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Circulation Management, May 1, 2004

Byline: William B. Dugan

It's time to review the magazine industry's new subscriber product delivery 'speed,' compare our timing to that of other publishing verticals, identify the benefits of faster delivery, put forth ideas to improve the cycle time, and challenge publishers to make the investment for reasonable delivery cycles.

The typical magazine delivery cycle time for new subscribers is four to six weeks, as measured from when the customer places their order until they receive their first magazine. In most cases, it takes less time to order and deliver a new car than it takes to get a magazine to a new subscriber. That does not make sense.

The industry standard for magazine delivery to new subscribers is unacceptable to consumers and publishers. Getting that first issue into the customer's hands quickly should be a priority for circulators.

Publishing executives are beginning to publicly acknowledge the slow delivery cycle for new subscribers, and are encouraging the industry to reduce the amount of time it takes to deliver that first issue. Tom Ryder, CEO of Reader's Digest, spoke about it at the MPA's American Magazine Conference in Rancho Mirage last fall, following Dan Brewster, then CEO of G J USA, who voiced the same concerns a few weeks earlier at the FMA Day in New York City.

In this age of instant gratification, online content and on-demand printing technology, magazine delivery service levels to new subscribers are still in the dark ages.

Why does the process take so long?

The process is fragmented and crosses over many functional lines, including circulation, fulfillment, production, manufacturing and distribution. Every magazine has established its own unique service levels to accommodate internal and external scheduling deadlines, so it would be impossible to develop a common cycle time schedule applicable to all magazines.

For illustration purposes, this is a fairly typical order cycle time scenario for a medium to large sized monthly magazine:

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Start: new customer mails an order

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2 to 3 days postal transit time from customer to fulfillment service bureau

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2 to 3 days for fulfillment service bureau to receive and process the order

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4 days on average for the order to be applied to the weekly file update.

Worst case example: most orders received the day before and the day of the weekly file update will not be applied until the following week's update.

Best case example: some of the orders received the day before the update will be processed in time to be applied to that update.

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1 day for the file update and transmission of labels to the printing plants

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1 day for the printing plant to receive, check and validate labels

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14 days for printing of the magazine

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2 days for distribution preparation

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8 to 10 days postal transit time for periodical mail delivery

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End: customer receives the first issue

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Elapsed time: 34 to 38 days. Let's call it five weeks.

Other publishing verticals deliver products faster

Merchants offering published products provide much faster delivery cycle time to customers than the typical magazine fulfillment of five weeks.

Some examples of faster delivery cycles within the publishing industry are:

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Amazon offers 3 shipping options for books: next day, 2 days and 3-7 days (standard) - all at different price points passed on to the customer, with free standard delivery if the book order reaches $25.

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Barnes & Noble.com offers the same options for shipping their books, plus a same day delivery option in Manhattan!

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The Book-of-the-Month Club and The Doubleday Book Club deliver their introductory book packages to new members within 7 to 10 days. Doubleday also offers a 5 to 6 day shipping option for $5 more.

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Online newsstands like qMags and Zinio provide online magazine issues available as soon as the customer can download them!

For printed magazines, the fastest delivery cycle is the newsstand sale where the transaction is closed within a few minutes or less - selecting the product, paying for the product, and taking possession of the product. Given that newsstand pricing is usually higher than subscription pricing, consumers need to be willing to pay a premium for that instant gratification.

These are actual cycle time experiences I have had in the last two months:

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National Geographic: first issue received 36 days after placing the order, premium received one day before the first issue.

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Esquire: first issue received 38 days after placing the order.

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Boardroom's Tax Hotline: first issue received 25 days after placing order, premium received 11 days after the first issue.

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Barnes & Noble.com: books received 6 days after placing the order via the internet.

[National Geographic and Esquire sent second invoices even though the first invoices were paid within two days of receipt. That is a whole different problem and we will save that for a future discussion.]

Prior attempts to improve delivery times

In the past, circulators and fulfillment service bureaus have tried to initiate expedited delivery programs to speed up the delivery of the first issue to new customers. Tests were run, analyses conducted, and the prevailing reaction by circulators was that the effort was too expensive.