How much can a classic car magazine cost?
01/15/2019
At first we thought about formulating a "question of the week", but the topic is too complex for a simple "multiple choice" question.
We just noticed the other day that daily newspapers are now really expensive. Want some examples? A Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) costs CHF 5.00, a Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) between EUR 3.00 and 3.90 depending on the day of the week. Depending on the week, that's quite a lot of money for 52 pages, as offered by the NZZ, for example.
In comparison, the Oldtimer Markt for EUR 4.20 (CHF 6.90) and with around 240 pages seems pretty inexpensive. But there are also more expensive classic car magazines, such as Motor Klassik for EUR 4.80 (CHF 9.20), Octane (D) for EUR 6.00 (CHF 10.50) or Ramp Classics for EUR 15 (CHF 25), although the latter was last published in 2014, perhaps because the price was too high? The Swiss Classics Revue, published by our publishing house, costs CHF 9.80 (EUR 7.00) at retail.
A lot of thought has certainly already been given to what the right price is for a magazine that is (also) sold at newsstands. However, at least in comparison to other magazine genres, the makers of these publications seem to be very cautious when it comes to pricing.
When we set the price for our Zwischengas annual magazine, we really wanted to stay below EUR 10.00 in the German market, which is how the price of EUR 9.90 / CHF 12.90 came about. We will only know how popular it would be if we were to charge EUR 11.90 / CHF 14.90 for the magazine, for example, when we try it. So far, however, the feedback we have received is that readers would be prepared to pay more than the current asking price ... And a higher price would possibly allow us to increase the size and include more articles or larger pictures in the magazine ...
