Not enough newsagents engaged with the publisher Vintage Caravan Magazine and their invitation to order the magazine for direct supply. Newsagents ordered less than 10% of what would be sold through the channel. It is no surprise therefore that the publisher has decided to use the traditional approach of magazine distributor drives scale out.
So, for all our bleating about problems with magazine distribution, we don’t appear to want to try an alternative.
I respect the publisher of Vintage Caravan Magazine and what they tried to do. I also understand their decision to go back to the traditional route to market as this is vital to the commercial success of the title.
Mark there is nothing really new about what they were trying to to do.I have done this in the past and still do with a couple of small magazines .It might just come down to what kind of magazine it is .
Small and indpendent magazine publishers need to form an association. They need to pool distribution, accounting and other resources.
Their magazines should be supplied to me on a firm sale basis at a substantially increased margin (50-60% of cover price).
They should develop a website where each newsagent can scroll down an alphabetical list of titles and set their own supply figure (knowing these are firm sale titles).
At the end of onsale period newsagents can either bin magazines, or mark down (attach “buy me i’m half price!” or “try me for just $2!!!” stickers, etc).
Magazines should be shipped to agents in one shipment each month, and there should be a cutoff date for setting supply figures, say, two weeks before the shipment date.
Newsagents should pay one bill and this should be reallocated to each publisher at their end.
This would make for a much more efficient and cost-effective solution for both newsagents and publishers. Under the current structure, the future of niche publications is bleak. Value has been sucked out of the magazine section of suburban newsagencies by increasing costs and widespread availability of the top selling titles at supermarkets, servos, etc. Newsagents can no longer afford to carry publications which don’t pay their way.
Excellent advice Cameron. I don’t know how many publishers there are, but I simply cannot imagine individually handling twenty or more niche publications in the way Vintage Caravan wanted, let alone even more !
great idea cameron, i would go for something like that. I dont have the time to micro manage a heaps of individual publishers that will all want to do it a different way. EDI would also be a must for me, I aint wasting time on manually entering stock.
Me as well.
I try and support small over monopolies every day.
Cameron deserves ‘post of the day’.
There is Publishers Australia.
Hi Cameron, please could you contact me at sally.macmillan@edgecustom.com.au – I edit a niche consumer magazine called Cruise Passenger (published by Edge) and am keen to improve distribution.
Best regards,
Sally
Sally have you considered IPS. They are well settled and helping engaged newsagents drive good outcomes.
I consider IPS to be setting a new benchmark for distribution aka increased
commissions (amazed that newsagents have not talked about that) and willing to
discuss the amount of shelf life (they have
a much shorter max shelf life than the other 2 major distributors) and the delivery of their product is at all times pristine which is much more than I can say
for the distribution by GG and Network.
Their air copies are a disgrace and top and bottom copies of parcels mostly go straight into returns. Considering the cost of some of these titles it is a total waste of time for the publisher simply because no-one is policing the distribution model and its endgame.
IPS product arrives with wraparounds (posters) all parcels both top and bottom so that we NEVER have a magazine that has to be removed before it even hits the shelves.
I have no reason to state these facts except for the obvious. IPS are doing it
better. I know they are small but the larger dist. people should be learning from
them regarding quality and I can’t remember reporting one single shortage\
of IPS product whereas I have to report daily on GG and Network. Shortages are
rife and packaging quality is poor.
I have also found IPS telphone staff to be helpful and obliging with the ocassional verbal return when there are system issues. Further when it comes to killing non performing publications it happens unlike others. So far quiet happy with IPS
The only problem with IPS is the complete mess that have made of Winning Post and Best Bests.
It was SNAFU from day one, and despite being told a million times they are only repsonding to it in recent days.
Yeah I’m a big fan of IPS. I am better off financially from having them as a supplier. They are innovating in terms of magazine management options.
now i am happy with IPS but when it first started there were a few teathing problem especially getting supply right for the early days i was getting bigger bills than my sales it reminded me of NDD GG and NDC but now everything is running fine