Street Papers are seeing a rise in sales that contradicts all other types of magazine and newspapers sales. Street papers are newspapers, like Big Issue, that are sold on “the street” by homeless vendors.
These publications are geared for and produced for the homeless vendor to sell. They cover a wide range of issues from International and local affairs to issues of homelessness and poverty. The street vendors purchase the papers for cost and sell at a cover price. Their profit is the difference in the two prices.
At a time when conventional newspapers and magazines are dying slow, excruciating deaths, “street papers” are seeing a 10 per cent rise across the board. INSP (International Network of Street Papers) says that there are about 115 titles going out across nearly 40 countries. They see their work as news, entrepreneurial, and philanthropically driven.
Many newspaper and magazine experts are hard pressed to say what is driving the readership of these street papers. At this point, they warn, it’s difficult to tell if this is simply an impulse sale. That is to say, that the surprise of having a homeless person offer you a newspaper to purchase is so stunning that people do it because of its unexpectedness.
Many may do it just to help the homeless person out. It is difficult to determine what the readership is. Are these repeat readers or are they just people the vendor stumbles across everyday? Since there is no kiosk or store, there is no way to know how many people read the street papers habitually or how many just come across them.
Would selling another product work as well?
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