Outside of the challenges of oversupply and long shelf lives is the cost of shoplifting of magazines. Take Better Photoshop Techniques. At $24.95, all we need is to have one stolen and we lose the profit what we will sell across two issues. This is another reason I would like magazine distributors and publishers to partner with newsagents in weathering the financial cost of shoplifting. While they will say it is our retail space and our obligation to minimise theft, the slim margin on magazines limits the amount we can invest in this effort. While this is not a new problem, it is more in focus today because of the need to look at every cent we can save within our businesses. If we are not to be given easier guaranteed control over what we carry then those pushing product to us need to share the theft cost.
Woah, thats pretty significant… I had no idea magazines had such slim margins…
Sometimes I’ve wondered about this though – often magazines are displayed in areas customers can walk right past without the people working in the shop being able to see…
Incidentally, how come Newsagents don’t have one ‘browsing’ copy in front of each set of magazines? It would mean sacrificing a copy yes, but the way it is now everyone grabs whatever magazine is there, flicks through and puts the dog-eared copy back – and whose going to buy that now?