Ovato wrote newsagents with an update on magazines…
Firstly we are pleased that only a handful of stores are still closed due to the impact of COVID-19 and the general feedback is that newsagents have performed well during this period considering the varying circumstances in each state, region and location.
Magazine sales in newsagents over the last 6 months from the XchangeIT data indicates there has been a significant slowdown in the overall decline year on year from -11% to -5%. With people moving around less they are relying on their local businesses within their suburb to do their shopping. There is little doubt this is contributing to strong magazine sales results, especially in local shopping centres and regional outlets. We have posted a short article on our social media outlets to re enforce the popularity of magazines over this period if you are interested.
https://ovato.com.au/ContentHub/Article/Consumers-turn-to-magazines-for-inspiration-148
Magazine categories showing strong growth in newsagents during COVID-19 are below and we will be sending an updated Magchart in Oct highlighting the top selling titles in each category to see if you have any ranging gaps.
Children +33%
Craft +16%
Food and Drink +36%
Home Interest +23%
Puzzles +19%Although magazine sales have performed well the advertising market continues to be challenging and some publishers, both locally and internationally have had to make the difficult decision to close or reduce frequency of their magazines. Also given the closure of international travel in March we also had to halt the importing of air-freight magazines. We don’t expect these 200 magazines to return until July 2021 at the earliest.
We are also currently seeing an impact in reduced supply of our UK and US sea freighted titles. Initially we had good levels of supply due to the delay in shipping times, but in recent months we are seeing a reduction in supply levels as many international publishers suspended titles or reduced supply through March to June. This was most evident in the UK as most high streets and shopping centres were closed for an extended period and publishers hibernated titles.
Although we are now seeing a return to normal supply levels ongoing industrial action at Port Botany in Sydney is impacting our delivery schedules and we are now experiencing delays of up to 3 weeks on receiving containers and this is impacting us replenishing new titles to you. We are currently reacting to these changes and unloading some containers down in Melbourne to help improve supply levels through October.