The task of managing magazine cash flow in my newsagencies begins on the first Monday of the month. That’s today for November. Here is a summary of what we will do between today and the 20th of the month – our own internal end of month cut off:
- Review the list of magazines which are not meeting our own minimum acceptable sell through rate of 50%.
- Start a cull of titles on this list, being careful to not cut more stock than we would reasonably expect to sell. This cull is on going through the month to the 20th.
- We do two types of early returns – returning excess stock of a title and returning all remaining stock of a title.
- Assess new stock when it comes in each Monday, Wednesday and Friday and early return gross oversupply. We would consider gross over supply to be where we have received 50% of more than what we would usually expect to sell. Before deciding what quantity to return, we consider any stories or promotions which are likely to deliver an above average sell through for this issue.
- As new stock is being put out, we check the shelf age of existing stock and consider early returning based on sale performance. For example, today, I am looking carefully at any stock from September. If there have been no sales in the last week, September dated stock will most likely be returned early. That said, much of this would have been returned early already (see next point).
- By November 20th I will be looking at stock which has been on the shelf since the third week of October. Four weeks is a long enough shelf life – a title would need to deliver excellent sales each week just to pay for the retail real estate.
I try and not early return out of spite or anger. However, on some heavy magazine arrival days there is certainly the temptation to do this.
We should not have to do this work. I would certainly like to not have to early return. It adds unnecessarily to our labour cost.
The only reason we have to do this work to manage cash flow is because we cannot trust the magazine distribution model.
Magazine distributors, when questioned about the fairness of the newsagent magazine distribution model, say that newsagents can early return – insinuating that this protects newsagents. Returns have considerable costs. A considerable portion of the costs is due to poor and unfair decisions by the magazine distributors.
What about “unpromoted” new magazines that just turn up? Do you automatically find room for them by early returning something else in that category? Example: last summer’s edition of Enduro was redistributed by Network on Friday. It’s the same price as the current magazine though bagged with another mag and has no indication on the bag that it’s not current, and in my opinion should never have been sent out in this form. Would you still give it a go?
I don’t think newsagents early return out of spite or anger, they do it mainly out of survival. I know we do
Chris, we give them a try but watch them carefully. That said, we will not tolerate recycled stock.
What about a title called Exotiq? (a real estate guide to homes for sale in Indonesia and Thailand…….they cannot be seriously thinking i want 2 copies of that!!!!!!
Or sending me 4 copies of the History of the Aston Martin when Im in one of the poorer suburbs, lots of looking not one sale.
We have a set number of pockets so new titles will either go straight back (based on empirical data of similar titles) or take the place of another from that distributor that is proving to be a slow mover.
Or the Australian Infantry magazine when I’m 9km from the nearest army base.
I think we sold a copy of Australian Defender at one stage so we get all of the associated titles spawning into life on our stock deliveries from time to time !
just got an email from NDC about MAD comics what a cracker of an email the opening heading is NO SUCH THING AS TO MUCH well we see what there supply motto is oh and the end part not to return early .sure thing !!! have never sold a copy
Not just mags – paid out over 6K today in Lotto so far.
Hope you didnt use the weekends take to pay these out Brett….Lotto wont be happy!!!!!
just looked at my NDC account for this month and with out me even selling 1 magazine i am in front from last month .what a difference it makes when they piss ya off and you early return a hell of a lot of stock and only kept the mags that have a history of selling . The ball has bounced into my side of the court for at least this month
As a new newsagent (five months) thank you for this list. I’ve learnt more here than at the anf training course.