From the front page brewery story

Singletrack is no longer sold on the traditional newsstand

When did that happen?

If only they had some form of web advetising!

I suspect sales were too low esp with lockdown.

If “traditional newsstand” means WHSmith, supermarkets, etc it hasn’t been for years.

Blimey, actually 8 years… https://singletrackworld.com/2012/02/issue-72-why-the-big-changes/

just reading that article

Under the first photo.

You now you old home brewing kit. Stu’s is much bigger.

I think I can work out what is meant…

They have been going round all the big facebook groups offereing 50% discount on subs.

Blimey, actually 8 years…

To be fair, probably not been in a WHSmiths etc (bar the airport) for over 8 years…

Urgh. WH Smiths with its sticky carpets and battered displays.

Much rather buy a paper subscription upfront. The mag get their money, I get it delivered to the door  and as a bonus I get to sniff it when I open the packaging.

If “traditional newsstand” means WHSmith, supermarkets, etc it hasn’t been for years.

Not true. We’ve been in WHS for almost 15 years. We pulled the plug on WHS and the rest of the newsstand with issue 131 principally because it would be a waste of resources since that’s a declining retail outlet. We have done what hundreds of mags have done over the past few months. Magazines are no longer an impulse buy when out shopping so the efficiencies on sales were down around 40% (Which is a high score in publishing land). But we have never been happy with the waste that produces. We took the Covid situation as an opportunity for change after over 15 years in the highstreet.

You can still buy Singletrack from our premier dealers

We also have never been in airports due to the massively high cost of paying for that space. Magazines generally don’t make a profit in Airports on cover sales due to the cost of the shelf space being higher than the returns on sales. It’s a strategic opportunity to try and score regular readers or subscribers. The benefit has been more a kudos factor or based on a ‘feeling’ that it might be a good thing to do. I’ve never subscribed to that as a business model so we’ve never gone down that route.

We’ve had way more subscriber copies going out than individual copy sales for the last 5 years at least so now seems like the perfect opportunity to change the model to subscriber only. It also means we don’t have to print two versions of each issue, which is a considerable saving for us.

We also have never been in airports due to the massively high cost of paying for that space. Magazines generally don’t make a profit in Airports on cover sales due to the cost of the shelf space being higher than the returns on sales. It’s a strategic opportunity to try and score regular readers or subscribers.

I just assumed WHSmith decided what to sell in airports rather than the suppliers paying to be promoted…..

I hope it goes well. More freedom to choose cover photos as well

MAgazine ? When did that start ? Is it worth a read then ?

Footflaps. They of course have veto over what they put on their shelves but shelf space is a marketplace paid for by publishers. It cost us approximately £8k/ year to be on the shelves of WHS. That bought us listing in around 250 of their biggest stores. There’s around 500 in total. To be in all 500 would cost many times more than that and is only really a prospect for the big volume weekly titles. That £8k price was called a’marketing spend’ and bought us promotions like front of shelf positions for a week on certain titles. But if you don’t buy it you get delisted. In other words it’s essentially a cost of membership to be placed on the shelves. That is paid direct to WHS in addition to their 25% take on the cover price of sales. Our distributor took 25% leaving us with 50% of the cover price for copies sold (40% of what we send them). The unsolds are destroyed by the branch after tearing off and returning the front covers to our distributor to verify the numbers.

We also have never been in airports due to the massively high cost of paying for that space

Good to know.  In fact given that there is not much money to be made  I wish they would dump the whole airport ‘retail experience’ and just let us get to our departure gate without having to walk through Dante’s version of IKEA.  All we want it a seat with a bit of space, something nice to drink and not having to run at the last minute because they want the last few pence from us

Prior to subscribing I used to see it and buy it regularly in the WH Smith’s at King’s Cross, certainly less than 8 years ago. I quite miss buying it in a shop.

@Mark, thanks – interesting to know.

I knew Supermarkets did that for promotions etc, didn’t realise it happened elsewhere….

The unsolds are destroyed by the branch after tearing off and returning the front covers to our distributor to verify the numbers.

That’s quite shocking – good on you for putting a stop to it.

As a retailer, all news and mag sales have been declining for years. Most of us wouldn’t have mags at all but it’s part of the deal with the distribution that if you want news, you have mags.

Would love to sell on a subscriptions / order in basis in shop though, as that’s almost 0 shelf space.

Mags have the absolute worst £ per meter shelf return within most shops.

I’ve only a tiny village shop, 350sqft (an average Tesco express would be around 3500sqft+). I’ve 3.6m of shelving dedicated to mags, which is almost 10% of my ambient shelving. There are sooooo many things I could use that space for with a far better return…. But because I need to sell newspapers I simply can’t remove them.

Ever wondered why WHSmith, officially the worst shop on the high street for well over a decade now, hasn’t gone the way of Woolworths etc?
They have a manopoly on the market for news and mags as they also distribute to all other shops, all the supermarkets, all of the small shops and all of the independents. By far my worst supplier, there is no other supplier I’m able to use in my area.

