Features of the pricing for the content of Russian periodicals
The more services that legally sell content appear in Russia, the more often consumers are dissatisfied with the prices for this content. And, perhaps, in most cases, the seller is accused, that is, the most extreme participant in the chain, the one with whom the consumer interacts directly.
For the past two and a half years I have been working in the digital publishing industry, including managing a content marketing project. Sometimes I personally communicate with copyright holders and publishers, every day I observe how my colleagues do, in addition, I personally answer customer questions. It is about the Russian periodicals, and specifically about the content that it presents to the world in digital format. Let's see what's inside.
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As far as it is possible to trace, all consumer complaints come from a lack of understanding of the industry, ignorance of how everything is arranged there. It is really difficult to set up, but, you see, the buyer and? He just wants to get the goods in the best possible quality for a satisfying price. To know that under water is not his concern. Nevertheless, he has some ideas. It would be much easier if they were completely wrong, but they are half-truths, that is, the most terrible event, the most fertile ground for speculation and speculation. And then, based on their ideas, the consumer falls into the following errors:
So, it became clear that the seller has very little room for maneuver, and that the seller is not at all responsible for the final price.
The current relationship between the seller and the copyright holder in Russia must be recognized as amenalytic . No matter how much they talk about the crisis in the paper media, about the convergence of numbers and papers, about the impact of the economic crisis, all this means almost nothing to the Russian press. Digital content consumption is high and sales are low. And the Russian press itself does not contribute to this sales. What you have to face in work? But with what.
So it turns out that the price is dictated by the right holder, dictates illiterately.
Similar things happen in the west .
Now we will conduct a little marketing research and find out how much we really have to pay for this or that content. Since we are interested in the most ordinary buyer, we went down to the underground passages of Moscow, looked into the kiosks of “Rospechat” and into all sorts of other kiosks that most of us get in the way every day. The sample was variegated, heterogeneous, not all publications can be found in all kiosks, but the most important thing is that it is real. Of course, it can be argued that prices are different outside the capital, but we do not have such data, and if someone is not too lazy to send them, we’ll be happy to add them for comparison.
Sales of digital versions of the same content are more complicated. About the reasons I wrote above. Therefore, we decided to select the largest pair using different business models, but selling at least some close product and having a fairly wide list of matches in the list of products. Accordingly, the stores of individual publishers, thematic portals, players are not known, but with a small list of goods (ie Zinio), etc. The popularity of publications sold, the convenience of shop windows and other factors were not taken into account. These are important factors that can influence the choice of the buyer, but now we are only interested in the prices of digital content. Bold select the lowest of them.
Comparative table of prices for digital and paper versions of the content of the Russian press as of July-August 2012
As you can see, even now for the end customer is not so bad. First, the digital version is not always worth more than the paper version. Secondly, even among the prices for the digital version there is an opportunity to choose a lower one. But this is only the outside.
The table also shows the most inadequate copyright holders. They give two different sellers content at different prices by an order of magnitude (sic!). After all, it is obvious that Seller 1 himself will never deliver such a price - his other prices are comparable to competitive ones. The irony lies in the fact that the majority of the product list of Seller 2 is made up of free editions, the storefront functionality is less developed, however the copyright holder gives him the content at a low price. In other words, such rightholders do not support those who invest in the development of a sales service and, ultimately, of the entire market. Cream removes the most "primitive" sellers. And this means that we, as consumers, are not expecting anything good here.
So when you buy content,do not shoot the pianist, do not rush to scold the seller.
For the past two and a half years I have been working in the digital publishing industry, including managing a content marketing project. Sometimes I personally communicate with copyright holders and publishers, every day I observe how my colleagues do, in addition, I personally answer customer questions. It is about the Russian periodicals, and specifically about the content that it presents to the world in digital format. Let's see what's inside.
')
Consumer complaints
As far as it is possible to trace, all consumer complaints come from a lack of understanding of the industry, ignorance of how everything is arranged there. It is really difficult to set up, but, you see, the buyer and? He just wants to get the goods in the best possible quality for a satisfying price. To know that under water is not his concern. Nevertheless, he has some ideas. It would be much easier if they were completely wrong, but they are half-truths, that is, the most terrible event, the most fertile ground for speculation and speculation. And then, based on their ideas, the consumer falls into the following errors:
- The cost of the digital version of the magazine / newspaper should be lower than the paper version. The reasoning is approximately the following: “The journalist still writes an article in Word. The publisher has printed an article on paper - he has stolen the money. And once repulsed, it’s not good to take money for the digital version, this is already greed and arrogance. But if it takes money, then let it cost less, because the costs of its production are already covered. ”
Firstly, it’s not a fact that the publisher saved money. Increasingly, we hear that money is already earned by the digital, and not the paper version .
