BREAKING NEWS & VIEWS

Wal-Mart Rack-Trim Motivated by Sales…And Discipline
Friday, January 18, 2008

Keith Kelly’s 1/18 story in The New York Post on Wal-Mart’s elimination of about 1,400 mags from its in-store distribution list stirred much interest in the magazine community. Upon closer inspection, however, the trimming of the rack list does not really represent much of a blow to mag circ or retail sales revenue numbers.

According to John Harrington, editor of The New Single Copy, a weekly trade newsletter on magazine distribution, Wal-Mart’s total impact on retail magazine sales is at 15-17%, rather than the 20% initially reported. For some magazines, Wal-Mart may represent as much as 25% of newsstand profit, but, for most, the mega-store represents far less. And, the 1,400 magazines that were taken off the shelves only made up 2-3% of total magazine retail sales for the store. That means that the estimated 1,100 magazines left on the Wal-Mart rack accounted for 97-98% of all magazine sales revenues in Wal-Mart; the mags that were cut weren’t selling. But sales weren’t the only motivation.

In the case of Meredith’s Better Homes & Gardens and Ladies’ Home Journal, the removal of mags from the shelves may have been punitive. We had heard that Wal-Mart was unhappy with the company after it discovered that BH&G and LHJ overrun copies were being distributed at a store called Dollar Daze for the sub-newsstand price of $1, sometimes at the same time as the same issue was being sold at Wal-Mart for full-freight.

Sources that we contacted at the company did not have comment about the Dollar Daze situation.

“We are having ongoing conversations with Wal-Mart, and we have a good marketing relationship with them,” a spokesperson for Meredith told minonline.  We will keep you updated on this angle as news comes in.

Aside from cutting the dead weight from its magazine distribution rolls (and from possibly punishing Meredith), part of the motivation for this move was for Wal-Mart to reduce substantially the amount of magazines on its shelves with poor sell-through rates. Wal-Mart is currently running a company-wide sustainability program. Since magazines that aren’t sold on the stand are often shredded, magazines with poor sell-through rates represent more waste for the industry than those that sell well. Industry sources estimate that Wal-Mart is reducing the amount of magazines that it sends to the shredder by 5-8% with this move.

For the original article by Keith Kelly, click here.

To find out more about this issues, please contact John Harrington at The New Single Copy.

Related Stories:

Major Consumer Magazines May Not Hit Wal-Mart Shelves (and other major retailers) Next Week

Negotiations Between Anderson News and Publishers/Distributors Get “Intense” as Consumer Magazine Distribution Crisis Settles to a Simmer
Search Jobs
Media Jobs
min Social Networks

Join us on Linkedin
Follow us on Linkedin

White Papers
Get even smarter -- download a white paper today.

Featured White Papers:
Internet measurement of ad-noting: Sampling and Statistical Issues
By MRI


Successfully Building Communities for Your Business
By Ripple6



... more Whitepapers
min Contests

min contests




Enter the Smithsonian Contest with a chance to win a $500 AMEX Gift card plus. Enter online or download pdf.

To sponsor a min contest in 2010, contact Erica Gottlieb at egottlieb@accessintel.com.

 Reserve your contest in min

min Press

State of Digital MediaThe State of Digital Media

 View Details
                           

Twitter Best Practices for Media CompaniesTwitter Best Practices for Media Companies

 View Details
                           

                                    Internet Sales            Guidebook

 View Details

All min Press

Inside min This Week
Events Calendar

March 25, 2010
Using Facebook to Grow Your Audience, Your Customer Relationships and Your Online Business
Learn More

April 7-8, 2010
The 3rd Annual Digital Media Measurement & Pricing Summit
Learn More

April 19-21, 2010
Ad-Tech
Learn More

All Events


min
Free Eletters — Sign up Now