Selling Your Magazines - FAQs:

What kind of magazines do you buy?

Essentially we are interested in any 'hobby' magazines of the type listed on this website; titles which fit into our exisiting categories (ie. Automotive, Aviation, Boating, Cycling, Modelling, Motorcycling, Men's Lifestyle & Railway) are of most interest, but we may also be interested in other categories - see seperate point below for more information on this. All magazines must be in good, re-sellable condition and complete with any relevant inserts or supplements.

What kind of magazines won't you buy?

Condition is very important - magazines with excessive wear & tear, pages loose or missing, or pen marks etc are of no interest. Also, we don't buy weekly magazines, fanzines, club or society newsletters, news or current affairs magazines, or any magazines with content that ages particularly quickly (eg computer magazines)

Do you want magazines which don't fit into any of your existing categories?

We are always interested in adding new magazine categories, but doing this requires someone to first offer us a large collection of magazines (ie. several thousand) with which to jump start the new category - only then is it practical for us to start buying that sort of magazine in the normal way (ie, in relatively small numbers, typically several dozen or a few hundred at a time). The only exception to this is if people wish to donate magazines to us - then we will happily accept them and keep them in storage until such time we are able to do something with them

How would you pay me?

If we wish to purchase your magazines you can choose to be paid directly, or to receive a credit against future purchases from Magazine Exchange. Credits are twice the value of cash payments.

So how would that work in practice?

Ok - As an example, assume you have a collection of magazines for sale which we are interested in purchasing. We would offer you two alternatives - either a direct payment of £50 (for instance) or a credit against future purchases of £100. If you prefered to have the money straight away, you would send or deliver the magazines, and we would pay you £50 by return (by cash, cheque or whatever method you prefered). Alternatively, if you wanted to maximise the value of your sale, once we received your magazines we would issue you with credit worth £100 against any future purchases made at Magazine Exchange.

So what might my magazines be worth?

All values need to be confirmed by ourselves, but as a guide we would typically pay 20p/40p (cash/credit) each for magazines we don't already have in stock, and 10p/20p for ones we do. Therefore a typical collection of 100 or so magazines would be worth a maximum of £40. In order to value your magazines, we would need a complete list of titles and issues. Since this website shows which magazines we already have in stock, you can of course calculate an approximate value yourself. Incidentally - whenever we buy a batch of magazines we have to manually catalogue them, scan the front cover, type-in the contents pages and update the website - and even then we generally only manage to sell about 10% of all the magazines we buy, so the profit margin is substantially lower than you might think!

How do I get my magazines to you?

Answer 1 - By Post - Magazines can be sent to us by post or courier; if you are using these methods please note that it is done at your cost, and as magazines tend to be very heavy in bulk you should first check that it is economic for you to do so. As a guide, using the standard Royal Mail parcel service in the UK costs £13.33 for weights up to 20kg (price correct at October 2007). If you are sending (for example) issues of Top Gear or FHM magazine there is no way this will be economic as those magazines typically have 400+ pages and you would not be able to get a sufficient number of issues into a 20kg parcel to pay for the postage cost. Conversely, if you are sending examples of a much more obscure and specialist title, and/or older issues, the magazines themselves will be much smaller and lighter, therefore well worth sending to us by post.

Courier services tend to be much cheaper than Royal Mail on heavier parcels, and will also collect the parcel from your door which might be an advantage. There are many websites on the internet where you can book courier collections, or look in Yellow Pages if you prefer to do it by 'phone.

Remember also that if you are sending magazines by post or by courier you will need to package them securely in a stout box with our address clearly marked. This also applies if we have made the courier arrangements on your behalf (see below)

Answer 2 - Deliver in Person - If you wish to deliver magazines in person, we are very easy to get to, being less than one mile from Junction 28 of the M1. Please contact us in advance to arrange a time and date for delivery.

Can you collect the magazines from me?

There are only two circumstances when we might arrange the collection ourselves - firstly, if there are a very large number of magazines to be collected (ie. several thousand), it will probably be worth our while to collect them in person. Secondly, there are a very small number of titles (cheifly model boat titles) where we will consider paying for the cost of delivery as well as the cost of the magazines.

Can I simply give you my magazines?

Yes - if you are moving house for example, and need to dispose of magazines quickly without itemising them fully, then simply contact us with overall quantities and titles. If we want the magazines we will arrange with you for a courier company to collect on an agreed date. We would pay for the postage costs in this case, but note that you would still need to package the magazines up ready for collection.

I'm happy with all the above - how do I proceed?

Simply email us HERE with your itemised list, and we will contact you as quickly as we can.