I spent time yesterday with a newsagent who has been in the business two years. He is considering selling up, cutting his losses he says. He is tired of the daily grind, not the hard work, but the battles with out of date business practices. His core beef is with magazine distributors – over supply of low selling titles and under supply of top selling titles.
There is nothing new in this. Newsagents of many years standing will say, yeah, so what? This chap is it the crossroads all newsagents face – to accept out of date and anti competitive business practices and make the best of it and chase growth in other product categories or get out. I expect he will get out.
While magazine distributors will say they supply what is best for newsagents, the view in each newsagency is different. Regulars here will have seen some of my evidence of magazine supply decisions which don;t make sense.
Newsagents have their money on the line. Few others in the magazine supply chain have an equivalent risk without associated control. Distributors are paid to move stock. Publishers rely more on ad revenue than retail sales. Newsagents only make money if a title is sold.
Newsagents carry the theft risk, they pay for stock prior to it selling. Plus they do not control supplies. Again, distributors will disagree and say they are giving newsagents more control than ever. It’s not enough. Too often we have to react to a supply problem. The internal systems should not pass the buck of oversupply to newsagents, it should not expect us to pay for stock to sit on the shelves for three months. It should not increase supply when sales are flat.
Too often a magazine distributor, one in particular, will chase money and cut you off even if you’re a few days late and have a good explanation. They want your cash for stock you didn’t order and may not even sell because it’s theirs and bugger you. Their thug like treatment of small businesses in some instances is shameful and breaks the will of some.
None of this is new, especially here. I’ve invested too many keystrokes in writing about the challenges of magazines. I love the category and desperately want it to grow. The problem is the system all to often works against that and us.
So, back to my friend from yesterday afternoon. We need people like him to stay in our channel. His fresh-blood approach and energy are important to broadening our view. Yet our preparedness to accept mediocre magazine distribution practices may well see him leave. I hope not.
In November I killed 37 titles from one supplier alone, some had no sales since 2006! Due to what I am calling ‘issue creep’ I have killed another 18 titles. One supplier has managed to give me an additional 6 titles per month, without authority, without sales numbers to support and without justification. Is it any wonder we get sad about it all. Why can’t the distributors ask before they send them?
Hi Guys
Only been around in this game for 6 months in the folks business and already frustrated by these draconian supply issues. We are a very small newsagent in a regional town of only 600. This month alone one distributor has added 25% in costs in unwanted magazines.
The titles are mainly from Derwent and Howard and are all in the $15 range along with the new 4wd series and will not sell here due to our age demographic.
With local farm price issues impacting our area this is a huge strain on cash flow for a small enterprise and I can only imagine the adverse effects on a larger store!
holy thread-mine Batman!
I apologise for getting off the track but would like other newsagents advice on people walking in off the street and using us as a library. I completely understand the fact that they may be a potential customer but we ran an exercise for a week where all the staff went and asked people that wre reading mags if they needed help locating a title and more often than not they said they were browsing. In fact a number of people said they were waiting for an appointmnet /friend and were killing time. Have only had our shop for 12 months (and I’m tired and frustrated!!) so is this one of those situations where you grin and bare it. Would love feedback, Cheers
Tammy, be a library and embrace it. If you block this fewer people will visit your shop. maybe put in some seats.
Tammy, I used to go in and read and if I found the information in the magazine I wanted, I’d purchase the magazine. If not I’d leave – I did this for years at Mark’s store actually.
Now I’m on the other side of the counter I can see how it gets annoying, but if Mark had said something off putting to me when I was browsing, I wouldn’t have returned.
One thing I’ve noticed is that people are sort of like sheep, so if there’s two people browsing and a person walks past and sees there’s people in your store they’ll walk in and hopefully make a purchase. – My weird theory anyway.
Thanks guys, I will take your advice and embrace it!! I appreciate the feedback, you have put a different slant on it for me, and Michael your’e right. At the end of the day, it looks good if people are in your shop.