Author: Mark Fletcher

Any publisher wanting to sell more magazines ought to read this – if they really want to sell more magazines that is. Rather than throwing money at expensive subscriptions sent through the mail, publishers could do better providing newsagents with deals for an over the counter subscription pick up.

Take the Bulletin. It retails for $6.25. If I subscribe, it costs $129.90 a year and they mail it to my home. In my shop I sell between 6 and 12 copies a week. I think I could sell more by offering an over the counter subscription – customers would have to pay up front for a year. The difference from the current subscription offering is that the magazine would not be posted – the customer would pick it up.

A regular Bulletin customer in a newsagency might buy 70% or thereabouts of copies a year. An over the counter subscription offer could get that to 100%.

Newsagents have excellent technology to manage subscriptions at the counter and back office including the ability to SMS text message customers when the magazine comes in.

Many customers would prefer to pick the magazine up. I’d like their traffic.

Publishers show in the subscription order forms in their magazines every issue how much money they will throw to acquire subscription sales. Let newsagents be part of the acquisition process and I’d expect net sales growth to be achieved.

While I can sell subscriptions now, they are for mail delivery. What I am proposing here is different.

Is it just me or are other newsagents frustrated with these small hair magazines? They are not made to fit our traditional fixturing and, as the photo shows, they get lost. No wonder sales are not good.

While we could display them flat, the return does not warrant that premium space. I bet the editor and publisher would be frustrated if they saw how their product looked on the shelves.

She is a cheap magazine. $3.99 here in Australia – half the US price and a third of the UK price. I’m not sure what is going on there given the magazine She competes with. While I am no expert, I’d think the price devalues the product and makes potential customers second guess the purchase – what’s the catch?

While on the price, what’s with $3.99? Either make it $3.95 or $4.00. Customers get annoyed at 99 cents.

And also on the price – see the backing card supplied with She this month. That says $2.99. The price printed on the cover is $3.99. Oops.

This is the display we have created at the counter to promote some of the British magazines we carry. It looks better in person than my my poor photo shows. Headed The Best of British we have printed some flags to highlight the promotion.

In the day the display has been up we have sold some of the featured product – it is too early to tell if the sales are impulse or not.

While not a glitzy or sexy retail display, we think this promotion will work as it speaks to our demographic in a subtle way – and is located right at the counter.

We’re doing this because we want to promote the British connection across multiple magazine categories – not because a publisher is paying us promotional dollars. This is an important difference between small and big business when it comes to magazines, a difference some publishers are yet to grasp.

Time this week has a style and design magazine stuck on the back. It is frustrating that this is bigger than time – making the resulting double look a bit messy on the shelves. While the editorial and production folks for the Style and design issue probably have the size they want, the main Time product suffers – it’s too big for the usual location in our shelves and looks messy. The other side of this offer is how we display the product. Time is not a big seller for us so we’d just focus on the weekly and not the bonus title. None of these issues are big deals – just things we wish had been thought through.

Which copy of Real Living and Table am I supposed to promote in my newsagency this month? The regular issue or the one hidden in a sealed bag proclaiming 20% off. I know which one customers will reach for first – the bagged copy.

This is a frustrating offer from ACP Magazines. We have Real Living. We have Table. Now we have the real Living / Table combo pack – a new stock item requiring additional shelf space, labour and cash flow.

I appreciate ACP may want to experiment with these deals. I wish newsagents had been consulted first and that we were compensated for our investment. The magazine experience in newsagencies is built around browsing. Bagging a magazine like Real Living, which is already struggling compared to Notebook, will not help sales.

Real Living is a feature magazine this week so my question about which version to promote is serious – do I feature the bagged version promoting 20% off or the version people can browse?

This offer sends a mixed message to newsagents and consumers which, I suspect, will not help the title achieve what it needs to achieve.