Last week, newsagents received this Pools and Outdoors Pack from Network Services. Universal Magazines is the publisher. Poolside Showcase is the title at the front of the packs I saw. While being sold as a pack, this is effectively a reissue. You can see old price labels from other newsagencies on the front magazine inside the pack. Some copies of the front title I saw are damaged to the extent of not being of merchantable quality.I question whether this pack should have been sent to newsagents at all. It is clearly old stock.
It is not as if we need another pool or outdoors title – there are plenty on newsagent shelves already.
Universal Magazines has decided on a long on-sale for this pack, it is not due for return until week 26. That is a ton of newsagent cash at risk, bankrolling the sending of this title to newsagents. Yes, newsagents are funding the shipment of this old and questionable stock.
I would like to know the sell through for titles like Poolside Showcase from the the first time it was sent to newsagents. If it did not achieve a 60% sell through it should not have been reissued through this pack.
I would like Universal Magazines to advise newsagents of the sell through of all of the titles in the pack – to justify their grab of newsagent cash through the reissue of this stock to us. They owe it to us since they are expecting us to pay for this stock which did not sell the first time it was sent out.
If Universal has such faith in this pack, why not let newsagents order it? They will say that newsagents would not order the title and that such an approach is against the magazine distribution model. I agree on both accounts. Newsagents are smart. They would take stock based on the financial return they will achieve.
I suspect that newsagents leaving this pack on their shelves for the full on sale will lose money once they account for their retail real estate, labour and shrinkage. So, no, newsagents would not order this title if they were give the opportunity.
That this pack has been sent looks to me like an abuse of small business newsagents. If I am wrong and sales data justifies the decision then I will unreservedly apologise.
The folks at Universal Magazines will think that I am picking on them with this blog post. I will let readers here be the judge of that. Someone in Universal decided to send out stock of dubious value and of questionable merchantable quality. On those two counts alone Universal deserves to face some tough question from newsagents.
This is an ideal title for early returning, before the cutoff for the end of the month.
I agree with you 100%, Mark, but why just pick on Universal? In the same Friday shipment was Express’s Landscaping Value Pack #3, also containing only old magazines and also having a long sale period (return 13 June). Express are far worse than Universal, with vastly more recycling and “launch” magazines almost every week making it impossible to control supply. To make matters worse, one of my packs even contained a US magazine not from the Express stable, so unless it was an error, they may have bulk purchased left-over junk from overseas to send us as well!
Thanks Chris, I haven’t see this pack.
Friday seems to be the day for these, for the past 2 weeks there have been at least 3 or 4 ‘re-hash bagged’ magazines. Some of the front covers are so poor that they will never sell.
customers are sick of bagged magazines wether they are special editions or their regular magazines with a special one off bonus.
Too publishers thinking about or do put these plastic packs together,don’t. customers do not want them,they like to browse magazines then they buy.
I constantly watch these bagged magazines picked up and put back,we have putaway customers who will not take or rip open plastic bags and hand back the extra magazine often saying “we do not want this rubbish an you dispose of it”
So to these publishers you are not doing your title any favours by adding a extra magazine or bonus offer to your magazine
you are playing our consumers for fools and they do not like it.
Remember newsagents are the ones who deal with the customers and build up a following for your titles,so stop using and abusing us
Universal Publishing has once again showed complete disrespect for newsagents. This is nothing but junk that has been recycled and shoved down our throats!
Universal are jeopardizing their own business, as i will not accept this type of garbage in my store. I will also be reviewing ALL titles that Universal are sending and will return it topped; Universal has no place in my business until they stop taking newsagents for granted!
I would suggest all Newsagents do the same.
Full Poolside Showcase history:
Nov 05: Sold 0/4
Apr 06: Sold 0/4
Jun 06: Sold 0/2
Oct 06: Sold 0/2
Nov 06: Sold 0/2
Oct 08: Sold 0/1
Nov 08: sold 1/2
Apr 09: sold 0/2
May 09: sold 0/2
Nov 09: Sold 0/2
Jul 10: Sold 0/2
Dec 10: Sold 0/1
Pools & Outdoors Pack: Rec’d 2, Early Returned so far: 1, sold: 0
I had a customer come in this morning wanting a pool or outdoor living room magazine. I showed her what was available and she complained that most of these titles are in bags and she didn’t want that ‘junk’. This customer said if a magazine had good content then it doesn’t need freebies or ‘value’ – its value is obvious.
She didn’t buy the universal title.
