Look at the sale and return data for a title received by a colleague yesterday. The allocations system used by the distributor is increasing supply without reasonable justification – based on the numbers. While thay could argue that the sellouts in July justify an increase, I would argue that these sell outs do not justify the 100% increase in supply delivered by the magazine distributor.
I would like to see a rule requiring three consecutive sell outs before a supply increase kicks in and that any increase is no more than 20% for three issues before there is reassessment.
It would be easy to believe that in this instance, the distributor had stock to offload and used sales data to (weakly) justify an increase in supply.
had the same problem yesterday with a cross word mag supplies 2-2-2-2-3-5-6-8-bang 16 this week so i kept 3 and sent the rest back, bloody rediculous . and i still have not paid my account ,not out of being pissed about it but do not have the money so today i have to talk to them and let them know i have no money this month and then they will have the nerve to tell me to manage my stock better
I have a better example. Our supplies of a monthly mag for the last 10 months have been 9,18,18,13,10,24,29,30,31,41. Our sales for this title have been 6,6,8,8,5,5,4,8,5. Say no more.
that is actually pretty funny . what is the mag and who is the supplier surely they should be shamed .
this would be funny if it wasnt so costly $$. it could be any mag from any supplier
this is how it should work name the mag list the advertisers and we shall bombarde all the advertisers with emails letting them know that they have wasted there money advertising with this magazine -simple – ok the magazine publisher will say it is not there fault -bull#%$^& .
called NDC today asked for an extension untill monday with out loosing my account the reply is only if i pay before 9am well that dosn’t help me as the bank dosn’t open untill 9:30 so what is the difference might as well say friday .Pissed off and had enough
Hi Mark
Our biggest problem is with Fairfax distributing NDD’s rubbish. Comes in without EDI cannot sell a single copy. Early returned all we could on CONNECT and no sign of a credit, gave rep a copy so far no answer. Last credit on CONNECT was for a claim dated 30th August. Slow and unfair.
I tried to ring NDC too but could not get through so have paid them what I can an will wait for the phone call. Is everyone in the same book this month with a huge Network account? I had no trouble increaing supply of weeklies for the tourist season but now that the tourist have gone my sales figures for June July and August look like I need more mags but the tourists have all gone now and I’m stuck with massive over supply.By the time I mange to reduce supply it will be next tourist season!
what changes need to be made to stop end of month stress?all ideas may help someone we should not have to fund network and gotch who are just as bad
Andy, I am planning a post on this for next week. I think we need to ensure that all newsagents are aware of options for managing the cash flow and we owe it to each other to engage in these options.
Have noticed this week that NDC mags have return date of 29/11, this is a monday morning, so we need to do returns asap that monday or tuesday or they will have our money for another month.
PREPARE FOR DECEMBERS A/C 5x wed and i would say gg will cut off on the tuesday and i presume mondays stock will come with the wed stock being easter monday
Shaun S,
As a former resident of your area, I can see what the stress is doing to you. Easter in December !!!!!!!!!!
i was thinking what the hell are you on about but then i read my post ….:)
i wouldn’t be stressed if the winds would drop off and i could get out to the reef and catch a few maybe just maybe NDC would take a trade off with some fish this month
On advice, I stopped doing early returns SOME TIME AGO so as not to distort the numbers being used by the distributors for allocation.
Given my latest NDC account is up by over 50% on previous months and the only explanation they can provide is “it must be the old NDD titles” then early returns start again today!
A 50% increase in NDC is way more than I ever spent with NDD overall so how they can even make that statement beggars belief, particularly when they don’t supply all the old NDD titles anyway.
There is only one answer to my question and that is OVERSUPPLY!!! which leads me to the only suitable response – EARLY RETURNS!!!
Freeze some fillets with the frosty reception you will probably get from NDC then send them ( the fillets – not NDC ) down to me !!!
jim,
i think it was you on the other thread that said just work harder.
anyway welcome to the club of early returns =)
this month particularly has been astonishing. if it gets any worse…….i dont even know what to think. all the wasted manpower
Looking forward to next week…..November means i can take all the September mags of my shelves. Pity the poor carrier that has to pick up all the extra boxes…..
Allan,
All my September mags came off this week and I only have 2 vacant spots in the whole shop.
Thanks Max, might have to get that ruthless as well. Would be interesting to hear how many others are clearing shelves and how long they give mags time to sell…..
3 weeks the most, except regular top 100
same here, 3 weeks, i have to so i can pay other suppliers besides mag companies
YEP 3 WEEKS EXCEPT THIS MONTHS SADLY THEY WOULD NOT GIVE AN EXTENSION SO STUFF IT SENT A HEAP BACK .
in the last few hours i have decided to say stuff the magazine catergory .The main area as you walk into the shop is normally dedicated to high selling magazines ,it is now gifts . the reason for this is i was thinking i have increased my magazine sales every year for the last 3 years but still i am not getting anywhere with them ,just say i have a massive spike in sales this year and have 50% growth what do you think my overal bills will look like ,they will be up 80% .It is a no win situation . I am not saying i am getting out of magazines i am just saying i am not working on selling them anymore untill something in thgis industry changes . The first thing to change has to be the contracts with these companys that states we have to pay in full by the 20th but we can aslo end the month when we feel like it .
