Check out what the publisher of The Australian Woodworker has published in the latest issue of the magazine. They infer newsagents have cut their title from the mix of magazines they carry. I wonder if this is what they have been told or whether they have other evidence of this.
They also claim that there are new newsagents who do not appreciate the interest in woodworking.
If I were them I’d want supply and return data by newsagency for the last three years. I’d also want to know how many newsagencies have specifically cut the title versus how many are no longer supplied because of sales performance of the title and a cut therefor by the magazine distributor allocations system.
A better approach for the publisher would have been to engage with newsagents, to educate us about the title and to invest in driving traffic to the channel.
Their decision to go the other way, and promote only a direct subscription relationship will only encourage more newsagents to look at not stocking the title.
I’d urge the publisher to retract their statement and engage directly with newsagents:
- Provide collateral (real or downloadable) with which to promote the title.
- Provide einside information on who is the likely reader and how to sell to them.
- Be clear on where the title should be placed in a newsagency.
- Make a commercial offer to encourage newsagent support.
- List newsagent stockists on your website.
- Talk up newsagents in the magazine.
- Tell newsagents how you support them.
Newsagencies are businesses. Every magazine pocket has to pay its way. To achieve this, we need publishers to actively support our channel as the magazine specialist channel at ever opportunity. We need collateral with which to promote titles. We need publishers engaged with us commercially.
Publishers who do nothing to support the channel can expect nothing in return.
We place AW in prominent space in the catagory and sell 5 to 8 copies a month. Where customers look for joinery/woodworking mags we always point them there first. I am surprised at their findings….
i have not received any since july , it just stopped coming in , i have sales history that says i do sell 2 or 3 of them but they stopped it coming in .
Speechless with incredulity, except to say that I’ve never seen such lame whining in all my life, that is potentially so very damaging to their outlets.
Wow!
Have not had supply for the past few yrs, not because I cut the title but we were no longer worthy of delivery. niche titles are on a flogging to nothing, we cannot donate real estate without ROI but when it does not move we get the chop.
Maybe they should be bashing the distributer……
Maybe it is a planned move .take it off your shelves , so you may loose a few sales ,tell your customers that they no longer print it and see how there sales go . Without the mags on your shelf they have no way of knowing about the subscription . Time we grow some balls and stop letting publishers and distibutors walk all over us .
As a magazine buyer (I do not own a newsagency) I can’t see anything wrong with the Woodworkers ad. It doesn’t give me the impression they’re rubbishing newsagencies. Some newsagents do cut back on niche magazines.
I subscribe to an Australian magazine which is published every 2 months. For about 3 years I bought it from a local newsagent. A year ago I went to get a copy and it wasn’t on the shelf.
Asked the girl about it and she said it hadn’t come in. She wrote down my name to put a copy aside for me when it came in.
After 2 or 3 weeks with no magazine, I rang up and subscribed because I didn’t want to miss a copy.
This was one of the better newsagents in town and I don’t blame them. They tried to help me but they didn’t know why the magazine wasn’t delivered. And I didn’t want to take the chance on missing a copy.
As a customer, I’m not interested in who’s to blame. If you can’t supply my magazine, that’s okay. I can get it elsewhere.
Richard.
Used to have a few putaways of this title. At one time or another, supply became erratic and inconsistent, with some issues never turning up. Despite our best efforts, we could not get a steady supply, so our customers moved to subscription.
Another niche title passed into the abyss.
At least those “modern computer and video game” magazines still arrive on time, and sell.
I just checked my arrivals for the last few years. This magazine must be due this week or next week. After treatment like this, the mag will get put out the back ready for return.
If the customers ask where it is, I will explain about rude treatment from the publisher.
A proper apology from the publisher may change my mind. I used to show customers this mag when they asked about woodworking. That will now change.
Used to get 2 copies, hadn’t sold one in over a year!! Realised and cut it from our supply list. I think this was justified.
It blows me away how little publishers know about selling magazines. I understand that business is tough for publishers, with greater competition for advertising dollars and customer’s attention. That’s Business.
Most proactive business’s look to maximise opportunities with their biggest customers. Here’s the reality check for publishers – Newsagents have the second biggest traffic flow in retail, the customers we serve are our customers, your magazine will not sell if we don’t display it. It’s up to you as a supplier to decide whether you want to be involved with the biggest retail channel for magazines or not. Historically the service delivery and margins involved with magazines has been poor – that no longer cuts it in today’s retail environment. There are thousands of titles of magazines for sale in Australia but i’d suggest less than 20 could survive on subscriptions. Good Luck!
wow look at what turns up today they skip an issue but yet they blame newsagents
In there editorial part of there magazine they are saying they are working with there distributor , so they now realise they jumped the gun by saying it is our fault but yet they do not have the balls to come on here and say sorry for knocking the people that helped establish there magazine .
Over the last 12 mths I usually sell 1 occasionally 2 copies. Today I received 6 copies. How is this justified, and they wonder why their magazine is early returned
Hmmmm, the distributor has not delivered this title to us since we gained direct supply in June. We were selling 1-2 per month up until then and with over 800 pockets of magazines to manage we have not noticed the failure to supply nor has any customer queried us or we woulod have fixed the problem on the spot. As it is I have requested supply resume with the distributor today BUT I considered not doing so with the publishers ignorant actions. I do this only for the customers that were purchasing the title. If the publishers want to alienate newsagents this is one way to to it.
they changed distibutors early last year so i would think the distributor is not to blame here , i think that were trying to make us look bad by not supplying so that they can get subscriptions . We all know that distibutors like to supply everything and anything so why stop supplies on this one .It all sounds a bit suss to me
I like the flyer that came with it today telling us where to locate it………they are lucky it got displayed at all.
Perhaps we need to return the flyer and mags early and suggest in turn where they could locate it ?