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A request for help from the folks behind Lunch Lady magazine

Australian magazines are important to us, especially Australian magazines not sold in supermarkets – they are our point of difference. Please take a moment to read this call for help from the publisher of Lunch Lady:

Just wondering if you can help us let newsagents know not to send back as many early returns. As suspected we have received quite a few early returns and it’s a shame because we have an overwhelming amount of people email and call us to say they can’t find it or it’s “sold out”.

We do a lot of marketing through instagram and people are literally hunting it down at newsagents across the country. The engagement so far has been outstanding – very similar to when we started frankie. People who buy it LOVE it and want to find it easily in newsagents.

I understand that newsagents have a lot of magazines to consider, but I do think Lunch lady will be a success for them if they give it a chance. We are doing lots of marketing and brand awareness. I think the fact people are going from newsagent to newsagent speaks volumes.

Some early feedback below including great shout outs for newsagents who stock it…

https://www.instagram.com/p/-lGutcmYck/?tagged=lunchladymagazine

https://www.instagram.com/p/-NmSdMo2a1/?tagged=lunchladymagazine

https://www.instagram.com/p/-P6Fl1Leki/?tagged=lunchladymagazine

https://www.instagram.com/p/-VZ6BOrIp5/?tagged=lunchladymagazine

https://www.instagram.com/p/-Z9-_2kH9F/?tagged=lunchladymagazine

https://www.instagram.com/p/-aR6WmHhNU/?tagged=lunchladymagazine

As always any help would be much appreciated.

11 likes
magazines

Join the discussion

  1. jenny

    My rule is never early return a new Australian magazine on first issue, you just never know.
    Have sold 3 of 5, placement at front of shop, then on flat near cooking plus a copy in fashion.
    It’s the type of magazine that I think would sell as a Xmas gift so I should probably order more stock.
    Only negative is a small magazine can get lost amongst all the others.

    3 likes

  2. Australian Family Tree Connections

    We have had the same experience as Lunch Lady for many years. People love our magazine and will travel from suburb to suburb and country town to country town to find a newsagent that stocks our magazine.

    All I can add is, please don’t turn away someone who could become one of your most loyal customers.

    1 likes

  3. Steve

    Australian Family Tree, as your distributor is IPS could you explain how early returns are an issue for you? If your customers can’t find your magazine its because a lot of newsagents refuse to deal with IPS and their restrictive trading term. After years of wasting an inordinate amount of time an effort managing my IPS’ account for little monetary gain I’ve finally decided to close my account. I’m ecstatic at never having to deal with them again.
    Your one of the few IPS titles I have success with but it’s just not worth it.

    10 likes

  4. Brett

    I agree with Steve – IPS not agile enough

    1 likes

  5. Steve

    Aust Family Tree, one of the biggest problems with IPS’ is the short returns period of 2 weeks and the disconnect to onsale dates of magazines and your tittle is a culprit. The Dec issue isn’t onsale till the 12/12/15 (more like 15/12/15 here in the west) but returns are now open, by the time your new issue arrives returns for the old issue will be closed.
    I got caught with 2 copies of your August issue when returns were closed before the Sept/Oct issue arrived and IPS refused to accept them. I would suggest you get your own house in order before you criticise the newsagents who sell your magazine for you.
    I know IPS and yourself will say it my responsibility to return them on time but as I stated before its to much time and effort for too little return so I’m over it. THAT”S WHY YOUR CUSTOMER”S CAN” FIND YOIR MAGAZINE IN A LOT OF NEWSAGENTS! Don’t blame early returns when your not even subjected to them.

    5 likes

  6. Steve

    That should be “CAN’T FIND YOUR MAGAZINE IN A LOT OF NEWSAGENCIES!”

    0 likes

  7. ken

    onya Steve! I got rid of ips last year with absolutely no regrets. There is life after mags and I think that after the mpa trial has been completed and the two major distributors get their way [and they will get their way] magazines will become more irrelevant in my shop.

    6 likes

  8. James

    And here we are, going around the same 20 year old circular argument. Its groundhog day all over again – trying to wring the life out of a 100yr old business model in a 21st century retail environment.

    In case no one has noticed, the magazine category is going backwards at 8 to 10% per annum. As Fairfax has come to understand, that means at that rate you now sell half as much product as you did 5 years ago. In the same time, retail space has gone up 25% in cost, wages 15%, utilities – forget it.

