Alpha magazine recorded the biggest sales fall in the six months to December 31, 2009 as reported by the Audit Bureau of Circulation and I wonder if newsagents played a role in this.
The 30.7% decline in sales is extraordinary. It represents 30,000 fewer copies sold.
In April last year, Alpha changed its distribution and newsagent compensation models. The 40% cut to newsagent income from the sale of Alpha hurt. Many newsagents reacted by removing Alpha from the premium location next to newspapers and placing it with other sports related titles, usually toward the back of the store.
While we will never know if this action played a role in the steep sales decline, I suspect that it did based on the number of newsagents I heard from who wanted to make a point about their treatment over Alpha.
Read my blog post from March 28 last year for the back story.
I stopped selling it from the day of the change over , straight away my supply mutiplied so i was not going to put up with it and i am sure others did the same thing , and there has been no loss no one has ever asked for it
YES WE DID!!!
After the change over, I looked at numerous Newsagents who had all changed the position.
WE’RE NOT STUPID.
Thats Great.
But lets see if we can boost a title.
If we could all decide on one title to promote for a ratings period and see what happens. Perhaps a Lovatts or a “Symply to good to be True”.
see what can happen when we all work together , not saaying every one had the shits with it and either moved it or stopped it all together but by the figures i would say the majority didn’t like what was going on and i think a message has been sent to who ever had the bright idea to change it .
Perhaps the real answer here is to ensure the continued decline of the magazine by not displaying the magazine anywhere other than one face at the back of the store and no colateral put out at all. News do not appear to have any consideration for this channel in view of how they have treated their delivery agents anyway.
The problems with Alpha are at publisher level. The reason retail commission was dropped was the inability to run the magazine profitably under the previous business model. No doubt the actions of some newsagents contributed to the downturn, but it was only one factor. The magazine has never made money and never will. It’s only being kept alive to fuel the egos who created it.
we never sold more than 5 copies b4 the change over and now not even 1 copy.
None of my customers care for it, I don’t care for it
Stopped selling it the day it changed over and we were screwed at the same time.
We have had maybe 6 requests for it since we got rid of it.
We stopped selling it the day of the changeover. Only received 1 request and converted the customer to “Inside Sport”.