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Archive for June, 2009

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Digital magazines

Friday, June 12th, 2009

Borders UK is about to venture into the world of digital magazines.

http://www.nma.co.uk/borders-builds-confidence-in-digital-editions/3001220.article

People often ask us our opinion of e-zines. They tend to polarise people. The one camp thinks that they spell the inevitable death of magazines as we know them, while the ardent print supporters write them off as irrelevant. Most think that we would fall into the second camp, but we don’t.

Online magazines definitely have their place, and will only grow in popularity. However, we see them as a completely different product. Magazines are about so much more than just information. The ones that are mere information peddlers will either have to adapt, or they will die. These are the titles that are truly at risk from online media.

The really great magazines build “engagement”. There you go, our favourite word pops up again. And this engagement is much more than in relation to the words and images on their pages. These magazines stand for something, evoke conversations, communities of interest. For these magazines, online content is one arrow in their quiver.

So am I alarmed that you can subscribe to digital content from many of our favourite magazines? No – of course not. We knew this well before starting up the business. But to say that online magazines won’t spell the end for many mediocre publications is to bury our head in the sand.

Good luck to Borders UK with this initiative. It looks like for once we share a philosophical position – online and print can be complimentary. The real challenge will be in the execution. If they were to throw lots of money at us, I bet we could help them nail it. Looks like we’ll just have to get there on our own. One day.

Posted in Magazine Industry, The end of print | 1 Comment »

Disclosure

Wednesday, June 10th, 2009

After only 3 entries on this blog so far, lots of people have made positive, encouraging comments, while many others have emailed or tweeted their support. However, the feedback has not been all one-dimensional. A few people have privately asked me why I am disclosing so much about the mag nation business, our strategy, our future fears and plans. They have questioned the wisdom of giving up competitive advantage and the element of surprise. The overarching theme of these conversations focuses around disclosing too much which in turn would allow a mag nation copy cat to set up in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth or Wellington before we can get there.

Our not so secret defensible asset is relationships. We probably know over 1,000 niche publishers, and this hasn’t happened overnight. We have taken years to build these relationships, and a new entrant into this space would find it very hard to replicate this in a short time. Its not that someone else couldn’t do the same thing, but it would take time.

So, I don’t mind “giving the game away” via this Blog. The big players in the industry can’t replicate what we have, and potential newcomers have to be aware of the blood, sweat and tears it requires to build trust and respect with so many small, passionate and retailer wary creative souls.

And that is where I want to end this entry. With a thank you to all of the small local and international publishers who have taken the time to get to know us and let us know you. To Mike, Kate, Eddie, Andrew J, Andrew L, Andrew M, Timba, Chris, Rob, Mel, Di, Martin, Becky, Amelia, Woody, Chris, Campbell, Liz, Jess, Lisa, Thierry, Marian, Fraser, Kyra, Grant, Rachael, Ian…. (ok – there is no way I can list all of you – you know who you are) – you guys are our competitive advantage.

Posted in Magazine Industry, Strategy | 6 Comments »

The end of an era

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009

There has been some press in the last few days about the closing down of McGills. For the majority of our readers who are not in Melbourne, McGills is one of the oldest, if not the oldest retail names in Melbourne. It has been located in Melbourne’s CBD for close on 140 years!

McGills is ostensibly a newsagent. We have bagged newsagents in the past, and we maintain that in its pure form, it is not a business model that we like. That said, we can’t help but feel real sadness about their closure.

I can imagine right now that many of your bullshit meters will be starting to ping. It is true that McGills is literally 2 blocks away from us, and that they too sell a lot of magazines, albeit with a different demographic focus. Still, it cannot be denied that their closure will mean incremental traffic coming our way.

However, despite some of the tweets we have received in the last 24 hours, we are not sitting here rubbing our hands with glee. This was a retail institution. Before all else, we are retailers, and there is nothing sadder for us than to see a grand old dame with empty shelves and customers picking over the carcass of what remaining stock hasn’t been flogged off at cut throat prices. I walked over there at lunch time and it felt like a feeding frenzy. More than anything else, it just felt melancholy.

Of even greater worry for us is that if McGills is going down, what does this say about the future of our industry. Rental and staff costs continue to go up, but the price of magazines only move up marginally. We are all for keeping mag prices down, but under the current game rules, magazine retailers will soon be a thing of the past…. Unless someone can break the model.

That’s what mag nation is trying to do. This industry is unsustainable unless someone remakes it. We could go all economic at this point and talk about dead weight losses and other academic crap in relation to how we are looking to change over 100 years of retailing practice, but lets not lose sight of a major loss to the retail landscape of Melbourne, and the magazine industry. Good bye McGills, and god bless.

Posted in Magazine Industry | 5 Comments »

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