Spirit & Destiny is a new magazine. I checked it out on the weekend and was surprised at the ad on the back page – promoting $1 an issue subscriptions to Woman’s Day, 77% off the cover price.
Newsagents, the most important channel for Bauer Media, are paid 25% of cover price for each issue we sell.
The company will say that subscriptions don’t account for the majority of sales, that we should not concern ourselves with the 77% discount they offer for subscribers for the first 12 weeks of the 32% discount thereafter.
I don’t think that’s how newsagents will see it.
I do understand the role subscriptions play in the mix. I struggle, however, to find a reason for a 77% discount. Maybe the folks at Bauer have research indicating that this level of discount is necessary to sell the number of subscriptions they need. Maybe this is about a bump for circulation audit reasons. Maybe they have research indicting that the subscribers they will attract and not current newsagent shoppers for Woman’s Day.
Since we are paid a paltry margin that is declining in real margin dollar terms, for all magazines and not just Bauer titles, we are owed an explanation as to how this generous subscription model fits with our 25% and why our own shelves are being used to encourage shoppers to have Woman’s Day home delivered when on the shelf near Spirit & Destiny we have Woman’s Day at the price set by Bauer.
My initial reaction seeing the ad was that I should take Spirit & Destiny off the shelf. However, I did not do that. I might yet … I wanted to think it through for a few days. Like many issues I have confronted over the years, thinking it through involves writing about it here and seeing what others think.
Agree with all your comments on Bauer but also think breath wasted as change in distribution model for channel just ain’t gonna happen. Sales of magazines now at point where profit contribution to store is zero if incremental labour factored in. The only reason I continue with mags is because of basket links to gifts, wrap and cards. By aiding the downward sales through the channel, Bauer are assisting me in my goal, a life without newsagency core items. Bring it on.
I didnt make it to the back page ,made it about halfway before deciding where it belonged.
Confused. Our Spirit & Destiny arrived as 2 mags in plastic wrap. Why would a new launch adopt this approach ?
Maybe they are trialling different approaches.
On this title, a newsagent told me yesterday that from what they can tell it is a lift of the UK title of the same name that they also get, by airfreight.
Staying on topic…. newsagents need to stop attending Bauer conferences and demand extra commission.
Bauer have long used their Rewards program and industry conference sponsorships as smoke screens to continue to offer reduced commission.
Why does the supply and demand model not apply to newsagents?
Why do newsagents sell the majority of magazines, newspapers and Tatts products yet are continually getting inferior terms to our competitors????
The industry has been abused for too long, and now Tatts are following the model adopted successfully be Bauer, News Corp, Fairfax and G&G……
Enough is enough.
I am trying to get the new copy of this magazine but keep hitting brick walls. The newsagent keeps telling me it didnt come in and now I know why……obviously he wont stock it. Not Happy 🙁
Can someone please tell me if they are still printing the copys of Spirit & Destiny magazines in 2021 as I found one that I’d tucked away from ages ago, and I would love to be able to buy them, however our supermarket no longer stocks them, so where to from here..?