whsmith

For our homework assignment, we were asked to visit a shop that sells magazines and analyse how they present them to the buyers,E.g where they placed, which shelf, where in the shop are they ect .ect
The shop I visited was WHSmiths, This provided me with a very wide range of all different kinds of magazines.
what I first noticed was where in the magazine section they were placed. Firstly there were magazines for little children such as 'Pokemon' and 'Disney Adventures'. Most of there magazines had a free toy inside to attract the children.

 After the children's magazines there were game magazines such as 'Gamer', PSM3, X-Box 360, 'PC Gamer', Some of these magazines included a free CD for a free demo of a new upcoming game or a trailer for a new game.This genre of magazine is aimed at a gamer audience, probably mostly teenage boys.

After the gamer section was what I assumed to be leisure/hobbies. I noticed that there were allot of boating magazines such as 'Classic Boat' and 'Motor Boat'. I couldn't figure out why they displayed why they decided to display such a vast amount of boating magazines but I assume maybe because its almost the Christmas holidays and many people like to go away for the time. Also, in this section was fishing magazines. This is clever as it was mixed in with the boating magazines. If you enjoy sailing, you are likely to take pleasure in fishing. This is a good way to sell many magazines at once.

Following the leisure/hobbies were magazines for an male adult audience. These included 'Nuts', 'FHM' and 'Zoo'. I was confused as to why it was placed in between leisure/hobbies and Music magazines.

 Past the leisure/hobbies magazines was a huge amount of music magazines. these included magazines such as 'Vibe', 'Classic FM music', 'Classic Rock', 'Clash', 'Kerrang'. The popular magazines such as 'Vibe' and 'Clash were displayed at the front, as they are most likely to be sold the most.

In my opinion, I didn't like how they ordered there magazines. They were quite randomly placed. From the genres above and adding a few others, the order I would have placed them would be :

1) leisure/hobbies magazines
2) Mens magazines, Sports magazines, male Adult magazines
3) Children's magazines
4) Mother/ New mother (Pregnancy)/ glossy
5) Gamer magazines
6) Music magazines

I think this would be a better magazine layout than the one I saw for the reasons that;

• I put Men's magazines together as separating them could loose sales. If they are all together it might increase a males interest and lead to another magazine purchase.
• I placed the children's magazines in between men's magazines and mother/woman magazines as there could be a family looking for a child magazine, the surrounding magazines could catch an eye of the mother and/or father.
• I positioned gamer and music magazines together as they would both attract the same kind of audience, teenagers. Most teenagers are into games consol's and music so placing them together would increase sales of both genres.