An open letter to SCD

[Archive]

Posted By: Jim VB

I admit it. I'm the fool who still has a subscription to your paper. I had one for years. Gave it up for a few years and then picked it back up last Spring, just to see how you were doing. It's not pretty.

On January 2, 2008, I received the issue dated 1/11/08. Then, apparently, you took three weeks off. Today, I received the 1/18 AND 1/25 issues. Of course, both are outdated already. Each is about 45 pages.

I understand circulation is down. Advertising pages are down even more. If you eliminate the shady advertisers, you'd be closed in a month. But who do you think you're fooling? Why try so hard to continue to publish weekly? Years ago, a fine publication called "Home Furnishings Daily" gave up trying. They switched their name officially, to "HFD" (nice initials, but no longer meaning "daily"), and began publishing every week. There just wasn't enough news (or ads) to justify a daily edition.

You don't have enough to publish every week. Not enough stories, not enough auctions, not enough ads, not enough show schedules, no more relevant price lists. Nada.

I don't want you to go away mad. I don't really even want you to go away. But I want you to be relevant. Your publishing a 1980's paper in the year 2008. The industry has changed. The world has changed. Teletrade doesn't buy 15-20 pages a week to run their auctions. Ebay works better..., without newspaper support. It's not your fault, but it is reality. The internet killed you guys and nobody told you.

You'd be far, far better as a bi-weekly or even a monthly. Not like Beckett's or Tuff Stuff, with 10 pages of content, 60 pages of ads, and 80 pages of meaningless price guides. Find a niche where you can mean something and dominate that niche. It will be a struggle, but it won't be an embarassment like you are right now.

I know some of you guys read this site. I don't think you did anything wrong. It just happened. Chris, T.S., Don, please, try something to fix this.