As a reward for buying a DVD from Amazon.com last week, I received an email from the company saying I qualify for three amazing magazine subscription deals:
Thanks to your recent DVD order, you now qualify for a $1 subscription to Rolling Stone (1-year), Men’s Journal (1-year) or Us Weekly (2-month). You can purchase individually or combine for $1 each, up to three total.
The consumer in me loves an offer like this. If I was a US resident why would I not take up at least one of the deals? I am a fan of Rolling Stone magazine and to get this delivered for a year for $1 would be excellent.
The retailer in me cringes when I read about the deal as I know there must be plenty around like this – co-promotions with other products. While we see few of these in newsagencies I have seen them in fitness centres, fashion businesses and sports clubs.
Every heavily discounted magazine subscription sold outside the retail channel is another reason for a shopper to not visit a newsagency or other magazine outlet and this challenges the health of the category.
I understand the need for publishers to balance sales between retail, subscription deep-discount subscription and other channels. It is the retail channel which billboards mastheads and helps titles find new readers. While a deal like the one from Amazon which I received last week may generate subscriptions, I suspect that someone discovering Rolling Stone in my newsagency will engage more deeply with the title than someone who picked it up for 8.3 cents a copy.