Secondly, the concept of the digital version is very vague. In 95% of cases, this is indeed the same text in Word, which will be inserted on the newspaper’s website after editing, but there are fewer such cases. In 100% of cases of the Russian press, this text will be processed and wrapped in a print layout, edited, photos will be added to it, graphics, something else. And only a few percent of the Russian press, count all such publishing houses enough fingers, take the text, rework it for each of the presentation options (for the site, for delivery to the aggregator, for the archive, for the RSS feeds, for publication on the iPad, for God knows of what), they will convert to the appropriate format ... In general, this work will be done by specialists who need to pay. And the result of their work has nothing to do with paper anymore, that is, there are perfectly fair reasons for taking some money for the digital version. And since such specialists are not cheaper than a journalist, then such a version cannot be cheaper.
In the autumn of 2010, at the GIPP conference, the most advanced representatives of Russian publishing houses enthusiastically demonstrated their own designs, digital versions of their magazines and newspapers for the iPad. They did it themselves or on the basis of outsourcing, they spent money on it. However, now, two years later, you will not find these applications in the Apple AppStore. The production of these versions turned out to be a) expensive and b) unprofitable. (Believe me, among them were absolutely chic things! What did the “digital version” of the magazine “Gastronom” cost on the aipeda)? After such expenses, do you still think that it should be free or cheaper than paper? Why?
So, the production of certain types of digital versions of magazines and newspapers is absolutely real money, therefore, the price of these versions has objective reasons to be above zero and even higher than the cost of the paper version. But the reality is that such digital versions produce, as mentioned above, only a few on the market. The overwhelming majority of Russian magazines and newspapers can not afford the production of such versions. The maximum that she can afford is the layout of the paper issue in PDF format. There are also those that do not even have a PDF file as output. The cost of production of this version is not very different from zero. However, these publishers charge them a price significantly higher than zero. - The archive should be given free of charge.
The reasoning is about the following: “How much does it cost to store pdf-files for 10 years? Yes, not at all! I bought a flash drive for 16 gigs and poured everything in there, there will still be a place! ”
First, the archive is not a collection of PDF files.
Secondly, large publishers have a much more complex content storage system, backup systems, etc., at a cost much more expensive than a 16 GB flash drive. The cost of these systems they seek to compensate.
Thirdly, the archive is in fact archive, so that it is preserved, structured, replenished, had the tools to work with it. It all costs money.
Fourth, and most importantly, access to the archives is always a paid service. You pay for access to what others have no longer. Drawing parallels with conventional libraries is inappropriate here. Yes, in them you will get access to files of newspapers and magazines for several years. But do not forget that these are public libraries, they are free for you just because the state has already paid them for you. In addition, try to get in some St. Petersburg library issue of the regional newspaper from the Far East. Nothing will come of it. It will have to be searched elsewhere, for example, in a company that has spent money and resources to get this issue, classify, save, organize access to it. And for all this, she is absolutely entitled to ask for money.
Fifth, there are situations when the right holder himself is bound by obligations to other (primary) right holders and simply has no right to distribute the archive for free. This often happens with magazines published in Russia by franchise. For example, the publishing house Belissimajournalissim bought a franchise for Western magazine Y. Each Russian issue contains two translated articles from the franchise owner, which allows publishing them on paper and in digital, but does not allow distributing them for free. Everything. We arrived. No matter how now Belissimajournalissim is spinning, she will not be able to distribute a single issue of her Y with a translated article, even a decade ago. So, we, consumers, can not see the free archive. - the greedy seller does nothing, but he pays the price
First, sellers are different. They have different business models and working conditions. Hence the difference in price for the same product. But even at the highest price it makes no sense to suspect the greed of the seller. Remember, his task is to sell. What is the point to break the price? After all, then no one will buy.
Secondly, the seller will always try to add value to the service provided to justify the asking price. Someone will make a convenient application for the consumption of content, someone will make it possible to consume content on rare devices, someone will get the rarest content, etc.
Thirdly, as mentioned above, the overwhelming majority of Russian publishers are not able to publish a digital version of their content. All related tasks for them often solves the seller. There are those among the sellers who perform only certain functions, for example, collect files and send them by e-mail, there are those that provide a full cycle: content collection, storage, reconversion, classification, distribution. Plus accompanying functions: billing, marketing, advertising, user support, interfaces, etc. The average consumer should not know this. But now you know that all sellers do anything. - greedy seller sets prices.
Firstly, it is not so. In most cases, the price of content is dictated by the supplier (copyright holder).
