CSNA warns over newspaper margin cuts
CSNA warns retailers could lose significant newspaper margins by switching to pay-by-scan wholesale pricing
Print2 July 2026
The Convenience Stores & Newsagents Association (CSNA) has recently been provided with details of the proposed changes in discounts should a retailer agree to change from the current Sale or Return module to wholesale pricing based on actual sales as recorded on tills and scanners within the retail outlet, and has been asked to provide advice on this topic.
For over 100 years, publishers and their appointed distributors have calculated the wholesale price as a percentage of the VAT-exclusive cover price that was printed on the masthead.
For National and Sunday newspapers, this has invariably been fixed at 23-26% while local newspapers had different rates which may have reflected their lack of economies of scale when they were individual titles but this is a much more difficult argument to make nowadays with massive consolidation and the sharing of so many services such as advertising, printing and distribution.
Difficult return
Newspaper and magazine sales are profitable but their return to retailers can be extraordinarily different based on their sales, their understanding of the sector and their systems, the CSNA claims.
They are delivered daily, they can frequently have shortages which require contact with the supplier, they need to be managed to ensure the display looks well, they need to be removed at the end of the day (or shelf cycle) based on a Recall note and they should be bundled, the returned amount noted and left out for collection by the delivery driver.
The regime utilised in by many supermarket chains in both the UK and more recently, in Ireland, gives these stores the opportunity to pay by scan but the margin sacrifice is quite substantial.
It has been made privy to discounts for papers, Magazines and periodicals and are astonished that any retailer would agree to sacrificing over 20% of margin on best selling daily and weekly titles while still being required to carry out practically all of the labour as before (carry in, count, note, report, tidy, remove, count, bundle, return) and still pay the despised carriage charge at the same rate as hitherto.
For large supermarket chains a system that is based on sales may streamline their needs, but for individual owners, margin is still a most important matrix and is not easily set aside.
A title with a €4.80 RRP at 25% discount returns €1.20 for every copy sold, at 20% it returns 24 cent less.
For every €10,000 sales a store makes where news margins are currently averaging 23.4%, the new margin will be 18.2%.
In cash terms this reduces gross profit from €2340 to €1820 , or €520 for every €10000 sales but does nothing to reduce the carriage charge of €4k + paid on average to each distributor.
Read more: CSNA empowers retailers at annual event
© 2026, ShelfLife by CSNA
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