Does anyone know how these work or who they supposed to appeal to? And what the newspapers that push them get out of it?
For example, last Saturday's Guardian magazine devoted a whole page to offering me a 20cm Le Creuset cast iron casserole, along with four dishes from LC's very ordinary stoneware range, in a revolting (sorry, 'stunning new') purple colour, for £100. Now John Lewis sells the casserole alone for £95, but you don't have to have a purple one; Amazon has a choice of colours for much less; and the dishes, from my experience, aren't really worth having at any price, and certainly not in that colour.
You can probably find your own examples in any newspaper (although I can't remember seeing any in the FT). And every now and then out falls a whole catalogue full of these offers - Swiss Railway watches, solar-powered underpants chargers and the like. But I really don't see the point - these are unremarkable products at prices that scarcely make them bargains. Who buys them, and do they think they're getting something that's somehow endorsed by the newspaper?
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If you as a wholesaler or manufacturer have too much of something. EG a revolting colour or something which turns out to be deeply unfashionable but otherwise sound. The best ways of disposing of it are to sell it to a discounter for not much ( where you will almost certainly make a loss ) or to put it on a TV shopping channel or in a newspaper where you can get more for it if not quite full price. There is a group of consumers who indeed are impressed with such media. I've disposed of my commercial mistakes by these methods on numerous occasions.
The newspaper route is often the manufacturer selling direct to the public thus removing the retail margin requirement but necessitating higher distribution costs hence the price being well below high street retail value but still substantially more than trade price.
If it's cheap, it's cheap for a reason.
No such thing as a free lunch as they say......
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My old mum buys this kind of stuff from newspaper catalogues sometimes, usually gardening related.
She wouldn't know an internet if it poked her in the eye, has never heard of Amazon, there is no John Lewis or anything much else in her local town she goes to once a week for her shopping - the catalogue for her is a window on a world we all take for granted.
Usually what she gets is ok, if a little pricy, but she's always pleased as Punch with it.
Last edited by: Crankcase on Tue 25 May 10 at 15:33
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They probably work on the axiom that there is one born every minute,
There are 1440 minutes in a day so there must be a lot of em about,
Marketing Co's (and sales Directors) know this.
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Thanks Humph. That makes sense from the wholesaler's angle but I find it harder to see what the newspapers get out of this. Some revenue from the true seller, of course, but if it was my paper I'd be concerned about the effect of attaching my reputation and apparent endorsement to the contents of someone else's bargain bin.
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but if it was my paper I'd be concerned about the effect of attaching
>> my reputation
You'd be in a minority of one then WDB.
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I'd be very surprised if the newspaper didn't get either a percentage of each sale or a fixed fee for running the offer.
Last year I got one of those electricity monitors free of charge from British Gas courtesy of an offer in the Mail on Sunday (the only reason I bought the paper, honest). It's saved me quite a bit of cash since, it's amazing how much you can cut down when you see how much leaving lights on and TVs on standby etc is costing you.
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It will simply be a fee for the advertising space. That is how newspapers are funded in the main. The purchase price you pay the newsagent covers the rest.
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That's right Humph. My first wife sold ad space in one of the daily's and was paid a staggering amount amount of money to do so including bonuses. That's where they make their money.
I'd never met such a team of drunks, coke-heads, alcoholics, drink-drivers and swingers, they certainly made an impression at our wedding. Something that always makes me chuckle when these rags try and come off as our moral guardians...
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She lives in London you say ?.....
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You don't wanna know Humph. She married again and he gave her a dose of something, so a mutual friend told me. He had a hooker habit. That also makes me chuckle. She just swapped one idiot for another.
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>> She just swapped one idiot for another.
Oddly enough, I've heard my wife mutter something like that under her breath......
:-)
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>> I'd never met such a team of drunks, coke-heads, alcoholics, drink-drivers and swingers, they certainly
>> made an impression at our wedding. Something that always makes me chuckle when these rags
>> try and come off as our moral guardians...
>>
Perks of the job, Dave!
Guess what I do to earn a crust?
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Newspaper 'reader offers' - Runfer D'Hills