Secondly, in the conditions of price dictates by the right holder, the marginality of the seller’s business is greatly reduced. And then sellers go to tricks - they move to a simplified taxation system, take business abroad, etc. This allows them to earn more at the same prices in the market, but the buyer has almost no positive effect. After all, the seller will keep the price as close as possible to what the copyright holder dictates.
Third, separate advanced publishing houses require price unification. For example, the publisher wants the digital version of their smartphone magazine to cost exactly one hundred rubles everywhere. Under different conditions, it gives its content to different sellers, but it costs the same everywhere. In this case, the publisher itself sells the same version of the magazine for ninety rubles.
Fourth, the seller will use the services of a bank or another company to organize sales. The seller will pay from 3 to 10% of each payment for accepting payment using plastic cards. For electronic money - up to 5%. Do you trade through the application on the iPad? Apple will take 30% of your payment from you.
So, it became clear that the seller has very little room for maneuver, and that the seller is not at all responsible for the final price.
But why does the copyright holder behave this way?
The current relationship between the seller and the copyright holder in Russia must be recognized as amenalytic . No matter how much they talk about the crisis in the paper media, about the convergence of numbers and papers, about the impact of the economic crisis, all this means almost nothing to the Russian press. Digital content consumption is high and sales are low. And the Russian press itself does not contribute to this sales. What you have to face in work? But with what.
- "You have to pay us only for what we sell for you."
This is hard to believe, but some publications say so. They are not interested in either the amount of the seller’s efforts to promote their publications, nor the additional distribution channels, the presence of competitors in the shop window, nor the capabilities of the platform, or anything else. They believe that their brand is so cool that you need to pay for only one presence in the window. I draw your attention, this argument comes from the largest publications, our flagships, those whom we used to be considered an example of professionalism in the media industry. - The publication often does not know how much its content is worth.
Call the editorial office of a medium-sized newspaper and ask how much their newspaper is worth in retail. In 80% of cases, no one can answer this question. How so? But the fact is that the editors themselves do not sell their content; this function is carried out by the sales department or even by a separate company that sells it differently! For a large network of kiosks, one price; for shelves in the federal chain of grocery stores — another; for private distributors — the third; for subscription agencies — the fourth; for subscriptions through catalogs in the Russian Post branches, the fifth, for subscriptions of legal entities — the sixth. And so on. The price difference can vary by an order! Reigns merchant, not an economist. Here comes the seller of the digital version: “Give us the right to sell your newspaper, please!” And the sales department charges a price. Needless to say that this price is taken from the ceiling? If a publication does not know how much its paper version costs, how can it charge a price for a digital one? - Sometimes things happen differently. The seller of the digital version comes: “Give us the right to trade the digital version of your newspaper, please!” The sales department rounds his eyes: “Che-ee-mm ...?” As I wrote above, no understanding of the digital product in the vast majority of Russian newspapers and magazines simply do not exist. How to set a price for something that does not exist?
- Even the most seemingly large and advanced federal publications that have mobile apps, developed websites and social network offices often make very serious mistakes in Internet marketing.
What to say about pricing? For example, the large K newspaper has an official Facebook page. She pointed out the phone numbers, the editorial office address, the website address, leads the dialogue, but did not give a single link to how to subscribe to it. But let me! We are all already sitting on the Internet, consuming everything in electronic format. Let me know how I can make a digital subscription to your newspaper! But no, only a few do it, make small, narrow-profile publications, does anyone, but not the proud federal newspaper K with millions of copies. You will ask why? Because this newspaper believes that placing a link to the seller does not stimulate the sale of its digital version, but is an advertisement for the seller!
In the meantime, a number of other publications have placed links on their pages, and every day we receive traffic from them, which is well converted into sales. - Another couple of interesting life scenarios.
Scenario one. We call the district newspaper, which is published in the Russian outback, with a circulation of 500 copies a month. The newspaper in retail costs 5 rubles. Please assign a price. Answer:
- 300 rubles!
- How so? Why? Who will buy a five-ruble newspaper for three hundred rubles?
- Yes, God knows you, you have a lot of money there, in Moscow, you will sell 300 each.
- ...
Scenario two. The conditions are the same.
- 10,000 rubles!
- How so? Why?
- Yes, we know it, once the issue will buy and then they will post it on the Internet for free. And so we even get 10,000 from you.
- ...
So it turns out that the price is dictated by the right holder, dictates illiterately.
Similar things happen in the west .
What do we have in the end?
Now we will conduct a little marketing research and find out how much we really have to pay for this or that content. Since we are interested in the most ordinary buyer, we went down to the underground passages of Moscow, looked into the kiosks of “Rospechat” and into all sorts of other kiosks that most of us get in the way every day. The sample was variegated, heterogeneous, not all publications can be found in all kiosks, but the most important thing is that it is real. Of course, it can be argued that prices are different outside the capital, but we do not have such data, and if someone is not too lazy to send them, we’ll be happy to add them for comparison.
