DALLAS -- The potential exists not only to stanch the decline in newsstand magazine sales, but actually to increase volume, said the head of the Magazine Publishers of America.
Speaking earlier this month at the New York-based MPA's annual Retail Conference here, Donald D. Kummerfeld, president and chief executive officer, issued a "double" challenge to those in the audience to cut costs by 10% over the next decade, improving profit margins in the process, and to increase sales.
"Unit sales at retail have been declining slowly for more than 20 years," he said. "We can reverse that, if we do all the things that we are now attacking cooperatively well."
He said once a cooperative effort is made between publishers, distributors and retailers to work together to market magazines at the newsstand level sales can increase.
"We can do it. That is only 2% a year and it is not outrageously difficult. It is something I challenge all of us to take as a mission for the next five years," he said.