'Wall St. Journal' In a Box

By: Wayne Robins It comes in a box the size of a trade paperback, which makes sense, since it's sold at Barnes & Noble. But it's not a book or a magazine: It's a subscription to The Wall Street Journal Online. That's right, an online product for sale in a brick-and-mortar store.

For nearly two years, Dow Jones' Consumer Electronic Publishing division has been selling WSJ Online subscriptions at various retail outlets. "Barnes & Noble was the original and still the best outlet," said Neil F. Budde, vice president of the division and publisher of WSJ.com. "We did have some other physical store chains including Office Depot in the past, but the only other outlets today are online retailers like Amazon.com."

Dow Jones has tried a few different package designs, according to Budde, and has "revamped the look of the box" based on feedback from Barnes & Noble about what sells. They've also finessed subscription lengths and price points. At a Barnes & Noble in a mall in Queens, N.Y., we found both current packages -- nine months for $34.95 or 60 days for $4.95 -- on the magazine rack along with other general interest and business publications. Since buying the print Journal costs $1 an issue, and since we had a five-dollar bill burning a hole in our pocket, the 60-day offer was a no-brainer.

There's no CD-ROM, DVD, or floppy disc inside the sealed box. "Password Inside. No Installation Required. Simply Log On to Begin." Open the package and you get an Access Card with a login name and password, and instructions to go to http://wsj.com/trial. The only other enclosure is a 12-page site guide identical to the online tour.

Once you log in, you get to choose your own user name and password. The registration information requested isn't too intrusive: Name, business, address, phone number, e-mail address, and a few general questions about the kind of size of business for which one works.

One motivation for buying the retail box is gift-giving, and the Journal's marketing people try to make sure displays are given prominence in the weeks before Fathers Day, for example, and Christmas. "One of the reasons we began the retail box was a recognition that many people would be willing to give a subscription as a gift but they wanted something physical to deliver as the gift," Budde explained.

The retail box hasn't been a huge factor in adding subscriptions to The Wall Street Journal Online, the first and by far the most successful pay-for-access newspaper Web site. "Customers acquired this way do not tend to be as loyal and as easy to renew as people who come in directly through the [Journal] Web site," Budde acknowledged. "When it is given as a gift, the recipient is not always that motivated to then buy it for themselves."

And yet the retail box is considered a success in building brand awareness, just by being in the racks. The company also has ancillary uses for the boxes, such as using them as promotional gifts at Dow Jones or Journal-sponsored conferences.

WSJ Online had 646,000 subscribers as of June 30, the most recent quarterly tally. Budde said of that number, about two-thirds pay $79 for the annual online-only subscription, while the remaining one-third are print subscribers paying $39 for a year online.

"The fact that we do charge [online] allows us to be in different environments," Budde said. "No one's going to sell an offer for a free Web site in a book store."