Super Fitness exemplifies what is wrong with magazine distribution in Australia. It is proof of how the magazine distribution system disadvantages newsagents and starves them of vital cash.
Super Fitness’ cover price is $34.95. It has a return date more than six months from now. It’s production quality is poor – the cover is hard card material meaning after one browsing it will look second-hand. It’s playing is a crowded and well serviced category. It has high theft appeal – due to cover price and its subject matter.
I received one copy of Super Fitness yesterday and decided to return it immediately. I am not prepared to risk the $34.95 with just one copy on the shelf. To accommodate this title I would have to remove another and I’m not prepared to do that for what looks to be a dud product. Also, it would be the most expensive magazine in the category and, I suspect, act as a magnet for shoplifters.
The way magazine supply works, I will pay $26.21 for Super Fitness next month. I will get my credit for the copy I returned a month later. It’s cost me the $26.21 for a month. Multiply that by several hundred titles and you see the cash cost to my newsagency of similar dud titles.
In newsagencies, publishers have access to a low cost low risk retail distribution channel. Newsagents are idiots for continuing to support dud titles like Super Fitness. It is time for us to charge for access to our network and to make publishers accountable for what they produce.
Thanks to deregulation, magazines are supplied direct to all of my competitors. Consumers benefit from greater choice. The hidden side of deregulation is that only newsagents are supplied titles like Super Fitness – and in a way which makes is very difficult to control the supply of these titles equitably. Supermarkets, convenience stores and petrol outlets will not carry Super Fitness. They control what they receive. Try as I might, this control over my business remains a dream.
Someone should take Super Fitness out the back and put it to death. The few titles I receive like this the better.