What has happened to the Pattaya Trader

[matman]

I’ve been away from Pattaya for over a year now. Can anyone tell me just What has happened to the Pattaya Trader. I was an avid reader of it for several years and used to look forward to it coming out every month. It was full of stories, travel items, articles of use and interest to ex pats living in Pattaya, which as I recall was the readership the magazine was aimed at. I understand the magazine was sold some time back and from what I’ve seen of the Pattaya Trader under its new ownership, it is not even worth bothering to pick a copy up. My ex pat friends that have been living here in my absence, have voiced the same opinion too. One of the ‘groups’ resident outside Pattaya used to nominate one of their number to collect a copy of the magazine for each of them, now it seems none of them bother to read it at all.

What’s with the thirty or so pages of ‘What’s on’ that I understand is included every month, with some entries being duplicated over and over on a daily basis. Many of the entries being ‘tourist orientated’ in a magazine that is supposed to be reading for resident ex pats.

Sadly it seems the Pattaya Trader has become ‘bland’, completely lacking in any content that would be of interest or enjoyment to the resident ex pat community. From comments made to me it would appear that the magazine has just become a vehicle for promoting the owners other business interests given the number of advertisements it carries for them.

[myfriendu]

funny first post the mag is the same and im thinking u may have worked for the owner

[ThaiBob]

Funny, I got the recent copy and I thought it was one of the better publications available. It's free and look forward to each issue.

[matman]

I take issue with your suggestion that I was previously connected in any way with the Pattaya Trader.

I am seventy five years old and retired to Pattaya in 2005, up until I was forced to return to the United Kingdom in 2011 due to health problems I had read almost all of the issues between those dates, so please don’t insult my intelligence (and that of my friends that hold the same opinion) by suggestion that the magazine content has not changed.

With regard to your suggestion that this is my first post, you are wrong in that assumption too. I was previously registered with Thai Visa for many years, but following the considerable period of absence from Thailand, I was for some reason unable to resurrect my old account despite assistance from Thai visa support, and so had to re-register, and that is why it gives the impression I am new here.

From the tone of your response and your defence, it would appear that you are an employee of the publication

[raro]

Peace and love guys... B-)

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[fakename]

Besides the fact that there is not much to read, in the new Trader, they could use a little more glue to hold the pages together. After one day, it starts to fall apart. A better way they could have saved money, would not waste so much ink on all the adds.

[mikebell]

I agree with OP,; I think Gradgrind has taken over. There is little humour and no fiction anymore. Now it is a succession of food articles; nothing risque; no edge any more.

[sojourner007]

Totally agree with OP. The magazine has become just like junk mail. I see the same trend of demise here as with many other good features of old Pattaya: pure profit-maximizing commercialism and mass tourism steamroll everything. I also miss that great publication The Walking Street Journal that short-lived a few years ago. Anyway, my Thai GF who works for a local newspaper told me that Pattaya Trader is now owned by a Thai business woman who also owns Pattaya People newspaper and TV.

[matman]

Having been castigated for airing my views on the current Pattaya Trader, and also having been accused of being an employee or ex-employee I thought I’d wait until the next months issue was published, revisit the magazine and see if my earlier criticism was justified.

The June 2014 issue contained 164 pages, of these I found that less than 10% of the magazine contained articles aimed at the readership that were not aligned to a business in one form or another. The 30 page ‘diary’ of what’s on for June contained no less than ten pages of advertising, many entries were repeated on a daily basis, and many of those were in fact ‘business entries’ for bars or food outlets etc.

The Classified advertisements in both the Pattaya Trader and the Property Trader were in the main trade adverts that seem to be repeated each month.

Sixty plus full page adverts, without trying to add up all the half page, quarter page and smaller adverts that fill the magazine, not forgetting all the advertorial articles written by or for business’s.

The Pattaya Trader now contains little or no ‘Magazine’ articles and has just become a vehicle for advertising.

I see one of the responses is from ‘Mike Bell’ who I assume was the person who contributed many articles and short stories for the ‘original’ Pattaya Trader and who it appears holds the same views as I do.

I also agree with another respondent in that the ‘magazine’ falls apart after only thumbing through it a few times.

[Emster23]

Used to read it, not any more. One I really miss is Walking Street Journal. That was up there with National Lampoon for sheer cheek and laughs....

[BookMan]

The Pattaya Trader now contains little or no ‘Magazine’ articles and has just become a vehicle for advertising.

Sounds like they are making a lot of money

[ThaiBob]

For those that think Pattaya Trader isn't what it used to be, better look at Pattaya Expat magazine. 40 pages of basically ads.

[raro]

I have deleted some posts that mentioned too many names. Please be reminded of our forum rules, especially the part about name and shame.

This website is not a platform to wash your dirty laundry.

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

[thenamesisbond]

Hi

I have only just seen this thread so my apologies for not responding earlier. I am one of the owners of the Trader magazine and would like to respond to the critics.

YES the magazine has changed - we have lost some of the articles and jokes that really reflected an old and outdated Pattaya. We didn't make these changes lightly and in fact carried out a lot of research both in the magazine and online before launching the revamped Trader over 18 months ago. We still carry a large proportion of the articles which the magazine had before and have added many other regular features.

The magazine has (as the name suggests) always been about helping connect expat residents with business and suppliers. it has done this by means of interesting and useful information. Since we acquired the magazine we have increased the distribution by 300% in high season and the classifieds which was all but but defunct is now growing strong. In order to pay for the publication we must of course have ad revenue and we try hard to keep adding to the range of articles and features.

We also like to publish letters and emails from our readers and we would welcome anyone to give us feedback on the good and bad points of the publication. As some of you quite correctly point out it is aimed at expats - all expats and not just the retired ones but also the working 30 plus year olds and the growing number of female expats working in and around Pattaya.

i can say that overall the response from Pattaya has been very positive. the wants on guide is not to be read each day but a quick guide of events or ideas on on the days you are looking at.

Also to set the record straight - the magazine is not connected in any way with the Pattaya People media group.

We welcome your comments at [email protected]

[BugJackBaron]

With regards to the Walking Street Journal. It hasn't been around for 3 or 4 years. I was told that the guy running it

got tired of doing it and stopped. Too bad.

[boldface]

The magazine was interesting sometimes although the adverts were always out of date. The problem with it is that it is a tool for the parent company, an SEO business, to pick up leads and if you advertised there you were bombarded with calls from the SEO firm there after.

[thenamesisbond]

Hi

I can confirm that we will speak to advertisers about our other services, however where do you get this idea of bombarded with calls. I would be amazed if the Trader advertisers have ever had more then a couple of calls over a year mentioning our SEO services... in fact i can see from our call logs.. many have never had a call offering our other products - which is actually a downfall of our sales process.

I believe that we should always speak to our customers and let them know what services we offer and how we may be able to help their business. I certainly welcome hearing from my suppliers should they feel they have something i may need or could benefit my business.

Edited August 26, 2014 by thenamesisbond