Lucky magazine becomes even more about e-shopping

When Lucky magazine launched in December 2000, it was such a fresh, original idea that the magazine soared in sales and circulation. The idea was simple: shopping was a recreation for its target audience and the combination of editorial and shopping would be (and was) irresistible. A magazine unabashedly about shopping.

It went quickly from 500,000 to more than 1.1 million circulation. Lucky was the Magazine of the Year in Advertising Age in 2003. 

It contained a sheet of "Yes" and "Maybe" stickers that readers could use to bookmark items that interested them. The focus of the magazine was to be a helpful friend to sometimes clueless shoppers who didn't know what skirt went with what top, where to buy it and what colours and styles suited them. For a good while, the Lucky formula gave it an edge in the crowded women's and fashion category.  

So successful was the idea that Rogers Publishing in 2004 launched LouLou in both French and English as a virtual Canadian clone. 

Like many hot ideas, Lucky has cooled down and the most recent evidence of this is that publisher Condé Nast has just announced its spin off into a new, joint venture with e-commerce platform BeachMint. Called The Lucky Group, it is thereby turning into a new, online shopping destination targetted at BeachMint's 8-million fashion-focussed subscribers. According to a story in Minonline (MIN). 

This decision to join Lucky’s print and digital assets with a shopping outlet is likely step one in either taking Lucky wholly digital or shutting it down completely, though nothing has been confirmed yet.

Lucky has been losing ground with advertisers. In the past year, total ad pages dropped 34.3% and in August alone, 9.8%.