A new check-out checkup service offered

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Nov, 1989

New check-out checkup service offered

NORWALK, CONN.--A new company, Supermarket Communication Systems (SCS), has been set up to provide magazines with analysis and reports of their positions at check-outs and point-of-purchase displays.

The company, which supplies on-site reports of a publication's check-out position, along with regular follow-up information, has already signed Rodale Publications, and has had interest from Parents, Us and Newsweek, according to David Mawicke, vice president/sales and marketing.

SCS, says Mawicke, will check to see that titles are getting the correct rack space, count the magazines in that space, move magazines from closed to open check-out counters and provide publishers with store-by-store information every week.

The new service is similar to that available from Globe Marketing Services, located in Boca Raton, Florida, and Distribution Services Incorporated of Lantana, Florida.

"Publishers make a big enough investment, so they want to make sure what should be there is there," says Richard Alleger, corporate director of retail sales, Rodale Press. Magazine distributors make only spot checks on stores, he adds, and generally handle so many titles they cannot devote personal service to a specific magazine.

SCS, which also specializes in promoting magazine subscription literature in supermarkets, will begin its racking reports in November or December, says Mawicke. Publishers will be charged according to the number of magazines serviced on a per store/per month basis.

SCS has a 125-person sales force going into 7,500 supermarkets.