Sales of digital versions of the same content are more complicated. About the reasons I wrote above. Therefore, we decided to select the largest pair using different business models, but selling at least some close product and having a fairly wide list of matches in the list of products. Accordingly, the stores of individual publishers, thematic portals, players are not known, but with a small list of goods (ie Zinio), etc. The popularity of publications sold, the convenience of shop windows and other factors were not taken into account. These are important factors that can influence the choice of the buyer, but now we are only interested in the prices of digital content. Bold select the lowest of them.
Comparative table of prices for digital and paper versions of the content of the Russian press as of July-August 2012
| Edition | Digital version with Seller 1 ( * ), rub | Digital version with Seller 2 ( * ), rub | Paper version on the street, rub |
| Coach magazine | 83 | 70 | 220 |
| Cosmopolitan Shopping | 76 | 72 | 75 |
| Cosmopolitan Psychology | 57.01 | 54 | 69 |
| Esquire | 135 | 120 | 140 |
| Fhm | 201.78 | 128 | 105 |
| Harper's bazaar | 135 | 120 | 145 |
| Mamas & papas | 81 | 68 | 50 |
| Men's health | 100.01 | 105 | 90 |
| National geographic | 90 | 86 | 106 |
| National Geographic Traveler | 94 | 89 | 100 |
| VIVA! | 24 | 20 | 50 |
| XXL | 201.78 | 128 | 110 |
| Yes! | 62 | 58 | 70 |
| Yoga journal | 160.01 | 160 | 190 |
| Arguments and Facts | nineteen | 20 | 20 |
| Atmosphere | 56,64 | 68 | 70 |
| In the plant world | 18.88 | 23 | 75 |
| Bulletin of the Mayor and the Government of Moscow | 23.6 | 23.6 | 35 |
| Drill | 71.5 | 71.5 | 110 |
| Heat | 115 | 12 | 28 |
| Waiting for baby | 32 | 38 | 45 |
| News - All-Russian issue | 115 | 15 | sixteen |
| Life stories | 7 | 10.15 | 22 |
| Love stories | 7 | 10.15 | 22 |
| Caravan of stories | 70,8 | thirty | 85 |
| Caravan collection of stories | 70,8 | thirty | 46 |
| Kommersant | thirty | 59 | 20 |
| Kommersant - Power | 59 | 59 | 40 |
| Kommersant - Money | 59 | 59 | 55 |
| Company | 59 | 39 | 40 |
| TVNZ | 7.86 | 9 | ten |
| Komsomolskaya Pravda - Fatty | 7.86 | 13 | 18 |
| Literary newspaper | 27 | 18.59 | 22 |
| Mom, it's me! | 32 | 38 | 45 |
| World news | 9 | 12 | 24 |
| PC World | 186.44 | 130 | 185 |
| Moscow's comsomolets | 20 | 3.75 | ten |
| Independent newspaper | 25 | 24 | 20 |
| Independent Military Review | 60,99 | 60 | 33 |
| Paparazzi | 20 | 16.5 | 32 |
| First-class Parents. Grades 1-4 | 64 | 64 | 85 |
| Popular mechanics | 85 | 90 | 105 |
| RBC | 83 | 118 | 110 |
| Russian Hunting Newspaper | 9.44 | 12.5 | 15 |
| Sabrina | 53.01 | 63 | 75 |
| Company's secret | 59 | 59 | 50 |
| Interlocutor | 9 | 11.8 | 17 |
| Soviet sport | nineteen | 13 | nineteen |
| Soviet Sport - Football | 20 | 17 | 25 |
| Your day | 115 | ten | 13 |
| Labor-7 | 13.99 | 17 | sixteen |
| Football | 17.7 | 22 | 27 |
| Expert | 210 | 55 | 60 |
As you can see, even now for the end customer is not so bad. First, the digital version is not always worth more than the paper version. Secondly, even among the prices for the digital version there is an opportunity to choose a lower one. But this is only the outside.
The table also shows the most inadequate copyright holders. They give two different sellers content at different prices by an order of magnitude (sic!). After all, it is obvious that Seller 1 himself will never deliver such a price - his other prices are comparable to competitive ones. The irony lies in the fact that the majority of the product list of Seller 2 is made up of free editions, the storefront functionality is less developed, however the copyright holder gives him the content at a low price. In other words, such rightholders do not support those who invest in the development of a sales service and, ultimately, of the entire market. Cream removes the most "primitive" sellers. And this means that we, as consumers, are not expecting anything good here.
So when you buy content,
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/288906/
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