Most of us wouldn’t have mags at all but it’s part of the deal with the distribution that if you want news, you have mags.

Why is that if they sell so badly?

They pay well?

@mark
I’m glad Stw has the chance to go subscription only. First time I read about the waste involved in magazines( in stw) I was gobsmacked!

I’m happy to subscribe, and looking forward to the next issue.

Any chance of through the grinder re appearing?

Is the hate for WH Smith and English thing? Certainly none of the ex-John Menzies branches match the description.

That’s pretty shocking though, I had no idea they just shredded them, I always assumed they were returned and that’s how you end up with back copies.

Good luck though, the model certainly seems to be working for others so I can’t see why it won’t work for you either.

Not true. We’ve been in WHS for almost 15 years.

Sorry 😄 Probably been that long since I looked in a big WHS. I subscribe to the mags I want to read and always have a backlog so never feel the need to go browsing.

Any chance of through the grinder re appearing?

[backs out of thread before it kicks off 😉]

Just heard today that another of the mags I like, Modern Classics, has gone down the tubes. Decided to subscribe to the couple of magazines that I usually buy in the shops as a result, then this thread pops up!

[backs out of thread before it kicks off 😉]

I liked the grinder! I’ve read why it went.

As my mate says “shy barins get no sweeties” 😀

In other asking for stuff that’s unlikely, can we have the old classified back? -runs off-

Apps such as readly give access to hundreds of magazines for a monthly subscription. MBUK and MBR are available, but STW is not. I always thought that the magazines might get paid per download, however since it turns out that magazines pay shops to display their paper magazines on the high street, perhaps the online model is also different to what I thought.

Anyone know how readly etc pay the magazines?

Readly works like Netflix and Apple News+

Publishers get paid a proportional share of the subscription revenue depending on how much time readers spend in those publications. It’s a bit like the Spotify model for music artists. With Apple News+ about 60% of the readers subs payment goes into the general pot for the magazines. The other 40% is Apple’s cut. I’m not sure what the readly system is but I imagine it’s something similar.

Industry current thinking is that it’s a tiny revenue stream and only worth it for strategic purposes. By that I mean by being in there and getting read data (how many people are reading your mag) the publisher can justify their page ad rates to advertisers. The publishers will get relatively small amounts from the general revenue pot.

If you are a Readly subscriber and you only read one magazine then 60% of your subs payment will go to the publisher of that mag. If you read dozens of mags or even more by dipping in and out of them then 60% of your subs revenue gets spread out and becomes progressively less per publisher.

The NYT recently pulled out of Apple News entirely because the returns were not worth it. Facebook is also a big tech platform for publishers via its Instant Article platform – That’s where you see an article in your feed with a small lightning symbol next to it. When you read that article you are reading it entirely on the Facebook platform. The Publisher gets a cut of the ad revenue displayed within the article.

Most of the large publishing media brands have pulled out of Facebook Instant Articles because after Facebook’s large cut of the ad revenue there’s not a lot left. We stopped using Instant Articles in March because we get a greater revenue return from the ads directly on our website than we do from Facebook. The returns on ad revenue within Apple News were scarily insignificant – like around a few £ a day. We currently aren’t publishing to Apple News either.

In iOS 14 it’s going to get harder for publishers as Apple are making most ads within their apps entirely opt in only, which is going to make it harder for us to pay for what we do. Some in the publishing industry see this as an attempt by Apple to force us on to their platform as that’s where they get to control the ads and take a hefty cut.

The end of third party cookies in 2021 by Google is going to further stress out the world of publishing. The future of publishing and paying for content via ads is looking very uncertain right now. Hence my big push on memberships and reader revenues. Only with a large enough proportion of our revenue from you guys will be able to continue.

Direct support from the bike industry is also really important to our future – Hence why we are doing more with brands around sponsorships and big site takeover campaigns.

So please subscribe and help us fund more development of content and digital services. The ball is kind of in your court as much as ours on this 🙂

And of course the same goes for any other mags you really like. They are all going to need your help to survive.

Hi @Mark I’m a new subscriber and opted for the Coffee and Magazine subscription, having lurked on the forums for a while.

I enjoyed the coffee and I’m looking forward to receiving the Magazine. Would you consider offering the coffee every month as a part of a subscription option with the magazine coming when it does?

Sounds like a challenging market, good luck.

@icic We are working on enhanced subscriptions and along with a new milder blend of coffee this is definitely something we will look into.

along with a new milder blend of coffee

That is welcome news!

Oooh! Mellow Baby Robins.

@footflaps
WHSmith and Menzies are the only distributors of news and mags in the uk. They have a manopoly on it. I could prob do a 10,000 word rant on how poor a supplier and manopoly of the market etc.