January/February10Karen
Another surprise hit is Good To Know Recipes – this new launch is by the same publishers as top selling titles Look, Now, Woman and Woman’s Own, and is already selling really well. This new title is all about
providing quick, cheap, easy and nutritious recipes and is an offshoot of the really popular website www. goodtoknow.co.uk. Although issue one is still on the shelves and selling really well, many retailers have returned this title on the same day as it arrived. Why is that?
New Product Launches
Gogo’s Crazy Bones Mega Metropolis GOGO’S Crazy Bones Mega Metropolis has proved to be an extremely popular partwork since launching at the end of 2009. As a weekly title with a strong cover price, €5.99, this launch has very strong RSV potential, which is great news for independent retailers. The partwork collection is an extension of the massively popular Gogo’s brand! The Gogo’s made their first appearance in 2008, available as a collectable, which sold in vast numbers and won the 2009 ACE Award for Launch of the Year. Each issue of Gogo’s Crazy Bones Mega Metropolis contains a head-swapping Mega Gogo with a mystery Mini Gogo inside, as well as a cool Pod in one of six colours. The accompanying 20-page magazine is packed with an exciting mix of cool games, comic strips, Gogo’s battles, puzzles and trivia. The ‘Gogo’s Files’ feature tells readers all about the character highlighted in the issue and each new Gogo gets its very own exclusive comic strip. ‘Game Zone’ explains how to use the Mega Gogo and Pod to play great new games and there’s a Mega Gogo battle poster every week.
New products are seen as the lifeblood of any category in any retail outlet. New bars and soft drinks are heavily advertised on TV and have teams of merchandisers making sure that their new product gets pole position at the cooler or sweet counter. So why then are new product launch opportunities lost in the Newsagency? New titles are by and large seen as being a pain and are often met with a lacklustre response from retailers and a groan from those who pack them out, ‘Where will I put them?’ New magazine titles are good for customers, good for the category and good for sales – they just need to be managed well. What has happened all too frequently in Irish retail outlets is that brand new magazine launches have been topped and returned by
Meenan’s News Rack
staff members who don’t recognise the new title, without even giving this brand new product a chance to sell on the magazine stand. To find space on the magazine stand, the trick is to cull old or stale titles to make room for brand new launches. Next time your staff member says that you have no room – just check your ‘credits processed’ invoice and count how much money you lost because titles were returned too late! If your shop is typical of most newsagency outlets – then you will have been busy keeping good shelf space for titles that have missed the recall note and are now taking up space, losing you money in lost credit and losing you the sales of these brand new launches at the same time! Do you still have any calendars, diaries, yearbooks or annuals on your stand? Partworks (collectibles) and stickers are also products which are perceived as being not worth the trouble. If these are handled well, then there is money to be made – if you don’t manage them, then of course you will lose money – but doesn’t this hold true for the entire business of retailing? Money making in a retail outlet
How to Manage Partworks/Collectibles in Three Easy Steps 1. Take a decision to be a week ahead of your customer when they ask you to keep this item every week for them. When they buy issue 1, which is usually heavily discounted, ask them to pay for issue 2 at the same time, which is often at the normal selling price. This ensures that even when they stop collecting (and they usually will!), you are not going to lose any money and you are also not going to lose your customer. 2. Take a decision to only stock partworks 1-5 and after that, encourage your customer to buy direct with a credit card direct from the publisher each week after that. No risk to you and you still keep your customer. 3. Take a decision to stock all partworks 1-5 and when the title goes on firm sale, ask your customer to pay for two issues (part 6 and 7) at the same time so you never lose money. Take their mobile number and text them each time the partworks arrive in your store, so you can alert them. Good customer service it most certainly is, and it ensures that you keep your customer buying: when they stop buying, cancel. The Newsagency is a tricky category to manage, and can be very frustrating at times – we all accept that. But don’t lose the opportunity to make more sales just because you have found this category hard to manage in the past. If you need help to grow sales and reduce losses you can contact Karen Meenan at The Daily Profit – www.dailyprofit.ie or ring 086 6027711 or email kmeenan@eircom.net.
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