I know of some newsagents who early returned issue 1 of the Art of Crochet part series, deciding to not sell this title. Some soon realised the mistake they made once customers came in asking for the title.
Art of Crochet is delivering excellent traffic to newsagencies – thanks to the TV campaign. In our own case, we are finding that many customers also purchase other items.
Indeed, my newsagency shopping basket research shows that partworks customers are 33% more likely to purchase something in addition to the partwork when they visit the store than a regular magazine customer. 33% more likely! That is a bankable statistic. It is one reason I love partworks.
Some newsagents have said that they didn’t know it would be so successful and this is why they returned the stock. While the distributor and importer did a lousy job presenting the opportunity to newsagents I think that newsagents ought to have been more proactive in researching the title. It would have been easy to do some quick research before deciding to early return the stock.
Just done the numbers Mark, 100 plus would have been achievable in our store but did not recieve one single issue…..talk about missed opportunity!!! URGH!!!!
Dumb allocations people. Al, have you ordered stock for dinosaurs which comes out next week?
Mark maybe it is because some are just sick off all the bull that goes with partworks . they still have not got the figure correct for the tractor one . It has the potentual to loose more customers than you gain .
I am on my second order for the crochet so i actually like partworks but i can understand why some do not
Hi all
anybody knows who did supply the daffodil day pack which contain badges and pens? and how to return them? i ring both news ltd and j fairfax and they said not from them.
Hi Eric,
Daffodil merchandise came from G&G available for return now
thanks Deb
Maybe dumb could also describe repeatedly coming in for arrangements that disadvantage retailers in terms of supply, quality and frustrated customers.
With all due respect..
we sold out part1 , but not keen to promote part 2 at all.
Mark,
I did not know that dinosaurs were due out next week, I suspect most of us don’t know. The distribution chain is once again excelling in assisting the chain selling more magazines.
BTW, whats the hot goss on dinosaurs?
Brett you got an email from me last Friday. I emailed all newsXpress members.
i agree with shaun.
part 1 usually sell very well. part 2 onwards we get supply issues. happened to us in how your body works. customer wants the rest of series but supply was erratic and unpredictable.
end up confusing the customer a lot. not good.
I also had request for Art of Crochet but did not recieve any. We also are reluctant to keep more than the first issue of part works due to so many problems with supply in the past however this could be an area we we could receive commission with the first issue for signing up subscriptions. Additional sales are fine but we can also loose customers completly if we can’t be sure they can be supplied all of the collection.
I think any first issue of any title, especially partworks, is worth putting on the shelves (in reasonable quantities). Unfortunately, we were another newsagent the supplier overlooked (yes we received 0 supply), despite the fact that we are constantly inundated with craft magazines (which have a very poor sales history in our store). Never underestimate how far a customer will go to find a title, especially one that has been so well advertised.
On the issue of newsagents not being aware of upcoming, new titles/partworks, I wonder why communication has been lacking from publishers and/or distributors. Even our confectionery supplier manages to let us know about upcoming new products and advertising schedules so that we, as retailers of their products are well informed. Why does this not happen within the magazine industry?
After asking the question about TV Advertising support on this forum we went for it and built a big display. We sold out of our initial supply of 125 units. We have learnt to manage the supply of further issues by recommending to the customer to go direct to the publisher the second we get supply issues. Net result is we get the initial sales without the pain of unhappy customers when supplies dry up. It’s not perfect but it works
As a general rule, all partworks should be returnable at any time. With that consideration all agents would fully back the sales and all would benefit.
Brett, that’s a great idea! I’d push them a lot more, seeing we’ve been burned in the past.
i take it yo are talking about back orders
Shauns,
All partworks, backissues, the lot.
There is no reason that the distributors should not be able to have a link developed (most likely as part of xchangeit) that allows them to see how many customer orders each store has for partworks (or any magazine for that matter) and adjust their allocation system to ensure these are allocated as a priority above general stock. While it wouldn’t fix all the problems it would go a long way to improving the system. He’ll i’d even be happy to pay a fee for the software link if it ment we could fill our partwork orders without failure.
Jarryd,
I spoke to a distributor on that very issue just yesterday. It was their position that they also get random cuts in their allocation as the partwork progresses. Steve Denham may be able to help us here but I suspect that this is a UK problem based on historical sales models rather than current daily sales data. I do not even know if the UK have daily sales data sent, Steve .. can you help me with that info?
Jarryd, the distributors have the data today and have had it for years. It is part of the XchnageIT standard that newsagency software reports on pre sales.
Brett, modelling is done on sales decay in a series based on trials here in Australia, usually WA or SA. This modelling is then used to develop the plan for the national release and they order from the UK well in advance. So, they know before launch what the supply model looks like for the first, probably, 12 issues.
Part works are one of a few publications that we still have to return full in our area. The cost to return them from the FNQ is too high for us to benefit from promoting them. I could probaly sell more but returns costs eat up any profit if we don;t sell out.
Brett
I totally agree about returning a partwork at any time. How often do you get caught with backorders not collected because a customer has to wait so long. Who would it hurt?? There are probably tons of agents out there that ave particular partwork titles and issues that other agents are needing and yet they can’t return them because they are past the return date.
YEP BEEN CAUGHT HEAPS OF TIME
Years a go they were able to be returned any time in the life of the partworks. Changed to suit subscriptions ,saw how well agents were doing and said this is for us and they still wonder why agents are cutting mag space
Sorry we are big on partworks have around 300 orders
Ohhhh the irony…..somebody at this distributor obviously did not think i could sell the Crochet partworks but thought i could sell a magazine called Crochet today at $11.50 per copy!!!!! Please explain Mr Distributor!!!!!!
I have stopped stocking any sort of partworks. The Art of Crochet was the last straw. Any new-release partworks will be sent back ASAP. Sure I will lose money doing this, but the money I save on headache tablets more than makes up for it…..
Hi Steven we now have over 400 orders.It is driveing our mags about 9% over last year
Jim
We are not a big newsagent, so our orders would never be that high. For Art of Crochet, we have 23 standing orders. We are currently only recieving between 10 and 12 copies of the mag every week, despite increasing our orders. All the rest go on backorder, which frustrates both the customers and ourselves.
As I said, AOC is just the final straw. We also had issues with The Lancaster Bomber, The Endeavour, The Bismark, Model Space Orbiter.
In the end most customers end up dropping us to go direct through the publisher, which is what I am predicting with AOC.
In my opinion, for my agency, these partworks are not worth the hassle.
With 400 orders, do you not have these problems?
Hi we order enough to sell on the shelf so if they cut us back most times have enough to cover orders and if the people who buy from the shelf then have to back order and pay up front works well
I tried the extra ordering technique. Didn’t work as we couldn’t sell the extras. Were just cut back further.
It’s good you have found a way that works for you, but as I see it, we should not have to resort to doing these things in the first place.
Steven
p.s. I just noticed that the last 3 numbers of G+G’s telephone number is 666.
For us it is about selling more ,if we are cut we also push the order up again and meet our last retuns date if need be
The distributors are pathetic at managing supply for partworks. They know from the daily data feed what each newsagent has presold through putaways yet they ignore this. What a waste of IT resources.
The down side getting binders