Vogue this month has a free gift in a sleeve on the side of the magazine meaning it needs around 15% more shelf width than usual. With space so tight newsagents have no choice but to jam the package in, thereby risking damaging the free gift and diluting the value. The other challenge with the latest issue of Vogue is the length of the plastic bag in which they have the magazine. This steals cover space from any magazine above in the fixturing.
These may seem like small points. We are magazine specialists as as such we try and present all magazines professionally. Publishers trying to steal space from others makes our job more difficult. The alternative to being frustrated about this behaviour by publishers is to not care about the category.