Australian Newsagency Blog

NDD, one of the three magazine distributors supplying magazines to newsagents, has scaled out calendars to the newsagent network. While the calendars have a commission of 35% (usual newsagent commission on magazines is 25%), they have a shelf life of six months. My prediction is that unless different terms are negotiated, such as delayed payment until December 2006, these calendars will be cash-flow negative for newsagents for their entire shelf life. While I do not have the NDD national scale out data, I’d suggest that even a modest scale out to newsagents will suck out in the vicinity of $500,000 from newsagent bank accounts. My store received 10 copies of V8 Utes and Beautes and 29 copies of a Melbourne calendar. Such product without the support of other calendar stock will not sell. We will be returning the stock and not paying the NDD account.