Guys,
The only answer is to cut pockets and place other product in the mag space you have reduced. Find what you can sell to your demographic and drastically reduce your allocation of floor space to the magazine category. Supermarkets have known this for years, and we have lagged behind for too long.
Giftware, Stationery, Toys, Books, Novelty items, Etc etc, anything but Mags.
Keep the top 100 and forget the rest.
Evolution in our Industry is in progress and everyone must get on board.
Magazine publishers and distributors will be horrified with this approach, but until we get better TERMS and CONDITIONS, to help carry Mags that DONT PAY THERE WAY, then we need to make the hard decisions and CUT those titles and space that is allocated to them.
Walk into your stores tomorrow, and survet what you allocate to MAGS, and then think what you can put in that space that will sell, with a greater MARGIN than a paltry 25%.
Then once you have re-organised your stock offering watch other product sell from where the MAGS once lived and smile every time someone buys something from that area.
Example; I cut 400 pockets of mags, replaced the shelves with slatwall, and themed baby / christening products in that area.
Great move , especially when we sell items worth $50, like carousels.
Previously in that space lived Business/Finance mags and Craft mags.
I still carry some of these titles but no where near the quantity.
I save on wages because the girl doing returns has less to do, and just general handling is less. My bill with NDC and GG is less, and so on.
O
Shaun, I think saying “stuff the magazine category” is a mistake.
We need fair and equitable supply. If we get that then our position with magazines and that of publishers can flourish.
This is what I am working and encourage all newsagents to work on.
ok stuff the magazine is extreme . sometging needs to change now ,magazines are killing us and we are not making no money out of them so when i say stuff it i don’t mean i am not going to sell them i am just going to focus more on selling products that make money .
Sick of it.
We’ve cut 75% of mag space right out of the equation. That whole wall looks a lot better, and has stuff on it that does sell.
Stuff ’em.
David,
You are right… 2 years ago we relocated after our small centre was developed to prime location outside the Supermarket.
The new centre was poorly designed, and whilst opposite the supermarket there is an open air walkway between us.
We had considerable potential exposure through wall to celing glass and decided to cut mag space by over 50% and utilise the window spce for gifts.
2 years on, mag sales are up 25%, whilst carrying well under half the variety and cost, and gift lines last year represented 40% of mag sales at GP margins between 50% to 100%.
We still carry all the mags that sell (and some that dont, but not as many), and now also have a considerable put-away service for those weird mags that people request. These are generally delivered day after arrival with the papers and we charge a fee for the service which customers dont mind paying (this helps subsidise the run).
The net result for us has been that for the past two years we have rarely (if ever) had a bill for more than what we have sold in the month.
Cheers
Peter
this is the problem why would magazine companys change anything that is happening at the moment . we do everything they say we may winge about it but we bend over backwards for them we pay our accounts we do all the nice displays to sell there products we give them prime locations we fund there investments . why wou;ld they change ?? we have to act in an exteme way to get noticed . no other card company gift suppier ,stationary supplier drink supplier paper supplier would we put up with this . so why do we put up with it with GG and NDC ,because we are scared of loosing our contracts with them .they know we fear this they know the ball is in there court and they are calling the game . i say lets change the game plan
Shaun, lets not change the gameplan as it is thier gameplan…..lets make a new gameplan…..OUR GAMEPLAN!!!!!! What do you think????
i am up for a whole new game plan . I am all for working together with the 2 companys but they do not want to work with us . as i have mention i cannot pay this months account with NDC all i wanted was an extension untill monday so i can bank this weekends trading . they said i have to pay before 9 am monday or it will be a problem (meaning close account ) the bank does not open untill 9:30 but that did not matter to them . that tipped me over the edge and i am not keen i climbing back up so i have now changed my shop around to suit me with more changes to come in the next few weeks .
Hi Guys,
check your netonline a/c returns.
i returned over $15000 this month but they did not credit this last week returns which has not been deliverd to their warehouse. so they held up $5000 of credit.
any one recievd credit /chq from NDD yet?
ndd still owe me money .all my NDC returns have gone through .Funny thing with NDD when i owed them money they sent me a letter from a debt collector now i have been waiting 3 months for my money .I am glad i did not listen when people were saying not to early return because ndd were good for it .
i requested a chq from ndd last week (email), turned up this week so no problems here.
I think Mark and Shaun are speaking here about Reality and Nirvana, the ugly sisters who never got an invite to the magazine distributors ball!
Shaun articulates what 99.9% of us feel i.e fed up to the back teeth with what the distributors are getting away with whist Mark labours away trying to make these bastards accountable. Whilst I applaud and support your efforts Mark, I think the only way the distrubutors will be brought to heel is by a body such as the ACCC and given their track record on supporting small business I am not holding my breath.
