In a recent discussion, with a major magazine distributor, it was pointed out that often newsagents cannot take into account unexpected shifts in magazine distributions as they do not know say if a major advertising campaign is occurring with a particular magazine.
Well it is good that the magazine distributors know something big is happening with a particular magazine but what will happen today is that when a bulge in a magazine title comes to a retail store. Unless it is a seasonal advertising campaign, the newsagents computer system will flag it as an abnormality. Whoever is doing the magazine processing will probably review it and seeing it is abnormal will reject much and put them in the early return pile. Therefore when the customer walks into the shop because of the advertising often there is not enough. As a result much of the advertising and the effort in bringing more magazines into the shop are wasted.
What is required is some notification during magazine processing to warn the people processing the magazines that something abnormal is expected to happen with this magazine.
If this was done newsagents could take better advantage of this mass market advertising and maximize their sales by properly displaying the product.
