Sunday, June 04, 2006

Parisian newstand


There are about 300 newstands in Paris. It's a tough life: long hours of work, low margin (about 18%), small turnover (1/3 of the newstands make less than 170 000 € par year), not toilets (it's not a small detail!) and... a real headache to manage to put on display almost 10 000 different newspapers and magazines (about 800 new titles are created every year!).

13 comments:

  1. et mon Corse matin il est ou?
    bon dimanche...
    a salute...

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  2. About magazines, here is a good one for discovering secret Paris ("Paris Villages") :

    http://www.parisvillages.fr/accueil.php5

    It is a "must" for all parisian lovers, especially when one takes daily pictures ;-)
    You can't find it everywhere, but for instance they sell it in one of the newstands inside St Lazare station. (3 Euros every 2 months).

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  3. Is that 170,000 net profit? Because if it is, that sounds pretty darn good to me. Now if they only get %18 of that (30,600) then it's not so good.

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  4. 170,000 means roughly 100 magazines a day , at an average price of 5 Euros. Sounds realistic.
    If this was a profit, it would mean more than 500 magazines (at 5 €) a day. Sounds a lot...

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  5. > Terra Vecchia. Il y a Corse Matin dans plein de kiosques de la capitale ! (J'ai été incapable de trouver combien il y a de Corses à Paris mais à vu de nez je dirais au moins 400 000 - il y en a 800 000 sur le continent entier a priori). Ca fait bcp d'acheteurs potentiels de Corse matin - et pas de grève des distributeurs ici ;) -

    > Haxo. Thanks for the advice, I think I am going to buy it right away... in a newstand!

    > Natalie. It's your second guess (for 1/3 of the newstands, the others make a little more money). And they work at least 12 hours a day for that.

    > Haxo. Good assumption. In fact I don't how many magazines they sell per day (not to forget the daily newspapers too)

    > Mark. Thank you!

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  6. Jeez. This guy deserves an award for all the hard work he does. Someone make him a trophy or medal or something!!!

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  7. Gee soosha_q, this guy doesn't seem to be working too hard to deserve a medal. I wonder Eric, when they went on strike recently, what was that all about?

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  8. Natalie: I thought exactly the same thing! $170,000 is a lot of money but $30,000 doesn't leave much to live on.

    Still, these newstands are a part of Paris, just like the Metro or the Eiffel Tower. I just can't imagine Paris without them :-)

    By the way, how is Netizen doing?

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  9. Michael: I'd probably strike too, to get a portable potty nearby! ;)

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  10. The figure was the turnover, not the profits. But still, he needs some kind of little loo! It gets rather damp on Paris pavements!

    Of course we get a lot of the same magazines here in Montréal and some of those numéros (issues) are current here now. Only certain newsagents would carry regional press such as Corse-Matin.

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  11. i read an article last year how the government is trying to offer grants to help keep these magazine stands open. year after year there are fewer and fewer and the government is worried that they will disappear.

    at least that's what the article said.

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  12. I think I know this newstand
    It seems to be the guy at the corner of Bd Montparnasse and rue de Rennes in front of Chez Bebert restaurant...

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