Japanese mags to go the way of Western mags?

[kitsunebi]

https://soranews24.com/2025/02/12/thousands-of-convenience-stores-in-japan-to-end-sale-of-print-magazines-this-spring/

Japan is going to stop selling magazines at over 10,000 convenience stores this spring.  As the article points out, many places are without a dedicated bookstore, and convenience stores their only source for print media.

It's hard to stress to someone living outside of Japan just how important a part of the distribution chain convenience stores are.  They're a part of people's everyday lives.  It's not just the fresh food and snacks (I'd be willing to bet that more people "eating out" get their lunch at a convenience store than all other restaurants combined.)  You can also buy music, movies, and video games.  You can buy tickets to concerts and sporting events. You can pay for your utility bills there.  You can pay for your amazon or yahoo auction orders there.  And you can buy your comics and magazines there, some of which are released weekly.

Or at least, you can do so for a bit longer, before they end distribution of mags at 40% of all locations of the two biggest chains of convenience stores.  This is going to be a huge financial blow to publishers, and I have to wonder if it will mean the end of all but the most popular titles.   Japan is, demographically, one of the oldest (the oldest?) countries on Earth, so I'm, not sure I see everyone's mom and dad (and grandparents) switching to online apps for their magazine reading.

[ml0045]

This would be a mistake.

[Areala]

  On 2/13/2025 at 9:40 PM, kitsunebi said:

https://soranews24.com/2025/02/12/thousands-of-convenience-stores-in-japan-to-end-sale-of-print-magazines-this-spring/

Japan is going to stop selling magazines at over 10,000 convenience stores this spring.  As the article points out, many places are without a dedicated bookstore, and convenience stores their only source for print media.

It's hard to stress to someone living outside of Japan just how important a part of the distribution chain convenience stores are.  They're a part of people's everyday lives.  It's not just the fresh food and snacks (I'd be willing to bet that more people "eating out" get their lunch at a convenience store than all other restaurants combined.)  You can also buy music, movies, and video games.  You can buy tickets to concerts and sporting events. You can pay for your utility bills there.  You can pay for your amazon or yahoo auction orders there.  And you can buy your comics and magazines there, some of which are released weekly.

Or at least, you can do so for a bit longer, before they end distribution of mags at 40% of all locations of the two biggest chains of convenience stores.  This is going to be a huge financial blow to publishers, and I have to wonder if it will mean the end of all but the most popular titles. Japan is, demographically, one of the oldest (the oldest?) countries on Earth, so I'm, not sure I see everyone's mom and dad (and grandparents) switching to online apps for their magazine reading.

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I'm sure somebody somewhere crunched the numbers and was like, "Wait! We can save money by not making as much money if we take out the magazine racks!", but still...

Then again, I'm old enough to remember a magazine aisle in the grocery store (not just the tabloid racks at the checkout), and those went out years ago.

 

[kitsunebi]

  On 2/14/2025 at 10:49 PM, Areala said:

Then again, I'm old enough to remember a magazine aisle in the grocery store (not just the tabloid racks at the checkout), and those went out years ago.

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Convenience stores here have a magazine aisle, more or less.  It's about half the length as a normal aisle, since it also accommodates the ATM  and copy/fax machine.  But it has lots of mags and comics.

[ml0045]

  On 2/14/2025 at 10:49 PM, Areala said:

 "Wait! We can save money by not making as much money if we take out the magazine racks!"

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They can't see the forest for the trees which is funny since we are talking about paper magazines.

[kitsunebi]

The article points out the reasons.  Paper is heavy and can't be shipped on the refrigerated trucks that most of their stuff arrives on.  This shouldn't be news to anyone living in America, which abandoned print media ages ago for the same reason (high distribution costs).  Japan's more compact geography allowed it to survive a bit longer, but this is the inevitable outcome.

I pity the smaller municipalities that don't have access to a bookstore, though, as despite the non-affordability of distributing paper media, it's still hugely popular in Japan.  I've said it before, but the bookstore in my town is probably the most popular and heavily trafficked business we have, to the extent that they have to hire parking attendants to direct the heavy traffic in their parking lot.  Without convenience stores to get their books, mags, and comics, I'm not sure what kind of change will occur in the more rural areas without access to a bookstore.