I agree with Chris W and I receive more packs and bagged titles from Express than any other publisher. Why single out Universal Magazines?
Randel because it is what I saw. I’d be happy to write about similar behaviour from Express – send me a photo and details of what you received.
ok guys, i just want to share something with everyone.
Last friday when i received this title Mark mentioned, it was the last straw for me. I remember awhile back Janice from Universal made an offer that if we don’t want packs to just call her and she will stop sending packs to our store.
So i picked up the phone and called her, i explained to her pretty much what Mark mentioned, old stickers, bulky, not moving etc.
Now, i don’t know if this is true or not, but according to Janice, i am the 1st person to actually call her and ask to stop sending packs.
In fairness, she was quite helpful on the phone and said she will stop packs to our store. Now, i don’t know if this will really happen or not but i am giving her the benefit of the doubt.
anyway, If it is true that no other newsagent even bothered to call and ask for packs to be stopped then its really disappointing that we all whinge here, and nothing else.
Did anyone else call them to have packs stopped and did it really stop?
i’ll keep an eye out on my stocks, if mine did stop i will report back here.
I have emailed in the past with not even a reply ( i am talking over 12 months ago ) so why take them up on calling when it is probally just a waste of time .but hey if it works (please let us know) i am on to it .
ed, well done for calling her and well done Janice for taking your call. the more newsagents who complain to Janice the better.
I am confident that you are not the first one to ask Universal to stop sending packs. Regardless of a phone call or letter, Newsagents effectively do this each time they early return.
Newsagents can contact Janice at jwilliams@universalmagazines.com.au.
Hi Mark,
The titles from Express were listed on a previous blog on the 5th March, but you don’t seem to target them in the same way as Universal. Not even a mention of who they are and what they are doing as a publisher to the newsagency system.
Randel, I have written about Express Pub locations 12 times in the last year. I have not written recently as I am not being sent their junk. If you or others want to send a photo with details of poor behaviour I am happy to cover it here.
Sure, happy to do so Mark.
I know that Express don’t even acknowledge emails or snail mail.
They didn’t with ours, anyway.
I am still waiting on a reply to an email I sent to Universal about 12 months ago.
Mark
All publishers do packs of some kind but due to clear bias in the blog, only Universal gets mentioned. We always aim to do packs that sell as the vast majority of magazines in our packs are mint and are only supplemented, where needed, to make up the numbers. We supply about 10 % of the packs Express Publications do – please check how many packs they put out in any given month. Your silence on Express is deafening.
To date only one newsagent has called us re packs and we have stopped supply of further packs. If anyone else wants to stop supply of further packs please call us on 02 9887 0361.
Denis, It is hardly silence. I have blogged 12 times about Express in the last year. you can see this for yourself.
My mum used to criticise me if I complained about someone else when was dealing with me. You should lead by example and get your business model right before telling me (without justification) that I am not complaining about Express.
This pack is a problem for Universal. I will apologise if you prove that the sell through of Poolside Showcase justified what is effectively a reissue. Would you care to share the sales data for the initial scale out of Poolside Showcase. I expect it would be 20% or less.
Would you and Network Services agree to a transparent audit of the original issue of Poolside Showcase, a warts and all look at who made what and at what point in the distribution cycle? I suspect that such an audit would shock newsagents. It would not shock you since you already know the costs that newsagents have in handling titles with a sell through of 60% or less.
The frustration in my words comes from talking daily with newsagents who despair at how they are struggling financially to pay their magazine bills. Newsagents who are swamped with stock, more this year than last year even though sales are down 8% year on year. I wish you could take some of those calls. The new newsagents are the worst, those in the business less than a year and worrying about surviving.
Denis,
I think you are being a bit selective in your criticism and thinking. Just because Express does it doesn’t make it right. My parents taught me this as a small child.
If people are really purchasing this magazine why is it not audited? Magazines without ABC audits are invariably poor sellers. You know that.
If this magazine was something consumers REALLY wanted. There would be two things going for it.
1. It would be audited and have a transparent circulation figure.
2. You would be publishing it far more regularly than every 6 months.
Mark quite rightly has an issue with universal, and other publishers in particular who have huge magazines with enormous shelf lives.
Mark,
That’s funny.
I think (and to borrow a term from Denis).
“The silence will be deafening”…….
ANYTHING THAT IS A GOOD SELLER SHOULD NOT HAVE TO BE RETURNED FULL IN THE FIRST PLACE …/. YOU PLAN FOR IT NOT SELLING WELL BY PREPARING IT FOR A MULTI PACK DOWN THE TRACK .. woops caps on again
Still waiting Denis……………..
