If you’ve visited any of our Australian stores in the last few months, you will have noticed that we increasingly have more shelf space dedicated to things that aren’t actually magazines at all.

We haven’t reduced our range of titles—to the contrary, we’ve continued to actively expand it—and we’re not dedicating any less floor space to magazines. Rather, we’re shuffling things around and installing extra shelves (thank you IKEA) devoted to displaying graphic design books, Moleskines, steak knives KeepCups and other cool bits and pieces that we think you might like.

But why, you might ask, is the world’s only magazine superstore going to such an effort to sell things that aren’t magazines?

The long and short of it is that selling mags alone is not an easy way to make a buck!

Like book stores, magazine retailers are very quickly diminishing. In today’s world, basing a business entirely on print media is, risky, to put it mildly. That said, magazines are difficult to sell at the best of times. Not only do they have a very limited shelf life, but they also require an extraordinary amount of handling and processing.

Newsagents are keenly aware of that fact and it is for this reason that many newsagents look more like greeting card shops or lotto outlets these days than the printed media specialists of yesteryear. Becoming your local newsagent is our absolute worst nightmare. Our entire business model is founded upon being the antithesis of their “This is not a library” signs, bald spots and impatient stares… not to mention complete lack of comfortable seating, free wi-fi and fresh espresso^*!

But we love magazines. Always have, Always will (please, indulge us, and imagine that last line spoken like a craggy Clint Eastwood with a squint in his eye, cigarette in mouth and gun in hand). We’re absolutely determined to continue offering you the biggest and best range of magazines in the world. It’s a difficult proposition, but we know it can be done.

So now, when you wonder why all the model train, witchcraft and ‘alternative living’ magazines have been moved upstairs and replaced with notebooks and patterned sticky tape, well, you know why.

_{* Sydney readers, we’re still working on getting a coffee machine into our Newtown store. It’s more complicated than it seems but we’re working on it, so hang tight!}

This is the last blog entry I will write as the MD of mag nation. Monday morning, I sent out the following email to my entire contact database:

Other than my 3 children, mag nation has been the most amazing thing I have ever been involved with. As those of you who read my first ever blog entry will know, I have put my heart, soul and every ounce of my being into mag nation. I will miss it immensely and feel that I am leaving behind a part of me. The character, tone and values of the brand have been an extension of myself.

Ultimately however, what has made mag nation has been all the customers and supporters who choose to interact with us as opposed to the other options presented to them. To every single person who has ever walked through our doors, bought from us online, tweeted us or simply mentioned us to a friend (including the infamous Angry City of Melbourne Taxpayer), I am indebted to you.

Thanks to all of you for what has been the most amazing journey. One that for me personally is only beginning (I am still just 36 years old), but that is about to enter a new chapter.

Sahil

Meet Ravi. He is one of the two founders of mag nation. Much less in the public eye than I am (Sahil), he is every bit a driving force of mag nation as is the guy writing this blog. He also happens to be one of the smartest blokes around.

Ravi is a medical doctor. Moreover, he is a Pathologist. So, when he’s not busy building a retail empire, he diagnoses rare diseases in his spare time, which is a useful skill to have in this industry. Okay, not really.

When he migrated to New Zealand from India, the New Zealand government wouldn’t recognise his qualifications. (Which is pretty crazy stuff when you consider that could have taught many of the local doctors a thing or two about Pathology, having dealt with all sorts of weird diseases during his time on the sub-continent. But, I digress…)

Because he wanted a different life for his family, Ravi left India and gave up years of study and a thriving private practise in the process. Unable to practise medicine in New Zealand and with no non-medical business experience behind him, he bought a small convenience store called Mega Mags in Queen St in Auckland. From there, the mag nation concept was born.

This bloke is a rocket scientist. Genius mind. He is also my uncle. And he is incredibly precious to me. My second child’s middle name is in honour of the guy.

When we began to plan what would later become mag nation, he did everything he could to talk me out of it. He told me that I had a real future in the corporate world, family responsibilities, and that I shouldn’t risk everything on a dream. Only when I proved my stubbornness did he relent and welcome me to his world of being broke.

At 55 years old, Ravi is no spring chicken. In fact, a publisher we often deal with referred to him recently as ‘the Yoda of Magazines’. He is known globally (he has spoken twice at Colophon) and there are few people with more knowledge of magazine retail supply than he has. Yet, he is also remarkably young in his outlook.

For a brand that takes such a different and at times irreverent approach, people are often surprised to find out that neither of the founders are in their 20s.

