The latest issue of Fuel offers evidence of how newsagents are dudded by magazine publishers when they re-issue product. The photo shows a two pack, an old issue of Fuel with a current issue. The old issue is on the front. Check out our barcode (circled in red in the top left corner) – directly underneath is the barcode from the last newsagency which handled this specific copy. Customers will see the old issue and ignore the pack.
Twin and triple packs offering old issues of magazines are used often by magazine publishers to ‘promote’ titles. Newsagents don’t like the strategy because of the additional real-estate needed to adequately display the stock, the crappy way they are usually packaged, that customers open packs so they can see what’s inside and because we’re getting hit for cash again for a copy which did not sell in the last newsagency to carry it.
Publishers tell me the twin and triple pack strategy works. If they are going to continue to use it they need to NOT make the Fuel mistake and put the old issue on the front, they need better packaging, they need to tell browsers what’s inside so the packs are not opened and they need to pay a bonus to newsagents for the extra real-estate and work.
I am frustrated about this because I lost an hour yesterday tidying up twin pack junk in our crafts, home and men’s areas – customers had rifled through trying to find what is in the packs.
By the way, the barcode I have circled in the bottom right corner is crap and does not provide newsagents the ability to accurately track sales – hence the need for us to barcode this product ourselves.