As some comments on a recent blog post indicate, ACP Magazines will trial Sunday on-sale of its titles in Newcastle and the ACT. The trial will commence next Sunday, October 9. The data from the fixed-period trial will help ACP determine if this is an initiative they could benefit from elsewhere.
The trial will see newsagents, supermarkets, c-stores and petrol outlets receive stock for a Sunday on-sale. Majors like Big W will not receive stock.
While there are some operational challenges, the trial is an opportunity – especially for shopping centre based newsagents where you are like to see shoppers on a Sunday who you would not see during the week.
Newsagents in high street situations could find that they lose sales as a result. This will be reflected in data from the trial and should help guide any decisions following the trial.
Why do they think its necessary to trial in other outlets. Was in Big W today public holiday here in NSW, and noticed they still had last weeks New Idea on sale at 1pm. These outlets clearly dont care about mags
I raised this issue with this blog last week.
My concern is for the newsagents not in shopping centres.
I can only speak for the region of Newcastle, as the ratio of shopping centre agents to strip agents is I would guess 30/70.
I see this as a move to encourage consumers further to purchase at a Supermarket. It makes little sense to trial this in service stations and c-stores.
In the Newcastle region, as the ratio of strip agents to shopping centre agents is relatively higher I would suggest this would significantly impact the sales data that is collected.
Newcastle does not have a concentrated mass-population. As a result there are only 3-4 “major” shopping centres which service the region.
There are another 30-40 shopping centres of various sizes aswell, but many of these centres DO NOT attract consumer’s on a Sunday.
Newcastle is a beach community with a warm outdoors suited climate. Throughout Spring and Summer weekends are spent OUTDOORS.
I wish this “trial” was given more consideration, as in the NEWCASTLE region, Saturday is the MAJOR shopping day. If any “trial” should have been done to “capitalise on consumer buying trends” it should have been done for a Saturday.
This trial comes with NO television or radio advertising.
I would like to be optimistic about this “trial”, but it will be extremely difficult to change consumer trends without education through media.
We will participate in this trial, and educate consumers accordingly. We will even offer our results to this blog.
However, in my opinion this will be simply another costly exercise being pushed onto newsagents that has not been adequately considered prior to it’s launch.
My experience with mags over the last 3 weeks in SA is that they are trying to burn down their own farm by using distribution methods that are archaic.
We have had 11 bulks wrongly delivered to us in the last 3 weeks and have been missing the same amount of bulks that are somewhere out “there”.
If the distributors insisted on delivery being done the same way as returns this would NEVER happen. If, for instance, I should be getting 6 bulks of something each bulk should have my name on it and
the bulks should be marked 1/6, 2/6 etc.
just like we have to do the returns (or be
penalized).
I am so sick of the incompetence that is happening out there.
Couple the delivery problems with the packing problems. $20 mags arriving torn, dirty and dishevelled.
I cannot remember a time when the system was so bad, and I am fed up with
the lack of excellence by people in our industry at a time when we should be pursuing the best outcomes ever for magazines.
They are our bread and butter and I am thinking that the butter is missing and I am down to just bread so I am looking elsewhere for the butter and more jam to
enable me to stay viable within this industry.
Secondly, to all you newsagents out there.
YOU KNOW IF YOU ARE STEALING OTHER PEOPLE’S BULKS SO PLEASE RING THE DISTRIBUTOR IN YOUR STATE AND INFORM THEM (AS I DO) THAT YOU HAVE PRODUCT THAT YOU HAVE NOT PAID FOR
AND COULD THEY PLEASE PICK IT UP.
TO STEAL FROM YOUR FELLOW NEWSAGENTS IS ABSOLUTELY DESPICABLE AND “IT WON’T MATTER” IS SIMPLY NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
All my AWW Health diary bulks are missing. All my Frankie diaries are missing. All my country style diaries are
missing SOMEONE HAS THEM.3
june , how does it go if boxes are not labled correctly credits will not be given , how about if magazine bundles are not labled correctly we do not pay them . I am always missing bulks , today i am one bulk short of thats life so thats 40 short and because we are so far north i will probally not see them untill next monday which is of no use to me , so that is around 30 sales i will miss out on because they do not lable the bulks
Shaun, we newsagents accept behaviour
that no other companies would.
It is a sad indictment upon our industry
leaders that this has gone on for so long
and no association has either addressed
or redressed the problem.
I have heard that the ANF are doing a great job of recruiting but they won’t get
my money until I see some “RUNS ON THE BOARD” and so far I haven’t seen that.
I am hopeful that I might see it before I
exit this industry.
I had to cut all sub-agents by 30% for tomorrow.
The Herald Sun decided to decrease my supply by 500 papers.
Lots of complaints tomorrow.
June you are right – There is no accountability or responsibility in the Supply chain to Newsagents.
The magazine distributors have gone with the cheapest deals for freight and newsagents and publishers suffer the consequences.
June, the ANF is getting runs on the board. They have made some excellent submissions to government and worked very hard of the EFTPOS issue.
off topic but has anyone got there GG statement yet ?
Re: GG Statements not yet. But under their new, green, environmentally friendly plan to save costs by sending statements by email (read save money and pass their costs down to the Newsagents), I have the first wave. 8 separate emails, each with a different Credit Note adjustment attached (previously sent with the Statement). I sure hope the statement isn’t sent one page per email!!
I never used to get the paper G&G account until about the 10th of a month – can’t see why they havn’t posted the statement on the website yet though, now it’s all electronic.
I was charged (and never received) Frankie
diaries on 30/9 (last day of the month??)
Rang to tell them I wanted it taken off
the current account because I wasn’t going to pay for something I didn’t get (large amount as well) and was told that it
was on the account so they (GG) couldn’t do anything about it.
GG ring me religiously each month to threaten me with dire consequences should I not pay their a/c in full but I will
be taking off the amount and not paying the account in full because I was told to ring the credit dept. with the problem and I think it is their problem not mine so they
should get in touch with me.
GG account still not online – just tried.
it should be 20 days after recieving the statement , it is all on the web site so there is no reason why we cannot get it on the 1st of the month . how are we ment to budget for the month when we have not seen the bill yet ?
I think G & G have sent out our printed Statements to an Indian call centre and they are scanning each page at one time and the emailing them to us!!!!
Yea finally have G&G statement !
In order to save the environment and save costs on physical returns, I am considering scanning the covers and emailing them back to Gotch, one cover at a time!!
I might try that too. Several thousand newsagents doing that would fill up GG’s inbox !!!
maybe if they just send a few extra unwanted mags out each day they would be able to afford to print the damm things again 🙂
well i hope they are cutting cost because they are struggling -welcome to the world of magazines
Looks like Gotch didn’t bother to credit all of the returns sent through before their “cut off” date.
Before the end of this month I’m going to go through and early return every last Gotch title I have on the shelf and I’m going to do it in a manner that ensures they have to spend the maximum amount of man hours in processing them (might send through 30 odd parcels).
The more I look at what it costs me to run a magazine department each month in both dollars and labour time compared to what I make out of it the more I’m thinking it’s not worth it and there are better alternatives to start pushing revenue wise in their place.
The cash grab by the magazine distributors is getting rediculous. It’s continually the most frustrating part of this business !! I really feel sorry for the newsagents who rely on the returns going through on time for their cash flow.
**Rant over **
I note with interest that September’s Account from G&G in twice as large as Ausgust’s. Checked last year on G&G web and found that the same thing happened. Being the sceptic I am, is this because its GST payment month and Tax Payment? Mmmmmm