Sally Stringer Dave's C-store, Cheshunt





?We're a small village store, so our sales of papers and magazines are pretty static because lots of people have regular orders. Although we have no choice but to use our newspaper wholesaler we're not happy with the service we get from it and can spend a large part of the morning sorting out problems such as trying to get money back on returns.

For example, we're near a racecourse and sell four or five Racing Posts a day. We find that if we ask for more we might get 50 one day, but then be told we can't get more the next day. We would like to be able to use someone else, but the wholesaler we use has a stranglehold on the market in our area.





We need more space Bhupendra Patel Ben's Supermarket, Thanet, Kent





?Our newspaper sales went up when the local newsagent stopped delivering and people started coming to us instead. I don't deliver papers as it's hard to get paper boys and girls to do the job in the winter and you end up doing it yourself.

Magazines do OK for us, but we haven't got enough shelf space to do them justice. You need a bigger area so that there's more choice and room for customers to browse. Having said that, we can get kids reading through the magazines and clogging up the aisles, while some people use it as a library. One man had the cheek to ask me for a pen and paper so he could write down the number from an advert. If we do a shop refit I'd take out the video hire and put more magazines in instead.



Mags range reduced Wendy Simpson Spar Stakesby, Whitby





?We've cut back on the range of magazines we sell, which seems to be working. Titles are now better targeted to our customers, most of whom are young adults and who come in for celebrity or weekly women's magazines.

We do stock more obscure publications, but we just keep those by for people and wouldn't put them onto the fixture. We have to put a 'magazine of the month' in a promotional bay but that never does particularly well - it's a nuisance, frankly.

Newspapers and magazines are easy money really because they're on sale or return, which means they look after themselves. They're good footfall drivers as youngsters will pick up a magazine and then buy crisps and a drink.