Periodical Distribution
Introduction
The News Group celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2007. We are North America’s second-largest magazine and book wholesaler with over 27% of the continental USA market, and 52% of the North American market (including Canada). Select Media Services, an affiliate of The News Group, services specialty retailers in all 50 states and Puerto Rico.
The News Group, including The News Group, L.P. in the US, distributes magazines, books and other periodicals to customers across the US, and Canada. With industry-leading distribution and logistics operations, The News Group utilizes over 100 service centers, making over 60,000 deliveries to 30,000 customers each week. Local operating management takes pride in delivering excellent service, based on our local market knowledge. The News Group’s broad reach and large infrastructure across North America effectively receives, processes, delivers and tracks over one billion periodical copies each year.
Visual Merchandising
In most markets, The News Group also merchandises retail displays to ensure proper presentation of the best-selling titles. Centralized category management systems developed by the company, utilize a proprietary data warehouse and related software that forecasts title sales for each retail location, ensuring that sales are maximized. Advanced data-mining software allows customized category management for each individual store or retail chain. The News Group’s ability to grow sales through utilization of our advanced, proprietary data management tools and space allocation systems has earned it new business in 2007, in addition to a current magazine market share of 27% in the US.
In the US, some major customers serviced by The News Group include Kroger, Safeway, Albertson’s, Wal-Mart, Target and Publix. In 2007, The News Group was awarded 53 Publix locations in the Central Florida market, and over 400 Food Lion locations in Virginia, North Carolina and the District of Columbia.
Retail Support Services, or RS2, an affiliate of The News Group that manages publisher display allowances and check-out services on behalf of it retail customers, continues to grow its customer base and invest in technology, including new check-out plan-o-gramming software.
Book Distribution
Books, both hardcover and paperback, continue to grow as a percentage of The News Group’s total business. As one of North America’s largest book distributors with a market share of over 25% in our core retail book markets, The News Group continues to bring innovative book marketing and merchandising concepts to our retail partners.
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