Magazines are killing this newsagency
I often write here that the magazine supply model is broken. Below are selected excerpts from an email from a newsagent explaining their specific situation:
We are reasonably new to the industry (2 years tomorrow) and are having cash flow issues already.
As you suggested we contacted each of the distributors and requested a supply allocation order.
We adjusted this file extensively and faxed it back, we have not had any reply from any of them.I read on your blog that you cut the bottom 200 titles from your shop. I am interested in how you do this when I cant get the majors to accept my adjusted allocation supply model?
(Or whatever they want to call it).One distributor has advised us that they haven’t APPROVED it yet?? (But it is our cash-flow???). Another distributor says they have done something for us but we don’t see it working. Another distributor is ignoring us.
Mark, we are trying to learn as quickly as we can and love the newsagency channel.
Can you offer any advice? Are we talking to the wrong trees? If we can’t get them to cut adult mags that we have sold 1 copy of in 2 years, how will we get them to accept a cut of the underperforming 200!Or are we getting the run around because they assume we are new(ish) and they want us to stay in the dark?
The magazines are killing us and taking our cash so that some weeks we have to delay paying staff until we bank the following day!
… but whilst everyone sympathises with the oversupply issues of newsagents no-one is actually there for new newsagents to show them the ropes and who to talk to – how to get around the system .
This is a common email from a newsagent. It reeks of despair. Only newsagents can solve the problem. It is their cash, their real-estate and their labour at risk in supporting the magazine supply model. Magazine distributors have their own challenges as do publishers. They must look out for themselves. So should newsagents.
To the publishers who write and say that they cold not afford to publish their titles if newsagents did not maintain the current supply model, it’s not our problem. Newsagents cannot afford any longer to support small titles. real-estate is expensive and it is unreasonable to ask newsagent to invest in small and new titles as is the case now. Look at Cosmos, my newsagency invested hundreds of dollars of cash in its launch and now it’s more about the online presence. Launches of such fringe titles is an abuse of a magazine supply model which is broken.
To the major publishers – ACP Magazines, Pacific Magazines, FPC etc. I say – you’re losing out too as it is the small titles which drag labour, real-estate and cash from attention to your product.