    Wheres the industry disrupter? Wheres the publisher, the distributor that gets it and wants to turn the whole thing on its head and find a better way. No – its more of the same only with tighter limitations. I get the impression that the whole print media business from top to bottom has just given up and its now a case of ride this pony for what we can get until it drops dead – and then thats that.

    Im sorry, but I take the approach that my space and time are valuable. More so in the digital retail age. You have removed my exclusivity as a retailer of your product and hence my point of difference in relation to your product. I now ask, what are you prepared to do to have your product sold in my store such that I can take something else out.

    10 likes

  9. Mark Fletcher

    James there is not enough margin for a single disruptor as such. However, smart newsagents are disrupting through floorspace allocation. Gift departments doing $200K a year and more, toys doing $100K and more, plush doing $100K and more. Combine those and you have massive disruption, especially if your magazine decline is a fraction of the average.

    0 likes

  10. Paul

    Agree no IPS here and after the diagreement I had with the G&G account manager this morning ( by the way the Australian Small Business Commissioners Office was very interested to hear that you wouldn’t send me a cheque if my account drops into credit this month due to the way you have allowed or not allowed credits into the previous account periods time frame) I may not have G&G either after tomorrow.

    Regardless of what is said we know magazines are dieing. We see that in Marks quarterly stats and in the circualtion figures that are available. Some are bucking the trend but is it worth it when that same space can earn me double the return that a magazine can ?

    The publishers/distributors will do exactly the same as what Tatts does and will use us until they can either find another medium that is cheaper for them to harness or has better coverage or they can “encourage” people to move online.

    Sorry , no more sympathy for publishers. You have had your chance to pressure the distributors into a more equitable system and provide fairer compensation to newsagants but you’ve missed that boat. Now that you want help from newsagents again oops , sorry looks like you’ve missed that boat too.

    9 likes

  11. Peter B

    Had a look at monthly sales comparison to last year for November. Mags down 22%. Gifts made $3,000 more PROFIT than mags for the month.

    Already planning a 20% cut in pockets for next year and if and when the MPA get their wishes through there will be a much deeper cut.
    Publishers take notice!!

    7 likes

  12. James

    Mark, agree with all you say. But that is disrupting the channel. In fact Id argue exiting the channel for something else. None of what you say offers encouragement for the publishers of Lunch Lady.

    Im looking for the disruptor in print media.

    0 likes

  13. Henry Henderson

    Dear Lunch Lady,
    I’m sorry you feel turned away by newsagents; however, I would like you to know that newsagents, being small business people, feel a kinship with small players like yourself and have a genuine desire for you to succeed.
    However, you need to know that chronic oversupply is a huge problem in our industry; matters are presently before the ACCC in which the big publishers accuse newsagents of ‘indiscriminate’ early returns, so, if the you have been told there is an early return problem, it is prudent to realize that in a matter before the ACCC, it is in the publishers and the distributors interest for this idea to spread.
    There will be, of course, a few who would have early returned their ‘Lunch’ without due thought, but were all the newsagents your followers visited supplied with ‘Lunch’? I wasn’t. Do you know how many actually early retuned and if this was a significant number in relation to those supplied. The big publishers very much want to ban early returns so it is prudent to ask these questions before accepting their version of what happened
    You may be interested to know that magazines are costing themselves out of newsagencies. I am not referring to the price to the consumer, but the cost to the newsagent. Magazines are retailed on a commission basis; that is, they are paid a commission for items sold. Usually, the advantages for the retailer is he does not pay for stock other than that sold and that only after payment is made to the him. In return, the commission is small relative to margins for non-commission items.
    Uniquely within our industry, although the commission is the same, newsagents have to pay up front for the magazines supplied: both for the magazines that will sell and the magazines that will not be sold, or, could not be reasonably considered to have prospect of being sold.
    The MPA want to enshrine in a ‘Code of Conduct’ a supply of 96% more of each magazine than the actual sales over the previous period. Hence, newsagents would have to pay nearly twice as much up front as they would if they were buying stationery, cards or gifts where they would be receiving 3 times as much gross profit and even more net profit.
    Compare magazines with newspapers where the commission is the same, but the agent has received the money from the sales before he pays the publisher.
    Magazines returns are exceptionally labour intensive and expensive and newsagents have to pay a third party to get suitably formatted data to print essential labels and update stock.
    Two huge events have visited upon newsagencies this century: deregulations of the industry and a huge fall in magazine demand.
    Since deregulation newsagents have been forced to learn the lessons of competition. In the days of milk and honey we simply kept our tills well oiled while regulation directed consumer to our doorstep. Consumer driven demand has taught newsagents the lessons of the market place and we have come to understand ‘competition’, itself, in a new light.
    We thought that ‘competition’ was a simply rivalry between us and the shop up the road; now we have come to understand that competition is also a vigorous competition between products that vie for shelf space and other resources at our disposal. Will this magazine bring more profit than that gift (or whatever). Contrary to the publishers’ allegation, newsagents have not become ‘indiscriminate’, competition has forced them to become more discriminate and the intensity of their engagement with all the products they sell has magnified as they constantly balance the merits of one against the other in matching stock to demand.
    The MPA publishers have no appetite for competition of this kind and are seeking to reregulate newsagents in a way that will give them an advantage over rivals for shelf space. They seek to take the last means we have of exerting any control over our stock by oversupplying and removing the right to early returns and replacing it with an irrational and inefficient oversupply formula: a huge impost on newsagents cash flow and a corresponding improvement in publishers’.
    So, Lunch Lady, you now know of some of the tensions in our industry. But be assured, as Mark has pointed out, in the competition referred to above, new generation magazines, such as yours, help to keep us fresh and distinguishes us from the supermarket up the road, and hence, have an added present and future value that will keep you on the shelves.

