TRADE SECRETS
I learned some pretty useful information earlier today, thanks to a 'sales' report that was left on the counter at a central Bangkok bookshop. It would not be fair to name the store because I am sure the company concerned would not be happy that such information was seen by someone in the publishing industry, let alone being left on the counter for anyone to see.
What the report showed was the gross sales for magazines yesterday (Sunday). This shop is in what I consider to be a prime location and it sold 57 magazines with total revenue of just over 13,000 baht. (The total revenue for the entire shop was a little under 50,000 baht).
Roughly half of that 13,000 baht will go back to the publishers who generally give anything between 35% and 50% commission to the shop for selling their magazines. That same is probably true for books.
I'm pretty surprised at the relatively low level of magazine income. This store sells mainly non-Thai magazines and is in a prime tourist area. I would have expected more that 57 sales on any given day.
4 comments:
That does sound like a low number of magazines to be sold in a prime location. I would suspect tourist don't buy much in the way of magazines and newspapers though because they are here to see Thailand and have an adventure.
It's not just tourists though; I would have expected a lot more magazines to have been sold.
It was one of the places where the majority of titles are in English although there were also German and a few Thai too.
I wonder how much of that is due to subscription over news stand purchases? For instance, even at the currently abysmal exchange rate for the $, a 1 year subscription to The Economist is 135 baht a copy, a 35% savings of the news stand price. Long term residents are more likely to subscribe, or they read the copy provided by their office. Those who can't afford the high cover price will hit one of the many second hand shops selling used copies of foreign publications. Central Lad Prao and The Mall on Ramkhamheang were favorites of mine, where a current copy of Newsweek could be had for about 30 baht, rather than the 90 charged at the news stand. Jatujak also has a thriving used magazine section, open every day.
Subscriptions - ahhh, another of my responsibilities here.
I personally don't think cost is an issue when it comes to magazines like The Economist and BusinessWeek. You either see the value of what's inside or you don't. (Newsweek is now 135 baht per edition).
There are very few local magazines that sell subscriptions well. For publishers it's great because we know a lot about our subscribers and it's more cost effective. No wasted unsold copies. BusinessWeek in the US offers a one-year subscription that works out at 88 cents per issue instead of the $4.95 cover price, and that's why something like 90% of its readers around the world are subscribers.
I am pretty sure that overseas publishers will be shocked if they knew their magazines are being sold off cheaply. That's not how it should be done and I personally go to massive lengths to ensure copies of my own magazine doesn't end up at JJ or anywhere else at a ridiculous rate.
Good discussion, thanks David.
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