Maybe it is just me but sales for Simpsons comics appear to have fallen through the floor. With an appalling sell through rate, sometimes single digit, these titles are not even paying for the retail real-estate they occupy – especially in a shopping centre newsagency where rent is close to $300,000 a year. Add shrinkage, labour and returns shipping costs and they are seriously loss-making.
I wonder if comics will be among the first print titles to succumb to the pressure of disruptive technologies like the iPad and availability on the Net and other platforms.
Take a look at what ComiXology is doing. They have an iPad app and have just announced facilities to make comics more readily available on computers. Check out the video demonstration of the Marvel Comics iPad app developed by ComiXology.
While we still see the same number of kids sitting a reading in the shop, sales are not where the need to be. Newsagents need to capacity to quit a segment like comics if the sapce allocation is losing money. The current magazine distribution model does not work in our favour in this regard.
Back to the real-estate cost. We need to make $1.58 per week per magazine pocket to pay for the real-estate.
all my comics have just about disaperd now all i keep is the phantom comics and i hardly sell any of those as well . the simpson comics and one like them seem to be to expensive to buy especially when they are in there 3 pack deals for 12.95 no one here wants to pay that
we still keep alot of comics for 2 big customers who spent hundereds
The sell-through rate for Otter Press (Simpson’s etc), Universal and Blitz titles have been terrible for a long time. Hence, they find it almost impossible to get shelf space in my store.
And from The SMH website
“the closure of Australian men’s magazine Ralph, which was given the axe in a surprise announcement this afternoon.
In a statement, Australian Consolidated Press, which owns the magazine, announced that the July issue would be its last despite recently increasing its readership to 267,000 per month.
But it still lagged behind Zoo Weekly as the most read men’s magazine in Australia, who boasts 466,000 readers per month.
The company said Ralph will now publish via its website, which is one of the company’s most popular.