A lot of retailers do a massive proportion of their overall yearly sales at Christmas. For some, it is the only month in which they make money. Christmas subsidises all the other months of hardship and toil.
Magazines are quite different from this perspective. Traditionally, magazines are not really thought of as a Christmas present. How can you buy for your girlfriend a copy of Vogue Australia in early December when the next one might come out in a few weeks time? Also, many people see magazines as pedestrian. Not the sort of thing that excites when unwrapped. Overall, magazines are seen as a selfish purchase and not the ideal gift.
While this may be true for newsagents, mag nation loves Christmas. We are a gift destination. It is not the mainstream titles that attract people, but those hard to find niche mags that almost replicate the giving of a book. And often at half the price.
Don’t get me wrong. Magazines for “self” also spike at Christmas, especially as people want to stock up for the beach, the plane, or wherever else they may be going, but gift purchases drive our volumes leading up to the holidays. If you have a designer friend, the specialised choices we offer are endless. If you are looking for that perfect something for a fashion fanatic, gaming fiend, petrol head, or tattoo enthusiast, we have just the thing. And these niche publications catering to all these special interests are often unusual, as well as works of art in themselves. Quite different to the stuff you will find in the mainstream locations.
In addition, subscriptions go nuts over Christmas. The idea of giving a loved one a gift that keeps on arriving over the course of a year is quite cool, and immensely popular.
Which is why Christmas is so important to us, compared to most mag retailers. They don’t stock the niche titles which drive gift destination traffic, nor do they offer online subscriptions via a dedicated subscription website.
Christmas reminds me of just how different we are from so many others in this industry. Perhaps this is why we are growing in the magazine category while the others are slowly retreating from it…
Christmas is huge time for magazines in my bookstore. A lot of people are looking for stocking stuffers, so we sell through a lot of titles that we don’t sell through the rest of the year. We’ve had to reorder Mike Holmes’ new mag twice already.
That’s a bookstore though. I could definetly see dedicated magazine stores not seeing huge jumps in sales. You have to go out of your way to walk into a magazone store, whereas if you’re already shopping in a bookstore or walmart, magazines are there as a convience.