I was disappointed to see this fax sent to hairdresser recently, offering current issues of some Australian magazines free of charge on a trial basis. After the free trial, hair salons are offered the titles at what appears to be a 90% discount. Click on the image to see the detail of an offer sent to one hair salon last week. The offer is being made by International Publishing Group.
For years in my own newsagencies, hair salons have been valued and valuable customers. Not sub agents, but full price customers which we service with our Magazine Club Card, in-store accounts and other benefits. In one of my newsagencies, one hair salon accounts for at least $400 in magazine sales a month. Add to that around $600 in other business (stationery, lotteries etc) and you can see the sales at risk.
I can’t compete with this 90% discount. If one of my salons was offered this I am certain they would take it. This could cut their visits to my newsagency. Magazines are vital glue, our range and the account are a real point of difference. Without magazines they could purchase their other items elsewhere.
I was shocked to discover this promotion and that it is being offered without in-advance discussion with newsagents. I plan to discretely inquire as to if this offer has been made to salons I deal with and if so I will try and ensure that the offer is not available to them.
Newsagencies are finely balanced businesses made up of many parts which rely on each other to make the whole successful. Even a small move like this could have considerable implications. We need to resist every move which chips away at our business.
This magazine move, on top of recent newspaper moves which compete with our over the counter sales, challenge how consumers view and interact with our businesses. We need to fight for our position.
Clearly IPS plan to work against Newsagents despite the retoric about partnerships, support etc… What goes around……
Another case of some idiot trying to hold onto his/her job at IPS without realising the impact of this decision. Would make a good canidate for Fair Work !!!!
Baz, there is no connection between IPS and this hair salon move.
Sorry Mark…I meant to write IPG…it is just that IPS is in the fore front of my mind …almost daily.
Actually the worrying thing is that they are suggesting that since they supply a minimum 10 of each of the copies that the hairdressers use the extras to “give away” to their customers. This is what would have a big effect on the neighbouring newsagents business.
It just shows arrogance, disloyalty and rudeness on IPGs part. I’m going to go and have a word to my local hairdressers and see if they’ve been offered it. If they have I’m going to see if they’ll supply me with the extras if I pay for them. May as well as I’ll be getting a better margin through them than through the distributors.
boycott IPG titles. we gonna lose sales of their titles anyway…they try to put us out of business…we put them out first.
eye for an eye time. so sick of the disrespect.
Wow what an offer might change the name of the shop and say we are a hairdresser.How can they offer this so cheaply??
Whats next Doctors… Our local medical practice gets standing orders of all weeklies and some other slect magazines of us. We provide them with a 12.5% discount, and given the volume it has worked for us for the past 6 years. We really treat them like a subagent… and they are happy to take a lot of the new titles…
Are you saying ACP tell a connections conference one day that they are including newsagents in their adverting for mags and so on blarblar, and then use the IPG group to back stab us by undercutting the price to selected businesses.
If thats right all newsagents should boycott their ties with acp including the connections setup and and offer their prime space to other publishers. And our associations should stop immediately associating with them and tell them the friendship over. But i bet they won’t.
Fred it’s not as simple as that. We need to understand that we live in a deregulated world and act in our own best interests … but not out of spite as that would be counter productive.
settle down, look at it from another angle, its not like someone will go to the hairdresser every week to read a mag, but someone may read a mag there they would not normally read and decide its worth buying on a regular basis from their LOCAL newsagent, could be pretty clever advertising
rick i get that a lot , someone will come in and say i was just sitting at the doctors and i was reading a magazine that had this and that in it do you have it , so yeah maybe not such a bad thing
I agree Rick, You make a very valid point. Mind you if the publisher can offer 90% off it goes to wonder why they cant give newsagents better margins. I would be pretty confident they would not be selling the discounted offer at a loss
This why i have moved my store away from mags to other things ,all their own doing crap on your core outlets and crap will come back
Rick one option would be for the titles in this deal to have a sticker promoting – buy your next copy at your local newsagent.
Solution is easy, dump IPG and buy direct from your local hairdresser; with the extra margin you can manage your own returns and still be ahead.
This offer has just landed in my area – one of the two Salons in our centre came to show me out of courtesy. They can’t believe how generous it is. Neither Salon buys from us (because they rely on past issue titles given to them by customers), but their local customers do buy from us! If they take up the offer longer term and given the titles involved, given the relative supply they will get compared to our sales and in a small centre like ours, I think our sales of those monthly niche titles will largely disappear.