Coming into the mag nation office every day, it’s easy for us to be complacent about the fact that we’re the world’s only magazine superstore. Seeing customers stream through our doors looking for the latest issue of their favourite mags, we take it for granted that people seek us out for the best in hard-to-find and niche printed media publications.
But in reality, hardly anyone knows that we exist.
When I started working here just under a year ago, when I met new people and we’d invetiably get to that small-talk staple of how we fill our days between 9am and 5pm, I’d say simply, “I work at mag nation.”
Given that our flagship store has been on the corner of Elizabeth and Collins Street in Melbourne for the last five years and having certainly been my go-to for mags and books for pretty much that whole time, I was dumfounded to see just how many blank looks I’d get in return.
The fact is, we’re a drop in the ocean, even among people who really should know who we are.
This was highlighted to us recently when we partnered up with Daydream Lily to give away a subscription to Lula and hoards of the 500+ commenters basically said, “I love Lula but I have no idea where to get it.” Well, um… us?
Lula is one of the magazine titles that sort of typifies what mag nation does. It is a niche, creative fashion title with cult appeal to an urban savvy and creative community.
If any group of consumers should know all about us, it should be Lula lovers (we sell around 80% of the current number of airfreight copies of Lula that come into Australia!!!). Yet despite the massive in-roads we have made with our brand, we still have lots of work to do. On the other side of the coin, perhaps the way to look at it is that we still have heaps of growth potential.
Most of the customers who interact with us online think we are a large brand. Thankfully, the occasional reality check such as what we saw from the Daydream Lily post remind us of something called “selective user bias”.
And now, when people ask me where I work?
Let’s just say I have to get all evangelical about it.
