I thought the $16.95 price was too high for a newsagency and the packaging challenging for it to work in our fixturing.  While I know that Men’s Health works for us, this product is different to the regular magazine. That said, we have it on display next to Men’s Health – where it should be.

We received four copies and sold our first on Wednesday, three days in.  My skepticism is fading.

Given the special interest customers we attract, we should realise that price is not so much an issue.  Content is valuable to the right shopper.

Our sales for the current issue of Donna Hay magazine are more than double what we have historically achieved by this point in the on-sale period.

We will sell out with time to spare.  Overall sales will be up on recent issues.

I put our success of this issue of Donna Hay down to an excellent free gift, the tea towel is high quality, and our own aggressive merchandising approach.

We have Donna Hay magazine with our food titles and with the column of food magazines in the middle of our women’s weeklies titles – surrounded by weeklies on either side.

While we had it at the counter for the first three days of the on-sale, this did not work for us.  Our success has come from the placement with the weeklies.  I watched a customer yesterday early in the morning.  The picked up Take 5 and That’s Life and browsed but did not purchase Donna Hay.  While we did not get the Donna Hay sale this time, they browsed it when the would most likely have missed it had it not been in this second location.

Our success with Donna Hay and food titles in general is due to this column we made space for in with our weeklies.  It costs nothing to try.

Experimenting like this is important for newsagents.  it separates us from the cookie-cutter approach of supermarkets, convenience stores and petrol outlets.  It is only by experimentation in our newsagencies that we find what works for us to drive significant sales growth.  This is usually achieved by placement outside of what publishers request for their title.

Smart publishers will tap into this opportunity and work more close with newsagents.

We are promoting the new issue of Girlfriend magazine, out today, at the front of our newsagency.  The Twilight features in the magazine make this issue appealing to a broader than usual demographic – hence promotion out the front of the shop rather than our usual location.

There appears to be no slowing of the appeal of Twilight based on interest in the calendar and Twilight covers on other magazines.

Newsagents often complain about subcription offers in magazines, saying they undermine retail sales. I see subscriptions as a necessary part of the magazine supply model – as long the offer is not agressively pitched against newsagents.

Over the weekend I compared subscription offers for several Australian titles with US titles.  While our average subscriber discount is between 25% and 28%, in the US publications I looked at it ranges between 35% and 45%.

The one local exception of which I am aware is The Week – their subs discount is 60% off cover price.  I’d be concerned if larger Australian publishers discounted at this level.

While I am on subscriptions – I’d like publishers to offer a hybrid subscription which newsagents could sell – based on an upfront commitmenet for an in-store collection.  Using our putaway services we get to benefit from locked-in traffic and sell an overall higher priced item.

Photography and camera magazines are performing better for us this year than I expected they would.  Our small range ticks over quite well.  It is also a very popular browser destination.

While there is some junk in the mix – not in the photo because I culled before I took this – overall performance is strong.  Our experience is that photography is one subject area where shoppers are more likely to purchase two titles at a time.

As the photo shows, we use mastheads to draw attention to the segment.  We also usually place digital photography titles next to digital camera titles.  This is a key factor in driving a better basket.

Memo to distributors reading this: don’t take this blog post as an invitation to supply more photography and camera titles.