Thanks to the work I do with my software company, Tower Systems, I am privy to business performance data from many newsagencies. I’d note that in the last six months the magazine category has been performing worse than for years before. Not the whole category, only what I’d call the fringe titles – that is, titles not in the top 500 sellers. At this end of the marketplace newsagents are given five or fewer copies to sell and in many cases I see they are lucky to sell one copy.
What seems to have changed in the last six months is that newsagents are getting more of these titles in terms of range a volume. In only a few cases in this expansion of stock on the shop floor leading to sales growth. The key benefit is to the cash flow of the distributors driving this. (I’d note it’s not all magazine distributors.)
So while publishers of top selling titles actively seek and encourage other retail outlets, publishers reliant solely on newsagents for retail presence are facing fewer eyeballs and responding, or so it would seem, with more product.