Given the private contact from people working for magazine distributors over the last two weeks following my recent blog posts here about the need for a magazine czar, I’d suggest that there is support for such a move.
The magazine distributors appear to want to cut the unprofitable and barely profitable titles but don’t want to give either of the other two players an opportunity to bulk up. Listening to one of the talk it sounded like they were worried about the side effects of dealing with an addiction.
It’s time for action. All this busy work for the sake of stopping a competitor carrying the same dead or dying titles is helping no one. At least the distributors are paid for their efforts. Newsagents are not.
Small department stores with multiple sections don’t stay in business long if one of more sections keep stocking lines they know don’t sell.
C Stephens, CEO and magazineophile
At last, CS you start to get the point! Small department stores have control over what items they choose to sell. Under the magazine model currently in place, it is the distributors who make the decision on what a newsagent will stock.
The newsagent who knows his business cannot readily return stock he knows will be unsaleable.
Distributors decide what to deliver. Newsagents control what they stock which depends on the amount of space
they make available to display magazines in their stores. Thousands of new titles have appeared in the last few years during which time newsagents have been stocking an increasing number of other lines which also have display space requirements.
If newsagents do not promptly return stock they know is unsaleable, what message does that give distributors?
C Stephens, CEO and magazineophile
C Stephens,
Correct me if i am wrong, but distributors have access to a mass of data through XchangeIT. Even the most simple analysis of this data will show distributors that many magazines dont sell.
Distributors deliver. They are not the sales experts. Every single newsagent is the sales expert for his/her store. Sure, distributors have figures, but no vested interest. Newsagents are affected financially, so why do some of them think someone else should fix their problems for them?
C Stephens, CEO and magazineophile
C Stephens,
You say distributors have no vested interest; I disagree. They have a vested interest in that it is also costing them money to deal with underperforming magazines.
Newsagents want distributors to help in fixing the problem. Newsagents want this because the problem facing newsagents is not created by newsagents and can not be fully fixed by newsagents. The best way to deal with a problem is to fix the source of that problem. The source of the problem here is the system of magazine distribution.
C Stephens – and the other personalities you comment here using – magazine distributors contract with newsagents to supply and with publishers to manage the scale out. If you want to break that down then why not negotiate with them. Mark
Jarryd – wanting distributors to help in fixing the problem is outside their remit. Their role, as you well know, is fundamentally to deliver stock.
The source of the problem here is the system of magazine distribution – incorrect, the problem is caused by the sheer number of magazine titles available (currently estimated at 6,000) plus the fact that some newsagents have not managed the problem of inappropriate supply over recent years, as you and I have discussed and agreed on elsewhere in this blog.
C Stephens, CEO and magazineophile
Mark – and the other personalities you comment here using – magazine distributors contract with newsagents to supply and with publishers to manage the scale out – that is incorrect, as you well know distributors contract with some publishers to manage scale out.
C Stephens, CEO and magazineophile
C stephens – you know what I mean by personalities – the various names you have used to post comments here. You a sham.
Shame on you for dragging your blog down to such a low level. What about your various names? Do you deny you sometimes pose as “Jim” (the polite one, not the country Vic newsagent) and “Fred”?
Stick to the substance of the comments – who makes them is not important.
The point here is that newsagents already have control of which magazine titles they stock. Each individual newsagent is the sales expert for his/her store. He/she knows what sells and what doesn’t. He/she also knows their customer and area demographics and can apply that knowledge to new titles as and when they appear. Start removing some magazine display shelving. End up only stocking titles that are proven sellers. If enough newsagents do this, distributors would have to tell publishers “Sorry mate, your title isn’t selling.”
Sensible discussion of this topic invited, minus personality insults please.
C Stephens, CEO and magazineophile
M Stephens / C Stephens, I have never posted comments here other than under my real name. You have posted under four or five names and in doing so, dragged this blog to a low level. You are the master of personal insults.
