The Monthly is producing excellent, retail friendly, covers this year – they demand to be given the full face treatment and not left to languish in traditional newsagency magazine fixturing.

This month’s issue with Maxine McKew on the cover is a good example of how well they are reading trends. Maybe it is just our demographic – The Monthly is showing strong sales growth in me newsagency even if it is off a low base.

The price increase for OK! Australia does not appear to have hurt sales if the small sample I have seen reflects all retailers.

Elevator magazine launches next week. It is good to see the publishers offering newsagents bonus commission for the launch issue. They have asked newsagents to place the title at the front of the store. I think this request is too vague. I would be more specific and request that Elevator be placed between Australian Women”s Weekly and Woman’s Day in the main women’s magazine display. I’d also ask that it be featured on on an aisle end – especially with the team behind Kath and Kim on the cover. Finally, I’d make sure all team members are aware of the magazine and its content so they can make comment as appropriate.

Someone asked me yesterday if there is a market for Elevator – a magazine for baby boomer women and men. While I am no expert, the answer has to be – for the right title, yes. Time will tell how Elevator travels. I think it’s two month on sale will work against it as will the dual gender focus but I’m not a publisher and don’t have access to the research they would have supporting their launch strategy. What the market does not need is another Life – the ABC title.

Natasha Hughes took a shot at fashion and beauty magazines in her blog post: Bag the mag? at the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday. The post appears to be more of a lure for comments than any substantial comment. The conspiracy theorist in me asks if it has been timed to coincide with the ACP 30 days of fashion pitch. That aside, of particular interest is some of the comments posted. This comment sums it up:

If you think one monthy mag costs you about $10 – well thats $120 a year (thats if u buy just one a month!). I know i would rather spend that $120 on a massage, or a night out etc . so many better options out there. Go to your local library and read them for free if you really must.

Ouch.

Some magazines are a challenge to display properly when they some with giveaways. This month’s Bazaar does not fit traditional fixturing well and no alternative has been provided for a front of store display. The gift is valuable yet we cannot do it justice. Some days you have to leave things in a less than ideal state – this is one of them.

We have redressed our Father’s Day magazine display with this display of magazines with a Spring theme. Usually we would be bigger and bolder with a Spring theme but space issues right now preclude this.

This Spring display has been up 48 hours and we have sold product off the display. Our plan is to switch titles around Thursday to give other titles coverage.

We will leave this display run a week as there are two new title launches next week for which we need front of store space.

A newsagent called me Monday to suggest that these front of store display defeat the purpose of the full range of magazines and that we are stopping customers browsing. They may be right. The sales data from my shop suggests that more customers buy from the front of the shop than anywhere else. Observation shows many do not browse magazines. These front of store strategies are designed to lift the efficiency of lottery and newspaper sales – the two categories where more than 60% of sales are those products and nothing else. By focusing on the front of the store we have improved efficiency considerably.

Since this display is not promoting a single publisher’s titles it will not be recognised by them as valuable. I’d argue that newsagents need to do more of these whole of category displays rather than single publisher or single title displays.

As I blogged here on August 16, we are taking a different approach to some long shelf life titles such as Australian Open Gardens. We have now sold 18 copies when we would usually have sold 4 by now.

Most newsagents, on seeing a long shelf life title, will typically take a set and forget approach. We are now taking a different approach for some of these long shelf life titles and chasing sales in the first few weeks. With Open Gardens, the VTAC Guide and a couple of others it has worked. Finding the appropriate high traffic area space to drive sales is a challenge.

A month after a significant makeover of the business magazine segment (including property and news titles) and sales are up. Most major titles are showing growth. Some smaller titles are showing growth but less so. What we are seeing is greater efficiency – more two and three title sales – this was a key goal of the makeover.

For too long in our newsagency business, property and news magazines were the forgotten cousin. We spent all our time elsewhere because sales in the business segment were tiny by comparison. Spending time relaying and attending to the display every few days is proving to be worthwhile.