Does anyone have a contact for Express? I would like to let both Universal & Express that their bagged junk is not welcome here. May their phones run hot with requests to stop the flow of rubbish.
How about 35%on bags ,should keep every one happy it would me
even if something is 100% margin, if nobody wanna buy it, what is the use.
i wish express would speak up on this issue about packs. they have too many damn issue #1’s
We do sell a lot
I can not believe that there is not one craft book on the shelf at the moment that is not bagged , whats the go with that
for each sale of a bagged mag it takes up twice the area that it would to sell a non bagged tittle so maybe D R is right and we should be getting paid higher comission . i can fit 2 bagged magazines in each pocket where i can fit 4-5 of any other magazine
For me it is all about the money .What if we were not to take them would they go into the junk shops and do we want that
you can always open them and sell them on their own ,loved it when they had just aband around them and they come apart ,sold both ,two sales for the cost of one
It is disappointing that Universal has not responded to queries here.
My Poolside Showcase sell through is 10% yet they keep sending it.
Have a look at the quick and easy quilting no.3 bagged mag that came through today. It’s so poorly bagged (or is it deliberate ?) that you cant actually see what titles are in the bag at all.
All mine have gone straight in the early returns box. Unfortunately they seem to have been delivered in very poor condition so I doubt they’ll make it to a bag 4.
so, what do you guys think of those news program doing an in depth behind the scenes unfairness we newsagents get.
this time showing the condition of magazines we receive….showing them sales data….and showing them how we can’t really cancel titles because of having 1 sale or stolen copy. showing all the wastage in paper.
do you think those news outlets will consider something like this?
Denis Ford is living in a bubble; i notice in all of his comments he refuses to mention the magazine in the photo; which is clear proof that his company is again abusing the distribution to newsagents.
I wrote a letter several years back about the out of date content in another magazine that was promoted as a bagged special; the company advertised had been out of business for over 12 months.
Denis Ford and his company need to wake up and stop abusing the channel. If the content is fresh and NEW, then newsagents would promote without question.
To continue with the current behaviour will only alienate his company.
“This form of target marketing is efficient and eliminates the wastage incurred by mass-market campaigns.”
This is a phrase i found on Denis`s web site……the words “efficient” and “eliminate wastage” is great. Wouldnt us Newsagents love to “Eliminate Wastage”???????
Paul I’ll have something to say about the quilting pack on Monday. I wanted to see it first … been overseas for a couple of days.
Paul s mine went back friday
Mark,
Just had an idea. maybe you should get the ball rolling by collecting this data across your newsagency and a couple of others. You shouldn’t need too many agents to get a statistically valid sample.
Then open up the data on the blog. Make it open to anyone to see and then you can lead from the front in terms of making things transperrant.
You would need to check the legalities here, but it would be your data that you have collected so I can’t see how anyone can kick up a fuss.
It would be an interesting dataset that you would be able to onsell to others in the longer term and make it cost neutral (or even be able to share some coin with the newsagents involved!)
Carrob,
What data – sales , returns. I am happy to help where I can. However, I see this as a supplier behaviour issue.
Mark,
The data would be qty supplied. qty sold, qty early returned. When you take that data as a statisticly valid sample size that can be extrapolated you have interesting data. I would LOVE data on how many copies of my magazine are in the channel relative to my competitors. You want to change supplier behaviour? Make it transparent. Suppliers flooding the market with no oversupply and apalling sell through rates will suffer. Not through initial outrage from the newsagency and channel, although this would occur.
Where it would change behaviour is with the advertising. Remember advertising is the key driver to a magazines profitability. And every ad rep on every competing title to an oversupplied title will do your job for you. They will go to those advertisers and let them know that the magazine that’s oversupplied is actually ripping the advertiser off. They are paying for a readership. Not a circulation. If the circulation figures are high and sales (ipso facto readership) is low then the advertiser is NOT getting what they paid for.
Advertising reps on competing titles are paid excellent salaries to do this. Their job is to sow fear, uncertainty and doubt in the minds of those marketers.
Magazines that lose 10-20% of their advertisers will suddenly become far more engaged with you. And your readers issues.
Guaranteed.
During my time working with Denis Ford I want not happy with the way I say contractors or newsagents treated. I saw the magazines as having content which was, in my opinion, nothing but a tired rehash of the same content that came in the magazine before.