Click on the image to see the supply and return data for Owner Builder magazine over the last twelve issues for one newsagent who contacted me earlier this week.
With a sell-through rate of 26%, 33%, 8% and 47% for the last four issues, I can’t see why Gordon & Gotch continues to supply at such a rate. I wonder if the publisher of Owner Builder magazine is aware of this oversupply and the financial cost it is having on the newsagency involved.
Look at the data from November 2010 and look at the supply increases from then. I can’t see any reason in the sales data for Gotch increasing supply as they have done.
Think about the cost to the newsagency channel if such oversupply played out across the channel or even, say, 25% of the channel. Beyond the cash, labour and real estate cost faced by newsagents, there is the wastage of paper.
I am confident that the publisher of Owner Builder magazine will say that it is not in there interests to oversupply. I’d accept that if there was a reasonable explanation for the supply as being experienced by the newsagency which provided me with this data.
Yes, the publisher is aware!
As you have experienced, it is an ongoing and everyday issue of trying to keep in top of the fluctuations in the supply to various newsagents – often with no obvious reasoning.
I try to keep on top of it as best I can, but without devoting a few hours every week to trawling through an Excel spreadsheet, which I have to request, it is an almost hopeless situation.
To give credit where credit is due, each time a raise a particular issue with my account manager at G&G, he is very prompt at replying and working through requests with me.
Nevertheless, they have the systems to pinpoint this issues a lot quicker than me manually checking through 3000+ newsagents figures.
My other bug bear is the waste generated – G&G (and other distributors no doubt) basically dictate the number of copies per issue we need to have printed. If we print less, they distribute to less newsagents… a vicious cycle.
As a magazine focussed on sustainable owner building, this is my major area of focus at the moment.
Thanks for a great blog!
I sold my news agency because of this oversupply. Maybe if gotch didn’t get paid for the oversupply to newsagents then the situation would be different. It should be so that a newsagent is only charged for the titles he has sold during the month. Not the current extortion unconscionable conduct that has been happening for years.
Network and NDD are just as bad
Phil , NDD are long gone :), but I hear you loud and clear about the other 2 .