On Friday last week we created this display of a small selection of Lovatts and Puzzler crossword titles in front of our photocopier and next to our main newspaper stand to drive impulse sales.

We have added close to $100.00 in sales in four days – from this stand.

While we cycle other categories through this display, the performance of crosswords is particularly strong. I think this is because the category lends itself to impulse purchase with our core demographic – older, heading to retirement.

We selected Lovatts and Puzzler since they are brands crossword consumers know the most. Our experience with impulse displays is that you have to make it easy for the consumer. Brands are key to this.

We will leave this display run for two weeks before replacing it with another category.

We are trying something new with the magazine display at the front of our shop by including a column of health magazines between Australian Women’s Weekly and New Idea.

We already do this in our main magazine display with great success – see my earlier post about how this approach has helped us find amazing sales for a gardening magazine.

Note – the photo shows the magazines on a movable stand which we push to our lease line in front of our main lottery counter.

We will create a column like this every couple of weeks – to demonstrate the depth of our range for people who buy on impulse from the front of the newsasgency. Our health theme this week will become, maybe, family history, next time.

It’s important that newsagents use the high selling titles to drive impulse purchases of less popular titles. The key is to tell a story – such as the column of health titles. If we had a mixture of categories covered the column would not work.

As with everything we do like this, we will measure the results and change the approach if there is no traction within a few days.

Here is an example of where online beats print hands down. Cycle Sport which arrived in-store three days ago boasts on its cover an up to the minute form guide for the Tour de France. Hmm, the Tour ended a few weeks ago. The cover is out of date. While regular purchasers will not be worried about the out of date cover, first timers and intermittent purchasers are less likely to give the title a second look.

I guess selfishly, the cover makes my shop look out of date.

In a bid to drive subscribers from print to digital / online, the publisher of supply chain magazine, Managing Automation, has pledged to donate US$1,000 to the American Forests Organization for every 1,000 digital subscribers. They say that $1,000 will plant between 75 to 100 trees. This is a compelling pitch to lure people from print.

Mag Forum is a great resource for anyone wanting to find out more about the magazine market in the UK. Given the influence of UK titles on the Australian marketplace – OK!, Zoo to name two recent titles, the reported arrival soon of a local edition of Nuts and the many imports: Heat, Chat, Pick Me Up and Look, researching the UK market can provide some interesting pointers to local trends.

Since newsagents are magazine specialists – by virtue of the considerable range we carry in each of our 4,000+ locations – we owe it to ourselves to be across overseas trends.

On the one hand today I have posted links here about bad news regarding magazines and their closure. Then this post with links to reports of categories with growth.

To me, it’s about engagement. The more newsagents engage with the category and become demanding of their distributors the more successful they will become in the category.

Magazine Death Pool is a blog about magazines which have closed or are predicted to be close to closing. The blog is an interesting chronicle and appears to stick to the facts rather than talking down magazines.

While some reading here would ask why provide a link to the blog? – I’d say, yeah, ignorance is bliss.

ACP Magazines has a fantastic prize on offer if you subscribe to any of six magazines in the lead up to Father’s Day at magshop. The choice of titles – Wheels, Money, The Bulletin, Wine, PC User and Inside Cricket – is excellent.

Research must indicate to ACP that this promotion will help boost sales, otherwise they would not invest in the promotion through online and print activity.

I wish I could offer the prize for the same commitment in my shop. With putaways so well managed from a technology perspective including the ability to handle a one year commitment and provide ACP transparency of this, the prize would be sure to boost my sales – plus regular putaway collection visit – and boost sales of ACP titles. The technology can even provide ACP with details of when the customer collected the putaway if the newsagent and ACP want to share such data.

Practical promotions such as this for Father’s Day would work in a newsagency. Newsagents would embrace it since it extends the Father’s Day offer beyond the traditional cards and candy offer – this is why we created our own Father’s Day pitch earlier this week.

Putaways are unique to newsagencies and loved by most of our customers. I’d like ACP to work with us to leverage putaways to their advantage. While newsagents can create their own offer, having a $64,000 car as a prize would help.

Working with newsagents on these promotions and not just online through magshop would certainly boost sales of ACP Magazines and deliver a great win win.

I received a message to call a mobile phone number earlier this week. No name, just a number. I returned the call and had a good a lively discussion with someone who started by asking why I am so critical of independent publishers.

It turns out that the caller was Ruth Cunningham, Publisher of Fisherman and Boatowner, the title I have blogged about here and here.

We had a good, robust discussion. I learnt more about their challenges and Ruth learnt more about ours. I appreciated the discussion. We each corrected misconceptions held by the other – that’s my take away at least. Ruth thought I hd told newsagents to take the title off the shelves – I did not.

I was not aware that small independent publishers are doing it tough as they are. They are as cash starved by some aspects of the magazine supply as newsagents. While newsagents pay for magazines on 30 day terms, publishers can wait up to 90 days from supply before being paid.

Newsagents cannot fix the cash-flow challenge for independent publishers. What we can do is know about independent Australian titles and more actively promote them. This is something marketing groups could do for members – newsXpress has done this several times already. Magazine distributors could also package promotions around related independent titles – to help newsagents better promote these titles in-store.

For their part, independent publishers could consider talking up newsagents in their publications. For example, guiding readers to visit their newsagent and ask for a putaway – to ensure supply would demonstrate practical support. The melbourne Observer newspaper does this with considerable success.

By finding ways to provide mutual support, small business newsagents and small business independent publishers could leverage each other for a brighter future. The key is that terms are commercial – both sides need to make a buck and neither should be a charity.

Maybe it is time for a public forum between newsagents and independent publishers – the common objectives and challenges of the two groups would make for some valuable dialogue.

I am grateful to Ruth for the conversation earlier this week. I hope we do it again.

The ACP Magazines Connections conference in Sydney today was a good event – the half day I was there fore at least. Ben (Manager newsXpress Forest Hill) and I left early to work on a forthcoming store opening. The morning session was good because we heard more about the changed filtering through Network Services – this is a business working hard to reinvent itself from the inside out. We also heard about the commitment of ACP Magazines to newsagencies. The data presented showed the strength of Connections newsagents compared to non Connections newsagents. The graph reminded me of the strong getting stronger and the weak … While there are strong newsagents not in Connections, judging by the numbers more prefer the discipline of the Connections offer.

What I like about Connections is that if we do nothing else but follow their weekly promotion calendar then we will grow our newsagency. The commitment from ACP helps pull focus newsagents might otherwise spend on other publishers.

The best sight of the day – the t-shirt worn by Jeanine Chatfield from First Inland City News, I love mags – great message plain and simple!

This is another magazine which arrived yesterday which concerns me. Tokion is a good title, I like it. Sales are up and down. Since we received only one copy it is hard to see if we can sell more. However, given some issued don;t sell, I am loath to ask for another copy or two. This is the conundrum of the magazine supply model. I’d like ti drive sales but then wonder about the cost to the business of carrying more copied of fringe titles like this one.

I know it sounds like I am having a bet each way on Tokion. Maybe I am. Fringe magazines, those where we receive one copy an issue, are a huge challenge for newsagents. I like the point of difference they offer yet I am not prepared to invest more cash – this is something distributors and publishers should do to grow their sales.