Virtually all the mags that you see in mag nation are there because Ravi decided that they should be and could be. He is the sort of bloke who can memorise spreadsheets worth of data and regurgitate pricing and margins at a moments notice. He is also the guy who when discussing creating subscription terminals in-store and how to avoid theft of equipment, suggested that we glue the mouse to the table. It took him 30 seconds to realize why the rest of us where wetting our pants. We all have our slips.

More than all else, he is a good bloke. If you are going to bet your entire future on a business, might as well be with someone you trust. There is no blame, recrimination or singular credit amongst the two of us. Though all of this is totally irrelevant to the average customer walking into our stores, I genuinely hope you feel something intangible but special when walking into a mag nation store.

If you do, then you are feeling the presence of the Yoda of Magazines.

(‘Ravi Yoda’ illustration by the inimitable Tyson Savanah from our Elizabeth Street store.)

I need your help. As you would expect from the mag nation chief magazineologist, I keep an eye out on what other magazine subscription sites are doing. Christmas is the key time for mag subscriptions, and every subscription provider dials up the rhetoric on offers and freebies.

We too are offering free stuff if you subscribe to magazines through our website. We do it because we think customers like it.

However, where we are different is in terms of size and independence. We are not affiliated with any publisher. Nor are we a massive corporate who can afford TV advertising. This is where I need to ask your opinion…

The other guys are offering a chance to win a car, a fantastic exotic holiday, a trip to the moon etc… But only one or two people win this. Most of the mag nation staff don’t even own a car, so we definitely ain’t giving one away. Therefore, we are offering what we can… 1 in every 100 subscriptions purchased from us is for free. This means that lots of people will win something small, as opposed to 1 person winning something big. We have already contacted a bunch of people and delighted them by telling them that their subscription purchase has been fully refunded to their credit card.

Does this work better for you? Or do you prefer the tattslotto type odds and pay off? Or maybe you don’t give a shit and the freebies are just a distraction? What do you think we should be doing from a marketing perspective to entice you to consider us over and above the others? Please keep in mind that we have very limited budgets!

Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated. While it is too late for us to change anything this year, perhaps we need to start saving up for next year to offer you a fantastic camping trip in my mum’s back yard…

Tomorrow morning I am speaking at the Melbourne Spring Fashion Week Breakfast Series. I have no idea if tickets are still on sale or not, but you can check out the program and enquire here if you are interested.

I was somewhat surprised by the invite. Despite the persona underlying mag nation, I am probably one of the least qualified blokes to speak at a fashion event that you could ever imagine. My super stylish Spanish wife can’t stop laughing at the thought.

Luckily, I have been spared from embarrassment thanks to the topic up for discussion. Here is what is says on the MSFW website:

An exceptional line up of speakers will share their experience and knowledge on what it takes to create and maintain customer relationships throughout the retail lifecycle – from the temptation and seduction of courting new shoppers, through love and marriage, and how to ward off separation.

Learn more about the most evolved, savvy, feature-rich retail brands and online entrepreneurs and how they connect to their consumers’ desires at every touch point to seize their brand’s potential and build relationships that last.

We feel honoured to be thought of in this light. However, they have definitely put us in the wrong category. There are four breakfasts; the first on Temptation and Seduction was today, while tomorrow is Love. We have some really nice relationships with our customers and I would be happy to admit that with some of these people, there is genuine love which has gone beyond the courting stage. However, the vast majority of folks have never even heard of us. Ask outside the fashion and urban savvy crowd, and people will think that mag nation sells mag wheels (we still get calls about this).

We think it is a little premature to place us in the Love category (hopefully one day we will justify this tag). That said, I will do my best to talk about how we try to engage our customers. The problem with this is how do you talk for 15 mins on the following points:

•    We talk to you

•    We listen to you

•    We respond to you

•    We enjoy ourselves and let you be a part of it

•    We are honest and open

The first 3 points are customer service 101. There is absolutely nothing new in any of that. Perhaps the greatest impact has been the last point. We constantly get told that we are really open and that people like this as it gives them insight into the personality of who mag nation is. We received massive amounts of feedback both online and offline from our first blog post, and perhaps this is the sort of thing we do a little differently from other brands.

In any case, I better now work out what I am going to say tomorrow. I think it will be a pretty discerning crowd, and 5 bullet points ain’t going to cut it. If anyone has any suggestions about what works (or doesn’t) in terms of our engaging with customers, please let us know. A very dangerous thing to ask in light of this particular post, as it will smell really bad if we get zero comments, but perhaps this is all part and parcel of us putting ourselves out there and taking risks.