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ABR Mag

Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2020 9:58 am
by Sanqhar
I always like to buy magazines in a shop, I view it as helping the local economy. I have never taken out a subscription.

I haven't been able to find the ABR magazine in my local W H Smiths since lockdown. In fact their range of bike magazines seems reduced as well.

Anyone else having this problem?

tom

Re: ABR Mag

Posted: Tue Oct 27, 2020 10:48 am
by Richard Simpson Mark II
The closure of 'corner shop' independent newsagents and shrinking shelf space for magazines in WHS is a long-term trend accelerated by the rise of 'on line' media and more recently by the lock-down. The flip side is that more supermarkets now sell a wider range of mags.

The WHS argument is that they make more profit per metre of shelf out of greetings cards than magazines.

As an editor and brand manager I used to have to fight tooth and nail to get my magazine on the shelf at certain outlets. Even if you'd paid for a promotional space, you'd find some outlets didn't even bother to unpack the magazines, but would return them unopened for a full refund. To say it was frustrating was an understatement!

With newstrade magazines, a 50% sales efficiency is a result to be celebrated (hey, guys, only half of what we produced got thrown away last month, so we must be doing something right), and the publisher gets less than half of the cover price of those sold as revenue.

I've gone from editing the best-selling road transport magazine to doing little or nothing for newstrade publications. Requested circulation or association journals are now the most worthwhile outlets.