Graham Hale runs a newsagents business in Cosham and we regularly discuss the challenges of our industry. We have both been in news retailing for decades so have experienced the dramatic changes that the computer has enabled the supply chain to deliver. Today he sent me this:

Customer to retailer: “Of course I buy this magazine every week, but this week I did not buy that one because she was on the front cover.”

Hale’s Law of Rejection says that every so often a particular issue of a magazine will not sell because of its front cover, so causing the retailer to return more copies than normal – but when the computer kicks in to allocate future issues, it causes a reduction in supplies.

This is what the customer thinks; you will not alter this fact. Unfortunately the one action of the magazine publisher in choosing the “wrong” cover star, thereby reducing sales, will lead to reduced supplies two or three isues down the line.