The Herald Sun today comes with a free DVD of the Disney movie Annabelle’s Wish. We ran out of stock before lunch. Home delivery customers and customer who purchased their newspaper at the supermarket were angry that we did not have their free DVD. Some walked a considerable distance only to be let down. Gross undersupply by the Herald Sun has meant that the free DVD has turned into a customer service fiasco. We have made it clear to our customers that the Herald Sun is to blame.
I love promotions like this – if only they were executed better. The messy system publishers use means that we are not able to leverage the promotion for our maximum value nor are we able to leverage it for the maximum value of the publisher.
I advised people at the Herald Sun that we would run low on DVDs. That did not help.
If you want one of the free Olivia Newton-John CDs tomorrow, get in early. If you’re in Forest Hill or Frankston, get in by 11am. I’d note that if you want a set of Leunig cards, free with The Sunday Age, we have plenty of stock.
i love these type of promotions….. if it is a good freebee (quality)then we will only recieve 1/3 or 1/2 to the amount of papers. if it is crap (leunig) there is 1 for 1.
nsw isnt doing these promos yet, perhaps next week. if there is anty stock left.
We got the sun mail today with 0 xmas DVD’s, not 1. We have been making kids cry all morning and it is upsetting to both the families and staff. No matter what we tell the customer, most think it is our fault somehow. Its a great way to spend a sunday morning.
200+ Sunday mails for us today and not 1 DVD.
Can wait for the excuse when i ring up Monday morning to enquire why we did not get any.
Mark, we had adequate stock and the DVD’s were very popular. This is a newsagent (and Look a like) only promotion. Perhaps the issue needs to be stitched up between you, the distribution agent and the HWT.
We are just a small newsagent, and we got 100+ dvd’s has been fantastic all day making our customers super happy!! Big thanks go out to our QN rep Dennis who went out of his way to get plenty of stock for us 🙂
My plan is to create a contact sheet which we will hand out to customers when this happens again. It will contain details of the supplier responsible and the person to contact.
Craig, We let H&WT know early in the week of our requirements. We usually get what we need from the distribution agent to whom we sold our run. This time, something has failed. So, we took every precaution.
Based on what happened in my newsagency this morning, everyone was out od stock but us – we were slammed. Since delivery newsagents near us are closed Sundays we are a natural target. Publishers appear to not understand this.
Mark
Both saturday and sunday supplies were clearly under supplied I acknowledge that.
I am aware that after each promotion HWT send the Newsagent by email a “left over sheet”
for completion and return.
If in the past an agent has not completed and retunred this analysis sheet then I suspect the problem lies with the Newsagent. How can HWT know what to send if you do not return the “left over sheet” they supply us in good faith.
Pro, I advised H&WT of my requirements in advance. I don’t see the sheet to which you refer as I am not a distribution newsagent.
I am all for these promotions. Publishers ought to develop a more direct to retailer relationship if they want them to work well.
To quote Monty Python – you guys were lucky! We didn’t even get the papers!
If one more big, ugly, snooty cow alights (I use that term loosely..) from her big ugly 4WD, charges in and makes it my responsibility for her not hauling her fat, overfed arse down the road to get her crappy DVD from her OWN newsagent yesterday morning, I’ll bloody chase her out the door, in an effort to stuff the damn coupon in her earhole.
We’re getting them too Y&G. I’m enjoying when they charge in and say “I want the DVD now! I didn’t get it yesterday when I bought it from here”
I love asking “what time was that”? Seeing we’re not open on Sunday’s!
:LOL: Michael.
Yeah we have been getting quite a few & they are quite adamant that it is the Newsagents fault (one even yelling at my partner, it seems). I have been setting them on the right track & telling them to contact QLD News, We received approx 1/3 DVD’s to papers. They were gone in 2 hrs yesterday. Since then approx 30 more looking for the DVD (90 % not our regular customers)……that sort of tells me the extent of the problem.
Max
whats your secret george, dennis is not that helpful to us,but then again we are just across the border so not worthy. The bulletin is running this on saturday and the telegraph on sunday. Makes for interesting weekend
Chris, you don’t have to be over the border, I’d like to know George’s secret too.
Max, I think the problem is the coupon. If it was printed on the masthead or something, that you get the DVD, WHEN YOU BUY IT FROM A NEWSAGENT and nowhere else it would solve the problem.
Newsagents can supply the bonus more effectively and stop burning the newspaper customer when we run out – Just supply us with a 1:1 ratio and everyone’s happy…?
Michael…….spot on!
