We received the Beckett 2010 World Cup Guide in store on Friday, long after the last goal of the 2010 World Cup had been kicked. Gotch should never have sent out this title. Sure there will be some die-hard fans who will want it as a souvenir but I doubt sales will be enough to justify the cash-flow cost to newsagents. I would have given the title a go had I received it two months ago. We received three copies at $21.95 each. I broke with my own rule and early returned them all. I am not prepared to have $60 worth of out of date stock sitting on my shelf when I have more current and fairly priced stock available. And while on the price, this magazine sells for $9.99 in the US. How do we get to $21.95 here given the current exchange rate. Surely freight cannot be that much.
Recently the vast majority of blogs on this site are about promoting various magazines or the problems with mags, do you feel that the magazine department of newsagencies are the last tipping point in the industry or is it just the flavour of the month?
I would have thought that there would be more content on departments or offerings in which we as an industry can be moving towards in order to make new money not just focusing on one area that has been in decline for years.
I say this because over the past 12 months we have been building our book, cd/dvd offer to now in which it out sells mags and at a higher profit %. Our confectionery sales now out sell newspapers and our computer ink outsells cigs (now that we cannot display them), all of these I can see as continued sales where as mags continue to go backwards and from what you say about the benchmarking the same is going on all around.
I’m just trying to gauge where we are heading as an industry.
Good question / comment Luke. I covered this in some detail in my Newsagency of the Future Workshops.
My view is that magazines offer a medium term opportunity to us. After that I am not sure. So, for my part, I will continue to obsess about them, attract traffic using them and drive impulse purchases using this.
Other departments are vitally important and I do cover them from time to time but not all newsagents are strong in gifts, books, ink or calendars.
Magazines are common and I am hoping that ideas I publish encourage newsagents to make the most of them in the short to medium term.
I also use magazines to illustrate oipportunities for retail theatre, visual merchandising and impulse purchase activity.
Mark, would you have any idea how they calculate the price for overseas magazines?
Japanese magazines that I can find in Melbourne are on average about $20, whereas the magazines themselves would cost ~$6-8 at current rate.
It’s cheaper for me to order them online or get friends to send them to me (and i’ll also get the latest issue)
Aaron, the distributor would either be buying at a discount off retail, probably around 50%. Otherwise, the publisher would just contract the distributor to circulate in Australia.
So, for the sake of discussion, 50% off retail = US$4.99. Convert (generously): A$5.54. Freight, say $2.00. Distributor costs, $2.00. Retail mark up 33%: A$12.68.
is there any truth to the rumour that g+g are buying their international titles $$$ per tonne? hence the reason they are cover returns?