Magazine Display of the Week: Success=Harry Potter

Here is another display that I simply could not resist snapping a picture of. Yes, Harry Potter is an amazing success for the book, magazine and movie industry. Now that we're at the end of the story, what's in store for all of the players?

On the heels of last week's successful PBAA/MPA retail convention, a slew of great follow up articles appeared on the IPDA web site recapping the presentations. It looks like I missed some excellent workshops - but I don't regret the time spent with the extended family one bit.

From the department of "No Kidding: We Kind of Suspected This Already and We Can't Wait to See the Final Report" came this presentation sponsored by: IPDA, Time/Warner Retail Sales and Marketing, The News Group, Source Interlink, Hudson News, Mag Net and sales and marketing experts, Dechert-Hampe.

The study pointed out some of the best practices for retailers when it came to maximizing sales at the mainline. This included:

-Positioning mainlines near the front of the store, but not beyond point of purchase (which happens more often that we'd like).

-Locating mainlines in aisles 10-17, when mainlines are in aises.

-Optimal mainline length is 18 and 24 feet in the largest stores.

-Three tiers in mainlines.

-Position mainlines near complimentary product categories.

None of this is surprising or new to those of us who work in the industry. But I truly appreciate the fact that these industry leaders put together a study that formalizes theses facts. This can only help build up a knowledge base that we can use when working with our retail partners.

All too often we see mainlines tossed into some dark corner of a store, chopped up, moved off to the back of the store, or worse, placed past the point of purchase and treated like bags of rock salt or flats of seasonal plantings. To make generating sales more difficult, they are often plan-o-grammed with one size fits all magazine placings, indifferently merchandised or used as a dumping ground for unsaleable magazines, or for check out magazines.

My hope for this study, and the ones that follow, is that our industry will use this knowledge to aid in the selling of better space allocations. That was the promise when the industry consolidated in the mid 1990's. Almost twenty years later, we still await delivery.