Magazine subscriptions why so expensive

johncas1

Just seen the latest advert for a magazine subscriptions build the terminator OK for the first issue £1.99 then £8.99 an issue you buy 120 issues that works out at over £1000 to build the model is the model you build rearly worth £1000 I don't think it is probably made in China cheaply

Clowance

but the high total cost appears to be their business model. probably better to wait until the magazine issues are finished and then buy a completed model off ebay at a fraction of the price! (or don't bother as they are rubbish).

jenniewb

johncas1 wrote: »

Just seen the latest advert for a magazine subscriptions build the terminator OK for the first issue £1.99 then £8.99 an issue you buy 120 issues that works out at over £1000 to build the model is the model you build rearly worth £1000 I don't think it is probably made in China cheaply

I've no ball in this game so don't know the ins and outs of it all but from a very basic position, I don't think the magazine is only going to need to pay for a plastic figurine or whatever they are selling the parts to. There will be costs such as the printing, the staff count-of which I would imagine would require higher costs due to needing specialised journalists or interviewees, the publicising, the sale-and-return of those copies which don't get sold...I think you need to think a bit more broadly about what is being sold here and that people do have jobs to pay for and are unlikely to be able to fund all that on the few sales I'd bet they end up with.


Maybe put yourself in the position of someone creating a magazine like this; think of all the costs you'd have, the different employees, the transporting costs, collecting and discarding any unsold issues nationally (so employing others to play a part in that)...etc and then work out how much you can afford to cost given that not many people actually buy these magazines because they are a niche market; when you've done the calculations on that, see what sort of price you'd need to pay.

NBLondon

They've been around for years - so there must be enough people buying enough issues to cover the costs. There will be some who buy a few and then give up when they work out the total cost or decide they haven't the patience/skill to build the model. Others who will set up a subscription and then forget to cancel it when they've given up. The content is possibly recycled from other titles by the same publisher so they aren't paying that much for specialist content and I'm sure they can do pretty good estimates to minimise the number that get returned and pulped - the numbers per issue will be much higher to start with then be cut back.