This month we cannot fir our usual seven copies of Drift into our magazine fixturing. The publisher has created a triple pack – I guess to make their offer more enticing. As the photo shows I can fit three of the triple packs into a usual magazine pocket. I have to jam the other four into another pocket. This costs me an extra $3.50 in real-estate for the month and while that will not break the back, based on sales of this title, the decision by the publisher wipes out the profit I would have made based on usual sales. It also means I have to take the pocket from another title or, horror, double up titles. The alternative is to put the extra copies of Drift in the back room and pull them out one there is room, however, the labour involved in that approach would be worse than taking the extra pocket.
Magazine publishers and distributors need to understand the problems these triple and double packs cause retailers.
Newsagents need to be more business-like in terms of labour and real-estate. They (we) ought to change the magazine model, and charge for space used by title selling fewer than, say, twenty copies and or selling less than 50% of the product received. In the current model we take everything suppliers and invest our time and real-estate. For titles outside the top 200, the return is all too often nil. It is only once we take control of our space that we will become competitive in the magazine space.