The 1,700 newsagents using the Tower Systems newsagency software can very easily compare the performance of magazine distributors (or any supplier for that matter) across trading periods. Using the Monthly Sales Comparison report in one newsagency earlier this week, I was interested in magazine performance for the first two weeks of March 2011 compared to 2010.
Click on the tiny image to see what I am talking about. I have clipped out three lines from the the page report to illustrate the value of comparing magazine distributors.
In the newsagency for which I ran the report, magazine unit sales overall are down 8% comparing the two week periods from different years. As the small sample of the report shows in the image, for women’s weeklies, unit sales are down 16% for Network Services titles and 6% for Gordon & Gotch titles. Indeed, for most of the report in this newsagency for this trading period Gotch titles perform better than Network titles.
I think it is important that newsagents have this information.
It would be even better if newsagents could take this a step further and report easily by publisher. Sadly, the data provided with electronic invoices does not identify publisher so the onlyto achieve such a comparison would be with manual work and this would be too time consuming for newsagents.
Magazine distributors and publishers committed to transparency would provide newsagents with a publisher code for each title. As things currently stand, we can only easily report on the data at the distributor level. (I should note that in some reports we do strip our Pacific Magazines titles from Gotch and ACP titles from Network – this is done with manual work separating these.)
Outside of magazines, in various departments this easy supplier level performance comparison can be useful for newsagents: greeting cards, tobacco and stationery.
From a magazine perspective, the supplier breakdown by category enables newsagents to assess distributor performance and to use this when considering space allocation and current supply action.
Now, a note about the sample size. I do not recommend that newsagents compare trading periods for two weeks as I have done for this example. Comparisons should be at least a month. Ideally, three months – comparing to the same three months a year earlier.
Mark I use your Tower software and have to say that this reporting is brilliant. Comparing Gotch and Network like this showed me that Gotch performs better in my newsagency over most magazine categories.
With knowledge comes empowerment.
I encourage other newsagents to run the report.
Same here. I am using this report to help narrow my early return focus.
I;d encourage all newsagents to run this report. The results are enlightening.