I was talking yesterday with a newsagent who has decided to sell their business. Nothing odd about that except that they have been in the business for three months. They say that the lack of control they have over their business is the reason. While I have seen this before, this instance is surprising. This person has successfully owned and operated retail businesses previously. They’re cashed up. They’re pro-active. It’s what they say are uncompetitive magazine rules and lack of control over core business activity which they hate.
Their newsagency competes with five magazine outlets nearby – three petrol/convenience and two supermarket outlets taking just the top selling magazines. He’s cool with competition but would prefer fair competition where he can choose his range as easily as his competitors. While he has sought to cull magazine titles to a more viable level he feels helpless to effect fair change in the supply model. Hence the decision to leave.
Any assessment of the magazine supply model would say that newsagents are disadvantaged. We need an easier way to control what we receive. We need more accurate scale out of new titles. We need fairer financial terms for titles which are to stay on the shelf for more than a month.
Unless the magazine supply model changes, more new newsagents will exit early and the channel will be the loser.
I appreciate that the supply problem is not just to do with magazines, however, magazines soak up the majority of the cash – I write cheques for more than $40,000 a month for magazines and half that is for product I return. Fix the cash-flow crisis and you create happier and more business focused newsagents.
Selling after 3 months – nothing to do with cashflow problems – pull the other one !
Even if you accept it wasn’t cashflow related then serves the silly bugger right for not doing the homework before buying into a business he obviously knows nothing about. What’s that old saying – let the buyer beware ????
I know this situation and it’s not about cash-flow. I do agree about buyers being aware – newsagencies are complex on several fronts.
I’m interested in your comments about scaling out new titles and control of what you receive. As an independent magazine publisher I am aware of the challenges of newsagency ditribution – we tried it for a while and it didn’t work out for us. Not necessarily because of sales performance (our mag does quite well in online sales and bookstores), but because of visibility. Often located in the wrong section (I once found our teen mag in the GLBT section!) or tucked behind other “alternative” magazines, rather than next to mags like Dolly. Indy mags are not given an opportunity to grow in this market. I do appreciate you don’t want mags sitting around for three months, but how can customers buy them if they don’t know where to look, or if you stock them at all?
Not sure when you tried newsagents. The MPA (Magazine Publishers of Australia) issued industry standard coding three years ago and then broad planagrams last year. These tools allow newsagents to be more accurate in placing titles. Your distributor ought to have provided placement details to address it being placed in the wrong area. When there are more than 2,000 titles sloshing about it is challenging for the local newsagent to take note of an indie title and get it right – hence the MPA systems to improve accuracy. Have a crack again – maybe try a single brand of stores as an experiment and to get the publisher – newsagent interface working for a win win. Just goint through the distributors is challenging for any indi title.