Bauer Media has announced Top Gear Australia magazine will close from the October 2015 issue. This is not surprising given sales for the title and that motoring titles in general are achieving a greater sales decline rate than magazines overall. Mediadweek has the details.
It is a tough time to be a magazine publisher or a magazine retailer.
Sick of them sending it to me on SBR when I have not even sold one . Goes to show sales where down so lets off load the extra stock .
Hopefully the UK one goes the same way. Just shake my head at constantly receiving 2 via airfreight with a $20.95 cover price, I’ve never ever sold one.
a crying shame,its the best car mag ever published.
Did either G&G or Bauer send out any notification on the closure of Auto Action? I had no idea and just spent 3/4 of an hour trying to find out why I wasn’t getting it (putaway customer). Finally found out on Mumbrella.
Noticed my comment above @ #2, still getting BBC Top Gear, I’ve received 9 monthly issues and a Special since then 21 total copies and made 1 solitary sale, and the distributors complain about our magazine management. Unbelievable.
I should mention those BBC Top gears are all airfreight still, though the cover price has dropped to $17.65.
Steve why don’t you just cancel the supply ? The gotch system should let you do that with such a period of non sales. It’s a PITA I know but at least it’s out of your hair then.
Thanks for also advising what had happened to Auto action. I’d wondered what had happened to the copies we normally get and very occassionally sell.
Auto Action had it all over the front cover of the last issue but they didn’t notify newsagents. We have to work it out for ourselves!
In my opinion Bauer are struggling. Their titles are not hitting the mark with relevance anymore.
I feel that they need to totally restructure their titles just like we are restructuring our businesses.
I prefer to promote titles that gel with what perception I want customers to have of my business, especially on social media. Unfortunately Womans Day, TV Week etc are not part of that.
Paul, I just gave up adjusting/cancelling supply years ago because it never stuck. Now that it’s only G&G I probably should try again because Network were always the biggest pain, it would be nice if it started working how it should.
Auto Action (Bauer) went wrong when they changed their distribution day to Monday. 99% of motor sport happens on a weekend so how could a weekly mag on motorsport come out on a Monday, all the articles where more than a week old.
By time Bauer realised their error and moved back to Thursday it was to late, regular purchases just did not come back to buy the mag.
Spot on Gregg. Once you change consumer habits / routine its difficult to get them back.
If only our “industry partners” understood this!
With magazine sales falling ,I find it incredible that Bauer still refuse to supply all Newsagents direct through Gotch,
I have no evidence , but maybe Bauer have a contractual arrangement with Woolies and Coles which gives the big two and advantage over the smaller Newsagent
Yes Gregg, same with deliveries going from Wednesday to Thur that stuffed the shopping habits with a sales decline. If you said they shot themselves in both feet with that action. Well I wonder sometimes if the dude who thought that up still works there.