Here’s an example of a publisher and supermarket giant working together to devalue magazine brands in a campaign that must reduce newsagent magazine sales.
The Relax & Save campaign offering two Bauer titles for $7 is an enticing offer for price conscious shoppers.
The folks from Bauer will tell Connections members at their national conference soon how much they love newsagents and remind them of their support for newsagents. The evidence in this photo pitches a different story – it is a story of favouring one channel in a way than can only hurt the larger channel, newsagents.
I wonder if Bauer is funding the discount being given to Woolworths for this deal or whether there is financial support flowing in some other way.
Hi Mark, promotions in this category in smkts are fully funded by the supplier. The majors do not contribute “giveaway” funds in this category unlike others including snacks, drinks, toilet paper etc which “move the needle”. When a new leadership team arrived at one of the majors 5-6years ago, they were shocked at the size in value of independent retailers in AUS and have been actively attacking this sector eg fruit shops, butchers, newsagents for growth…stealing share from each other wont deliver long term sustainable growth and is expensive…lots of news about that recently!!
Ben thanks for this information. It is important newsagents understand the considerable difference in trading terms achieved by supermarkets compared to our channel given that newsagents remain the largest retail channel for magazine publishers in Australia.
Hope the ANF are reading this too
Adrian I am sure folks from the ANF read things here every day. Good luck getting them to respond directly on anything though.