Here in the US you notice the poor availability of magazines at retail. Sure they have the top selling weeklies and a selection of monthlies if you want to search for them but they do not have the depth of range we carry. Instead, there majority of magazine sales are vis subscription and it is no wonder considering the prices.
Look at US title Money. They promote a $5.00 subscription offer for a year but you have to actually sign up for two years for a total cost of $29.90 delivered – but that is still only $1.25 an issue. Postal rates enable them to do this. Australian subscriptions tend to not be as deep as this.
In Australia, a hope for over the counter sales is Australia Post pricing for magazines. If that increases we should benefit.
Mark, most of the publishers who mail out by Print Post services in Australia are paying out an absolute fraction of what a retail customer would pay for the same thing or they are usually on contract rates from the big mail houses so the “real” cost of them posting out mags doesn’t even come into the equation.