Most magazine publishers prefer their titles to be displayed on the flat stack- the flat shelf at the base of the magazine display.  It is the only place, in traditional magazine fixturing, where the whole front cover is on display. Publishers prefer this because they think this is where customers look.  Newsagents regularly receive bulletins from publishers and magazine distributors asking for this location.

Some publishers even go as far as asking merchandisers to move their magazines to the flat when in-store.  This creates tension in some retail situations – it is the retailer’s shop after-all.  (Merchandisers should not move stock without permission from the newsagent.)

My observations are that the majority of customers navigate to an area of a shop by what they see at or close to eye-level.  Once they are in the area they want, around 70% browse by what is in the fixture and 30% browse by the flat stack.

While this will vary from newsagency to newsagency, I think it is a mistake for p[ublishers to primarily focus on the flat stack when guiding newsagents as to product placement.

We are enjoying success with food magazines so we decided to leverage this with a display at the front of our newsagency, where people entry to purchase lottery tickets.  We have have included a selection of titles from the Better Basics (which is almost sold out) to the monthlies and a selection of ACP Cookbook titles.

We will leave this display up for the weekend and assess its value to us on Monday.  We like to change this display at the front of the newsagency regularly as it is a window on the business.  We choose the categories to promote based on sales movement we see.

The VTAC Guide went on sale in our newsagency this morning – an in newsagencies across Victoria.  We have a display next to our main newspaper stand – it will remain here for a couple of weeks.  We are opportunistically chasing impulse business in addition to destination business for this title – hence the prime location placement.

The cover of the VTAC Guide has excellent visual cut through, better than recent years.  This is another reason for prime-location placement. We are expecting good sales.

I like the front cover of the latest issue of Burke’s Backyard as it separates the title from other gardening titles.  So our customers can see the sexy chook cover girls we are pitching Burke’s Backyard at our newspaper stand and on the flat next to Better Homes and Gardens.  These cuties are lost in regular magazine fixturing.  Kudos to the folks at Burke’s for playing with the gardening magazine look like this.