    25 likes

  14. jenny

    Would love another 5 copies but as usual GG has no stock!

    0 likes

  15. Mark Fletcher

    Jenny I have contacted the publisher direct for you.

    1 likes

  16. Mark Fletcher

    The publisher has responded and is following up.

    1 likes

  17. Rob

    As a publisher I am very concerned with the disconnect between newsagents and publishers. Many publishers and most newsagents alike are small businesses being treated poorly by the big business distributors. While newsagents have to pay for the magazines delivered to them up front, it is some three months later that as a publisher I receive my final payment on the magazines sold. No prizes for guessing who holds onto the money in between (Mr distributor is no doubt investing money on the short term money markets and making plenty!). Publishers and newsagents should band together to cut distributors out of the market.

    8 likes

  18. Bill

    I sell around 20-25 copies of Frankie a month and haven’t even been allocated this title.

    0 likes

  19. Mark Fletcher

    Bill I have sent you the contact details for the publisher.

    0 likes

  20. ken

    Rob,
    I think most newsagents sympathise with you and would like to help but I personally believe that the majority of publishers are only too happy with the current systems in place. Recently one of my best selling mags[horse deals]changed to IPS a company known for oversupply and no early returns. As I refuse to be bullied by companies like this and closed my account with them my loyal customers must now either subscribe or travel a minimum of 50k,s round trip to purchase it. Everyone loses now!!just more angst. If IPS picks up any top selling network publications if and when they close it is going to be even worse I fear as many newsagents feel the same way as us.

    5 likes

  21. Julie

    Have just read comments.
    We did not receive any stock from G&G. on requesting copies from G&G were told stock not available
    If the publisher has spare stock we would like a few copies as well.

    0 likes

  22. Mark Fletcher

    Julie I have asked the question on your behalf.

    0 likes

  23. Louise

    Hi Henry, Jenny, Bill and everyone – thanks for your comments above in relation to my letter about Lunch Lady. We are a small independent publisher of just three people who publish Lunch Lady. We also find the process frustrating with distributors who over supply and don’t nail allocations. I have always believed the system is broken and needs to be fixed. Henry – your comment has provided me with much clarity about the situation AND hope that newsagents like you will still give us publishers like us a chance. If anyone would like me to supply them with copies of Lunch Lady please email me direct and I will organise. hello@weprintnicethings.com.au

    1 likes

  24. Mark Fletcher

    Louise, thanks for being so open here. Connecting newsagents and publishers directly has to be good for the two most important groups in the magazine space.

    1 likes

  25. Henry Henderson

    Hello Louis, I’ve often wondered what the feasibility of direct supply from small publishers.Have you ever thought about it? However, since we have no control what-so-ever over supply; we would get a supply from you and from the distributors as well. None-the-less, it would be an interest insight into the efficiency of magazine distribution as against other possibilities.

    1 likes

  26. Louise

    Hi Henry, I’m unsure of the feasibility of a direct supply to newsagent scenario. I would imagine it would be a headache for lots of small newsagents to deal with so many different publishers. But there is definitely a better way. There is change happening everywhere from Uber to Air bnb to now Sendle which is a new way to freight – genius – https://www.sendle.com/. We just need someone to come up with a new way for us !

    0 likes

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