I think George got my supply.
I checked on Connect and it says I should have got 50 DVD’s. I am still waiting.
I am in NSW and can count my QLD newspaper sales on one hand.
And this Max is in QLD :lol:….who would of thought.
Max,
I’m A QLD’er in NSW.
If I had received my 50 DVD’s I would have kept the extras until they offer them with the telegraph. Then I would have had a decent supply.
And that would have maximum effect 🙂
The goodwill lost over the last 24 hours due to insufficient DVDs must outweigh the value of offering the DVDs. The problem is that the goodwill damage is more against newsagents as it is the publisher.
That’s what I’ve told the publishers Mark, but their defence is it drives foot traffic (even though in this case we don’t earn anything off it) and this is good for Newsagents (even if it’s a big, ugly, snooty cow who wants nothing but the freebie and gets irate at us at our expense)
Customer service wise (for the Newspaper’s benefit) would be to let Newsagents handle these offers as we’ve obviously proven we can handle it with no problems when supplied right.
The coupon format just has to go.
Unfortunately, you are correct, Mark.
One ‘customer’ even demanded I ring QNP because she was inconvenienced. When it was politely pointed out that more customers needed to do that themselves, because agents are not taken seriously by News Ltd, the hissy – fit reminded me of the tutu-wearing hippos in Fantasia. Made my day.
At the end of their day, however, it’s the agents that are at fault because we are the point of freebie. We really are the frontline, and publishers/distributors are the strategists. They wouldn’t know enemy fire if it was aimed at their cloacas. Which is why I encourage anyone who misses out on freebies (or their paper!) to take it directly to News. Hell – we can’t even get a decent standing order on Connect without someone changing it all down again, so I wish customers luck. Actually, one customer did email QNP last summer when we had no choice of standing orders except for the hit/miss option to fax daily for more. Unfortunately the reply was all blame the agent, which demanded a response from us. No responsibility, no guts, no respect for customers or agents. But yay for customers who pass on their emails. They are the ones who saw us cop daily crap re supply, as well as bearing the ulitimate consequence. i.e. no paper.
Here we go again. I suspect not a lot has changed, so hang on tight – we’re in for another bumpy ride over the hols.
And we look forward to a couple more disc promos in the next week or so from News. Yay.
In the immortal words of Ali G. Respek.
Y&G you mention not being able to get a supply ,it is a fight every week to get a supply from QNP some days after i do all the subbys schools and woolies and coles i am actually in negative numbers , i ring and tell them this and they say hop on connect and waste more time .lats time i had no papers for my shop i kept woolies papers and APARANTLY not such a good idea as woolies must always get there papers even though they have about 70% return rate .It makes you wonder who they really want selling there papers
Yep, makes one sick, eh?
We don’t have any subbies, so it couldn’t possibly get any simpler from our end!
“It makes you wonder who they really want selling there papers”
That it does!
after receiving fax today from news ltd to say that far north coast newsagents would not receive dvd this weekend, i rang circulation to be told that they assumed the market would be saturated from the qld offer. when i informed them that qld ignore us cause we over the border they were shocked. One would have thought that their rep might have been employed to ask questions first. Besides we are a nsw newsagent and this is a nsw telegraph offer our customers are entitled. This is so typical of the marketing and circulation departments not knowing what their customers want. Lets just forget freebies and concentrate on the original product.
I giggle with familularity as I read these comments. We too were supplied with half the number of DVD’s we required. As a result our one of our sub-agents, who is also a newsagent, did not receive the DVD and was most upset. We had run out about two hours after opening so what could we do??
I adjust our Connect figures on a daily basis. On a Friday, last thing I do before I leave is check that Monday and Tuesday’s figures are correct. EVERY Monday I get a call at 1am to say we are short on papers???? When I get in at 4am and check Connect someone who OBVIOUSLY knows my business better than I do has changed them once again!! Why give me the opportunity to set my levels only to cause me the frustration of not supplying what I need???
i know this is a little off topic, but does anyone know about phantom subscribers to substitute the losses on a delivery run?
Phuck its the Phantom!!!
Waaay to kill a thread!
All u need is to chuck in a bit of bad juju, and presto! LOL
for those of us not used to the drug culture jargon Why Gee – what is ”
ä bit of bad juju?”
Another way of saying ‘karma’ ‘luck’ ‘vibes’ whatever. Its an internet/sci-fi saying, not druggie culture.
Get back on the red pills anon.
Well Why Gee enlighten us with your wisdom on the Phantom Subscriber