It is a great pity that our associations and our representatives on same cannot devote the same amount of hot air and posturing to the magazine problem as they did to the recent VANA elections (which at least we got a decent result in!). Almost makes the cynic in me believe there might be yet another cosy arrangement in place that the rank & file don’t know about!
I posted yesterday that NDC was up over 50% on the last few months and whilst G&G is not as bad it is still some 30-40% higher than the last few months average. Nett result is very negative cash flow as magazine costs (including labour and real estate) grossly exceed magazine sales.
Like a lot of others, my magazine culling starts in earnest this week (what a way to spend Cup Day) and the newly found empty shelves become laden with giftware and stationery.
I reckon the 10 x $5 a box I will spend with CMD on returns this coming Monday will be repaid many times over by the weekend!
We received our refund cheque from NDD two weeks ago without any prompting from us and when I called to request the final account to go with that cheque, the ladies were very helpful and emailed me a copy.
As for the persistent oversupply of magazines, evident in GG & Network’s statement amounts being well and truly over our sales, we have not yet reached the point of reducing our magazine range, but we continuously (monotonously) send back more early returns than regular returns each and every week. We will have to reduce our range very soon, however, as we will not be able to pay any of our suppliers, let alone GG and Network.
i’m glad to hear a lot of you are actually doing the same thing we decided over here as well. got so sick of handling magazines and being bank for the distributors that we decided to get rid of 1 while row of magazines and convert them to cards.
since the Coles beside us is so interested in selling magazines along same lines as us, they can have the magazine category. will just concentrate on cards and specialize on it. why divide effort into 2 when i can focus on 1 with way better terms and returns.
i can’t wait until the magazine rack is fully converted to a card rack. maybe i’ll finally earn enough to go on a nice holiday.
1 more thing,
would it be beneficial if all of us newsagents could sign a petition to ACCC or whoever can help us.
Mark, i’m just asking, would you consider starting a petition from all of us and make submission to the appropriate bodies?
i think it is time to act independently from the associations yet act as a whole as a group of independents. (not sure it made sense)
Mark is right to talk about the importance of the magazine category and balancing what we do in terms of early returns.
My magazine department is part of my goodwill.
Baby, bath water and all that.
My network bill was up 15% last month once I accounted for NDD titles. Not happy but not as bad as some say here.
I am not going to kill my magazine department but I am going to work on it. The magazine sell through rates report I sen Mark was a real eyeopener.
I am hoping that the reports we all sent mark help build a case Jim. A long shot I know but if hope is all we have short of stopping being a newsagency.
i would never go as far as to get rid of magazines completly after all that makes up the bulk of the traffic but we have to draw a line on how much of this abuse we can put up with . WE ARE THE CUSTOMER . DOES THIS RING A BELL . Just imagin treating our customers like this we would all go broke
Shaun,
I have lost count of the number of times I have had discussions with (particularly) HWT & Fairfax along the lines of “if we treated our customers the same way you treat us, neither of us would be in business” – all to no avail but at least you can have the discussion.
To attempt the same discussion with NDC or G&G borders on masochism but interestingly, you can always seem to get a discussion going with the accounts people, usually as it is along the lines of “well, if you don’t pay by cob tonight then you will go on stop”. I wonder how many credit cards have been maxed out by newsagents trying to avoid the inevitable?
As you say, magazines will always be part of our core business and I will attempt to carry the same wide range but in my newsagency the days of significant (in my usual fair manner I have avoided saying massive) over-supply are over. If distributors can’t understand this then it’s GAME ON.
Jim, we need to present a fact based case to suppliers as well as people of influence and forums which can effect change. Yes it’s a long and hard road. The alternative is to ditch the category altogether and I do not see that as a solution for the channel.
Mark,
I couldn’t agree more but until distributors can see that it’s a no-win all round whilst they continue to bastardise the market and their customers then they have to accept that two can play at the same game.
Ditching the category is not an option (and I am not advocating that) but there is a limit, and most of us have reached it, where you have to start fighting back.
As I said – GAME ON!
Jim, I agree that many newsagents have reached a limit. This is why we need a professionally prepared challenge which focuses on the loss making parts of magazine distribution which only affect newsagents.
Mark,
I sincerely appreciate what you are doing and the efforts you are making on all our behalf but doesn’t this raise the bleedingly obvious question? – WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE THE ANF, VANA ET AL ON THIS – perhaps the priveleged few of those controlling these associations don’t have the same issues that most of us face with magazine supply – OR IS IT TOO BLOODY HARD OR ARE THERE NO KICKBACKS.
Has anyone who reads this blog ever tried to contact VANA or any of the directors on this issue – the silence is deafening (or is that the No. 96 tram) – end result is the same.
Like a lot of other mugs I have remained a member in the forlorn hope that something might be forthcoming from the ANF or VANA on this but I confess, in my naivety, that this is one of those rock-the-boat issues that our associations and their directors shy away from lest they undertake an exercise for which they might be held accountable for! – God forbid!
Jim I really think this needs to be a newsagent groundswell on many fronts all at once.
I am not saying don’t push back within the store, no, this is still essential to managing cash flow.