before i go and buy one.

beneficial to whom? To the mag itslef, i’d hazard a guess at online, as tescos margins they forse on magazines are pi$$ poor.

subscribe, then you get free / cheap / reduced stuff

It must have been pre-website-hack, but there was a blog post about how poorly the magazines are treated by the big supermarkets. It’s a massively wasteful process and they squeeze the returns that the publisher sees to virtually nothing.

If you want more of your money to actually go to the people that write and produce a magazine, subscribe.

Alaways buy from my local trail centre, never seen in Tesco.

Subscribed for PDFs last week. Loving it.

Direct debit best for them, I’d guess? They might make less per issue, but it’s guaranteed cash flow.

Please not from Tesco, in fact I would be surprised if you see it there because it is not a mainstream weekly.

Tesco have a policy of stocking quick moving mainstream weekly mags and guiding readership away from niche monthly mags.

BTW I am in the paper trade 🙂

downloaded a pdf this time, but might subscribe for issue 50, especially if a hip flask is thrown in too!

OK, Here’s my take on it.

The boys (and girls) probably make more margin if you buy direct, so on your individual purchase they might be better off if you bought online.

But I’m sure that having the mag in Tescos hepls them get additional casual sales, and as magazines fight for space in this environment, your purchase might help keep the mag stocked and in a good position on the shelf.

I managed to get the mag stocked in the Leeds Borders by asking them to get me a copy in, back in the day…..

it’d be beneficial to the entire world if we all stopped buying anything at all from tesco’s, i reckon.
ugh.

For individual issue purchasing I *think* we get a bit more if done through STW Online Shop. We make very little on subscriptions, we make more money form people buying individual issues (wherever/however they choose to). We still want people to subscribe because it’s consistent/predictable “revenue stream” (or something!) 🙂

I buy in the shop ‘cos I get a walk and a galaxy caramel when I’m out. And then I go to the pub to read it.

Ben pretty much nailed it..

We need sales through ALL outlets, including the supermarkets so don’t worry overly about exactly where is best. If you buy Singletrack anywhere you are doing us a big favour and it’s very much appreciated.

If I made a list and put all the different ways of buying the mag in some kind of order then a Direct Debit subscription would be top of the list.

We also now do repeat billing subscriptions via a credit or debit card. Direct Debit is UK accounts only at the moment but repeat billing works on any card anywhere in the world.

See the ‘Subscription Options’ in the footer of this page for more details, as they say – and in fact as I just did 🙂

aw – Member
Please not from Tesco, in fact I would be surprised if you see it there because it is not a mainstream weekly.

Yes the larger Tesco do stock it but…..

xherbivorex – Member
it’d be beneficial to the entire world if we all stopped buying anything at all from tesco’s, i reckon.
ugh.

I totally agree. I hate the place. I’m just managing to bottle up a rant, otherwise I’ll be typing for the rest of the morning.

Direct cuts out another ‘mouth’ however if you stopped buying in say WHSmiths then the sales figures would be down and it might just ‘tip it’ so the media/mags Buyer at WHSmiths decides not to stock anymore leading to more lost-sales (people who ‘graze’/pickup/impulse buy the mag). All IMO of course….so swings and roundabouts..

Tesco have been great with us. They’ve consistently stocked us in an ever increasing number of their stores and we’ve had to pay a lot less for that than we have had to do for WHSmith. On the other hand ASDA nearly tried to rape the magazine publishing sector last year.

On the other hand ASDA nearly tried to rape the magazine publishing sector last year.

I personally wouldnt want that in the public domain Mark! 🙄

If you look at all the big supermarkets though- none of them are cheap.

?

Why?

i remember that asda thing. tossers.

i’m a lefty liberal typical chorlton dweller though, i’m afraid, so you’ll never convince me that tesco are “the good guys”!

Official word from mag, future potential business, media/magazines buyers also have hobbies… although my comment is highly tentative its still not wise with potential/future outlets?

Direct cuts out another ‘mouth’ however if you stopped buying in say WHSmiths then the sales figures would be down and it might just ‘tip it’ so the media/mags Buyer at WHSmiths decides not to stock anymore leading to more lost-sales (people who ‘graze’/pickup/impulse buy the mag). All IMO of course….so swings and roundabouts..

That’s a pretty good summary 🙂

This is ever so slightly off topic, but being quite interested in the magazine publishing world it’s certainly something I’d be interested to know.

Have you any idea (if such information is available to you) how big a market the casual buyer is to you? By that I mean does more of your revenue come from the repeat buyer or the casual buyer?

The very thing that appeals to me about Singletrack has always been the less bitesize articles – everything is more in-depth – and this will never lend itself to the casual market as much as the bullet-point editorial style of the competition.

I’d imagine the vast majority of casual buyers (even when faced with the louder retail version of ST) will still be drawn to the competitiors’ much louder, brash and dare I say more superficial offerings. So how much would be lost by not trying to be part of that race?

The idea of the clean cover is great, and as an LBS customer the one I buy, but understandably you feel this wouldn’t grab enough attention amongst the competition on the shelves of Tesco/WHSmith etc.

Since I became involved in such things I’ve had a particular interest in editorial design and it has always surprised me (not surprised me, more nagged me) that few magazines outside the niche worlds of fashion and design dare put out such sparse cover designs for fear of getting lost on the shelf.

It has always been something I’d love to put to the test – the theory that a sparse cover could be, in the current race for attention, the perfect way to stand out amidst the noise and action of the magazine rack.

I’d love to hear the results of a small experiment using the clean cover on a busy rack. To find out* if, on a rack full of noisy covers, a sparse leafy Singletrack cover would be totally lost or if it would work the negative space and stand out a mile.

*not enough to offer to cover the revenue losses it might bring, which I understand is the bottom line 🙂 It’s just an interesting concept.