Author: Mark Fletcher

This month’s Vogue magazine is a good example of why newsagents need to look at the best approach tom magazine display. The photo above is how Vogue is represented in traditional magazine fixturing. The top third of the cover is shown. While you can see the masthead, there is no view of the beauty of the cover.

Here is the cover in all its glory. Now I can see that the cover girl is Alice Burdeu, winner of Australia’s Next Top Model. The whole cover will sell more copied of this magazine than the top third.

Newsagents carrying more than 500 titles and their retail designers need to look at their magazine fixtures. This has happened in Europe and now is the time for Australia.

We need to demonstrate that we are magazine specialists with best practice magazine fixturing.

Drift Battle is sent to newsagents as a one-shot. That is, recycled product with no apparent history and no apparent future. A few weeks ago we received a stack of these, each looking different but sold as the one product. In the bags are old copies on the magazine. On these old copies are their old price labels. This confuses customer. Including our price label, we have four price points showing to customers!

These recycled Drift Battle packs take our magazine offering down market – many of the copies in my shop are not of merchantable quality.

This product ought to have failed a quality assurance inspection and therefore have never been sent to newsagents. I have decided to early return all stock because it does not meet our standards.

Jeff Webster is probably a nice bloke. His Fitting Out for Bay & Coastal Fishing magazine demonstrates his passion for fishing. So, this post is not a crack at Jeff of his magazine as such.

I am losing money from Fitting Out for Bay & Coastal Fishing and cannot justify carrying it. My sales data proves that yet NDD sent me 3 copies yesterday and expect me to keep it on the shelves for six months. I might sell 1 copy and if I do and adhere to NDD’s request, I will have lost $18.52 supporting Jeff Webster’s business. This loss takes into account the cost of real-estate and labour for the title. It does not factor in the cost of cash given that I will have paid for the copies sitting on my shelf for months.

I’d expect that more than half the newsagents receiving this title are losing money by carrying it. While small publishers want newsagents to carry their niche titles, newsagents cannot afford to provide free billboard space. It is uneconomic.

An alternative model would be a marketing payment to newsagents for their billboard space coupled with delayed payment for the stock.

My newsagency is well satisfied with fishing related titles. I can afford to cut this one and have returned the stock to NDD with a request to not supply again. I should not have to ask this since the sales data held by NDD shows that supply of the title would lose money for my business. They have an obligation to not put me in this position.

The problem for newsagents is that there are hundreds of titles like Fitting Out for Bay & Coastal Fishing. The continues supply on such uneconomic terms is unconscionable.

Issue #2 of Emporium magazine – the house magazine promoting Myer stores – arrived today and it appears that the sales data we have provided the distributor, NDD, has counted for naught. We sold 3 copies of Issue #1. NDD gets sales data from us daily and while they have cut us from 25, the 17 supplied is way too many.

I would accept 8 copies and this is what we will ask for next time – but my question is why should I have to ask when state-of-the-art technology as designed by NDD ensures that know that 17 is gross oversupply. I’d call it unconscionable conduct as it continues serial abuse of the newsagent channel.

I received a phone call Friday from Diane Frola, publisher of UFOlogist magazine. She was upset by what I had written here in June. Over the course of our long phone conversation, Diane accused me, among other things, of lying, being a John Howard voter, being a lover of big business, only wanting New Idea, Woman’s Day and other “trash” titles to survive and hating small independent publishers like her. Diane is wrong on all fronts.

When I suggested to Diane that she post her views here as a comment she said there was no point as I would delete her comment. When I asked why she said that someone at NDD had said I delete comments.

I do not delete comments unless they are spam such as selling mobile phone products or seeking money. Anyone trawling through the comments at this blog will see that comments complimentary and critical get through.

Blogging invites conversation. I hope Diane posts her views here. Her contribution would be most welcome by me and, I am sure, other newsagents.

If Diane’s claim that “someone from NDD” said I delete comments is true it would be disappointing. She also claimed that I have never asked NDD to reduce supply for her title or other titles. While I should not have to do this – the state of the art NDD distribution system should do this for me – I have had plenty of dialogue with NDD about title supply in my newsagency.

I understand Diane’s frustration. She is a small publisher struggling to keep her special interest title afloat. Business is tough. Newsagents are key to her reaching her customers. The problem is that she is tapping into a business model which was created in the days of newspaper and magazine distribution regulation. This is when the price model was set. Following deregulation in 1999, the price model was not revisited. Newsagents make less as a result – with more outlets selling magazines but only the top sellers. This challenges the financial model of newsagencies. It is why the pre deregulation compensation model is unfair today.

Diane Frola’s demand – that newsagents should support her title – gains no traction with me. Business is tough. If I support UFOlogist as Diane asks, I have to offer the same charity to other titles. The two copies I sell every eight weeks lose money. I would have thought that those copies, and the other nine I get from NDD, would do better in a newsagency where more than two copies sell.

The shelf space I provide UFOlogist is cheap advertising for their brand. I suspect this is why Diane demands I keep her magazine on the shelf – to advertise her brand. With an 18% sell through rate the title is dead in my newsagency and NDD ought to cut it immediately. Either that or Diane pays for the advertising space so that I achieve a fair return on my shelf space.

This is business. My landlord expects me to conduct my business on commercial terms. Likewise, it is reasonable for me, as landlord of UFOlogist, to expect it to conduct its relationship with newsagents on commercial terms.

FOOTNOTE RE NDD: I acknowledge that I have been fierce in my criticism of NDD here this year. I did so because regular business communication with NDD failed to achieve an equitable arrangement. My blogging has resulted in more equitable supply of many titles for my newsagency – hopefully others will be fixed. I am disappointed that I have had to use a public forum such as this to achieve, in part, what ought to be delivered to every newsagent – equitable supply of magazines based on sales data.