There was a bookstore up the street from us when we were kids that we discovered threw away old magazines at the end of each month. They started locking the dumpsters after they caught us in there a few times digging out old porno mags.
Ran a magazine/book store for about 2 years in the late 90s. We always returned unsold to the distributor to not get charged.
They'd also do things where they put two or three old issues into a plastic wrapper and sold them for $7.99 or $8.99.
We had over 1200 magazine titles.
Probably 100 of those were porn.
Margin on the magazines was typically 20%.
Selling a Newsweek for $1.95 versus selling Skinny & Wriggly for $5.95 it was clear what was keeping the place afloat.
The porn mags also sold quite a few Wall Street Journals. Apparently the preferred 'wrapper'.
Then my brother found a company in CA that would ship 50 VCR tapes for $199. We started selling them for $39.95 and could hardly keep them in stock. When the pace slowed a little we offered buy 1 get 1 half price.
My brother decided to pull the plug after I moved, as it really never got the traction we'd hoped. I'm sure the internet would have killed the part that kept the store alive as long as it was.
I can say, without a doubt, that 99% of male customers would at least walk back and behold that section (only sold porn mags that were sealed in plastic, I wasn't going to manage a library), whereas not even 2% of women would take a peek.
The only women I recall actually coming to the counter with something from that section were in groups of two or three and clearly getting someone a gag gift.