Mark Fletcher
C Stephens,
You say that – ” problem is caused by the sheer number of magazine titles available” – This is not the source of the problem. If the distribution system had provisions in placed that limited the number of magazines then there would not be some 6000 titles. They system can essentially control how many titles have access to the market, therefore it is the source of the problem.
You also state that – “some newsagents have not managed the problem of inappropriate supply over recent years” – Yes that is right, SOME. But there are also many many newsagents out there managing their magazine supply very well. Distributors dont want to lose titles to other distributors so they continue do deliver innapropriate supply. Innapropriate supply is also costing distributors money. A magazine czar could potentially address both the problems of newsagents and distributors.
C Stephens (or whoever you are) –
“Jim” (the polite one, not the country Vic newsagent)
They are one and the same – perhaps you were too busy searching for a long word in the mountains of reference material you must have access to realise that as you dragged the level of this blog down I morphed from the polite one into one who can’t be bothered with idiots like you – that’s not impolite, that’s reality!
Jarryd wrote If the distribution system had provisions in place that limited the number of magazines then there would not be some 6000 titles — what, stifle free enterprise and be anti-competitive to boot? Easier to embrace ‘Buy Australian’ and reject the latest fad of overseas re-prints, for a start.
Innapropriate supply is also costing distributors money — how so?
C Stephens, CEO and magazineophile
Jim O’Toole
What long words? ‘magazineophile’ has 14 letters, ‘fundamentally’ 13 letters and ‘newsagency’ 10 letters – which words don’t you understand?
C Stephens, CEO and magazineophile
C Stephens,
A distribution system that limited the number of titles that had access to the market through the newsagency channell would not be anti-competitive. Reducing the number of titles is not being anti-competitive nor is it stifling free enterprise. If anything it makes the market more competative. Beacuse it would be harder to access the market, magazines will be forced to become more competative to gain access and stay there.
Innapropriate supply is also costing distributors money because distributors are having to handle and manage returns of titles that don’t sell. How much time is spent each week by distributors processing returns? The less titles they send out that don’t sell the less time they will have to spend dealing with the return of those titles.
Hi, C Stephens,
You commented:—————————–
The source of the problem here is the system of magazine distribution – incorrect, the problem is caused by the sheer number of magazine titles available (currently estimated at 6,000) plus the fact that some newsagents have not managed the problem of inappropriate supply over recent years, as you and I have discussed and agreed on elsewhere in this blog.
———————————————–
It is nice to see your point from publishers. Can you explain it in detail–the consequence of the sheel number of magazine titles (any prediction?)
For these 6,000 magazine titles, how the publishers of non-best sellers can make a substable business, and what will this practise lead to magazine retail market in next 5 years from today?
Mark had reported that many newsagents in UK had reduced magazine range, how the publishers in UK response to this? How the distributors in UK response to this? How these newsagents achieve these result?
I had asked ANF what experience from UK’s counterpart, haven’t got any reply yet.
The 6000 titles may be too much for current retail market, how will the publishers and distributors use the effect of Long Tail on future models, and how effects bring to newsagents?
Thanks
Sunny
You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.
– Albert Einstein
what is it with you fletcher and your fragile ego. What is in a name? who gives any real credence to the moniker that a blogger is using. Using Anon as a descriptor has as much credibililty as Mark Fletcher (is that your real name by the way) if the substance of the submission is valid.
c stephens submission was interesting and I found his/her comments relevant until you started with your silly defensive nonsense in items 7 and 10.
let the comments roll without getting your ego in the way
surely committing to early returns of magazines empowers the newsagent to make the final decision on what is sold/displayed in their shop. It is your business and your business plan so stick to it. I wonder if the newsagent was supplied with minimal stock would you be screaming out for vengeance against those tyrannical distributors for help. Sometimes getting bin loads of international magazines is difficult to deal with however on many occasions I am sure that at least one of those titles would have found a new customer so look at that supply as an avenue to attract another loyal follower