Magazine subscription
>> Wednesday, July 13, 2011
The employee coop inside my office building allows external vendors to set up booths in front of their shop. Today, one of the booths is a company specializing in magazine subscription. I happen to be (casually) interested in one of the magazines, so I stopped by to ask for the annual subscription fees. Surprise, surprise, I was given the whole sales pitch. Apparently, I cannot subscribe just to that magazine (monthly). It comes ‘free’ with another magazine (weekly). And that costs RM500 per year.
Both magazines are actually pretty interesting. But I decided against signing up.
Here’s why:
1)Reading is one of my hobbies. But a weekly magazine? I doubt I’d have time to read them. When I mentioned this, his response is: choose only a few articles that I’m most interested to read.
2)Given that I’d probably need to choose only a few articles to read, RM500 is quite a lot of money. He said this amount is cheaper than buying newspapers on a daily basis, but really – who buys newspaper EVERY single day nowadays?
3)Besides, I don’t like to be committed this way. I’d rather be free to choose what and when I want to read.
4)Furthermore, most things are available online anyway. Not the exact same articles, of course, but there’s quite a lot of interesting stuffs to read in the web.
On the last point, I’d like to note that business must be a lot tougher now in the internet age compared to decades ago when people have less choice. But magazines still exist, because there is still demand. Just as I prefer a hardcopy book to an e-book (for now), there will be people who prefers to read magazines than surf for articles online. I myself subscribe to a local monthly (which I already can’t finish).
Last note: To businesses selling books and magazines, please don’t use the reason ‘Can get tax rebate’ in your promotion. The tax rebate is applicable for ALL books and magazine, not just yours. You can remind the customer to keep the receipt upon payment, that would be appreciated.
