Comic sales are falling in newsagencies. All but the high profile comic brand franchises are in trouble from what I can see. Our range (see photo) is a third of what it used to be. The range was cut over time because sales did not justify the stock investment. We are planning to feature comics at the counter to reinforce that we are in the space but, I am not confident about this. We are also considering moving the category in search of sales.

My sense is that the demographic most interested in comics is getting satisfaction from comic like material elsewhere: online, pay TV – both mediums have grown in coverage in Australia in the years over which comics have declined.

I have checked out a couple of specialty comic stores recently and they seem to be traveling okay so the hard core consumer seems to still be active – it is at the discretionary end where sales appear soft.

The launch of the new look Woman’s Day has gone well with sales up in the stores from which I have seen data. New Idea has had a good week too. The in-store promotional material for Woman’s Day, while good, did not tap into the new look enough to enable u to create compelling story around the change.

Also of interest this week is Woman’s Day and New Idea having a make up offer on the cover – it looked a bit me too. The offer was promoted on a small flyer attached to the cover – see the photo. The problem with these is that when placed back into the display unit after browsing – in any retail outlet – the flyer gets crunched and the next browser shows the apparently damaged magazine back and takes another which they crunch when they put it back in – you can see where I am going with this. Also, the offer, being on the lower left corner, is lost in traditional magazine racking.

This photo shows how we adjusted the display at the front of our newsagency today. We will leave it set this way until Monday when the cycle starts again. This week we broke with tradition decided on a broad offer rather than our usual single theme.

Of course, different demographics demand different approaches. In our centre we move to a more family focus over the weekend.

At Christchurch airport this morning:

While airport retail is a unique beast, I like how they broke a decent range up – made it look less like a sea of colour.

I have been on the road in Christchurch (NZ) today and found this shop.

All they sell is magazines.

Excuse the front window as they have only just relocated. I’d guess that they have around 1,000 titles. The shop occupies around 90 square metres. They focus outside the major weeklies. Niche categories get a good play as do adult titles – which surprised me.

Opposite this magazine specialist is a convenience store with all the major weeklies on display at their front door.

In the first ten on-sale days of the 2006/07 Australia’s Open Gardens on sale period we sold 1 copy. This year, over the same period, we have sold 10 copies. Last year we located the title in the gardening section. This year, we located it next to the Australian Women’s Weekly. I did this because even though sales of AWW are flat, it attracts many browsers. Also, my view is that both titles appeal to the same demographic. Sales suggest that is true for my newsagency.

While we are bend some rules with what we display next to AWW and our women’s weeklies such as New Idea and Woman’s Day, the resulting sales make the effort worthwhile.

We plan to leave Australia’s Open Gardens next to AWW for another week. Our goal is to sell out!

Here is the same stand I posted about on Monday with a freshened display to reflect today’s magazines. I am posting this to show how the fixture evolves over the week. Note, no poster up for That’s Life since none arrived.

We weighed three budnles of magazines from NDD at my newsagency this morning: 20, 22 and 27kg. I have had a conversation today with Worksafe Victoria and they pointed me to the Occupational Health and Safety Regulations 2007 and advised that we (newsagents) could reasonably request that bundles be 15kg or less.

My plan is to take this up with NDD and request smaller bundles. The Worksafe office advised that they would be happy to investigate this further if NDD does not act on the request.

UPDATE: (16/9) NDD has taken action with the driver involved to address this issue.

Eleven newsagents contacted me following my post here about sales of The Bulletin with Maxine McKew on the cover. All bar two said sales were much stronger, most selling out. Unscientific and not all that meaningful I guess – but interesting to record.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Zoo Weekly might be in trouble for offering cosmetic surgery (breast enhancement) as a prize in a competition.

Maybe this competition is a tipping point. I suspect that the folks at Emap knew what they were doing – especially that the prize would be controversial.

My feeling – based on no hard evidence – is that Zoo has plateaued. There are only so many people wanting to buy magazines featuring former big breasted reality TV contestants. The formula is, well, a formula and without significant change becomes stale.

So, the contest is a success because the SMH and others are writing about the title. I’ll see what happens sales wise.

Sorry about the headline for this post, the temptation was too great.

Scott, commenting on my post about Jeff Webster’s Fitting Out for Bay & Coastal Fishing magazine included a link showing a “Jeff” selling copies of the magazine on eBay. It’s a fair shot to try and find customers for what is a niche title.

It made me wonder, however, how the publisher could better engage with newsagents. Being a niche publisher does present difficulties.

One option would be to get together with related titles which consumers could be expected to purchase with your title. Either create a double pack (which newsagents and consumers don’t like that much) or invest some money into point of purchase packaging to enable two or three titles to be displayed in a high traffic area. This is what the big publishers do with regularity to find new readers. Most newsagents receiving a display pack put it out as requested – the first step to compliance is providing the materials necessary to achieve this.

I bet that putting Bay and Coastal Fishing into a display unit with, three or four related titles would generate a good sales kick. By providing this material, Jeff Webster and other smaller publishers would make it easier for newsagents to drive sales – plus there would be the benefit of a consistent in store display message.