CMYK magazine perfectly illustrates the challenge Australian newsagents face. In all but a handful of newsagencies it will sell one copy an issue if you are lucky. It has a cover price of $24.50. I like CMYK because it reflects depth of range. I don’t like that it is loss making for us, selling one copy every two or three issues. There are several hundred titles like this around which we and other newsagents need to make a decision.
Newsagents I talk with are more likely today to make the decision to quit CMYK than they were two or three years ago. This is because they see less support from publishers or newsagents. Lack of support by one publisher – because they moved into petrol and convenience – makes newsagents less inclined to support other publishers.
The newsagency channel is finely balanced. The pain inflicted at one was always bound to hurt at another. Hence the pain which will flow for fringe publishers of small volume titles which do not pay their way.
If we can eliminate these low volume fringe titles, newsagents will be better resourced to handle the other titles some of which are delivering tremendous growth.
The way we handle the “low volume fringe titles” now is putting them away for customers that can’t find them anywhere. So we are basically getting a guarrenteed sale, and freeing up shelf space for magazines that are new or just good sellers. Inturn keeps people coming back and keeps us as magazine specialists.
We also have a number of titles that do not even hit the shelves as the only copy is a put away for a regular customer. We regularly cull magazines that sell less than 5 out of 6 issues. As a subby we have to be right on top of slow selling mags as the margin makes them unprofitable if turnover is not extremely regular.