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The International Perspective on the Retail Channel
Foreign markets are paying close attention to how the U.S. newsstand dynamic plays out.
BY LINDA RUTH
http://www.audiencedevelopment.com/2012/
I'm recently back from Distripress, the international conference of magazine publishers and distributors held in Glasgow, Scotland. Distripress' stated purpose is to facilitate sharing ideas across international borders. It's a great opportunity to do just that, and to find out what's going on in publishing all over the world.
One thing that distributors all over the world seem to do is to keep an eye on the U.S. trade press. At a number of my meetings people mentioned that they read my blog regularly. "We need to watch what happens in the U.S.," a distributor from Holland told me. "It affects us. Our retailers saw what happened in the U.S., how the retailers took control of that whole channel of trade. They saw what they could do. And they started doing it themselves."
What was it, I wondered, that they do? "Now they mandate reductions in allotments, assortment limitations, very high efficiencies. If a distributor is unable to meet the guidelines they can get fined by the retailer for many thousands of dollars; they'll get kicked out of the chain. The power of retail is enormous here."
"We see that bookazines are very big in the U.S.," a German distributor told me. "Here too they are very important. DVDs, cover mounts, lots of great content-all do well in our market."
"Publishers are cutting back on editorial to save costs," a Japanese distributor said. "They are losing money because of smartphones. People get so much for free from their smartphones that they don't have to buy anything anymore."
What, I asked, could be done about that? "Japanese buying habits are shifting to Internet purchasing. Readers here love U.S. magazines. We are selling more of our imports through Amazon Japan. We incentivize higher sales efficiencies with bigger discounts. You can sell more copies through Amazon Japan by sending information in advance, showing what is going to be featured in upcoming issues."
Not all distributors agreed with points of view I expressed. "You talk about how the publisher is getting squeezed for discount," a Caribbean distributor said. "What about the distributor? Costs keep going up-shipping costs, fuel costs, costs from the retailers demanding more margin or revenue. These costs all trickle back to the distributor, but if we can't share that cost with the publisher, there is nowhere for the money to come from-how can we keep paying for these additional expenses if revenues don't also rise?"
What could they do about it, I wanted to know? "Lots of distributors are looking to non-magazine products for a solution; but it's late in the game for most of the products."
"Where are the new publications?" a distributor for India and Hong Kong asked. "We're not seeing much this year." I asked, what did they talk about in the meetings, then? "We're looking at deeper levels of distribution, expanding vertically rather than always horizontally. Specialty distribution; expanding displays in current outlets; ways to support and grow sales of publications we do have."
To sum up, here are some of the international newsstand trends identified at Distripress:
-Greater retailer power
-Growth achieved through the sale of bookazines
-Buying habits shifting to the Internet
-Distributors having to manage higher costs without commensurately higher revenue.
-Improving sales through a refinement of the distribution process.
These trends, familiar to us in our local markets, are resonating throughout the world; and learning the way the world deals with them is reason enough to attend.
Linda Ruth is Principal of Publisher Single Copy Sales Services. Her book of case studies, "How to Market Your Magazine on the Newsstand," is available at BookDojo.com and atAmazon.
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