The lucky charm newsagent marketing group has announced a partnership with Corporate Express in the stationery space. Corporate Express is owned by US stationery giant Staples. While Staples is not currently a retail brand here, the Staples website is up and running and driving good traffic. If Staples does open here then any retailer selling stationery, including newsagents, will be their competitor. Indeed, this already the save thanks to the Staples local website.
It does not make sense to to me to support a competitor when there is an industry owned alternative available. Maybe their is something missing in the move.
Staples/Corporate Express aproached me and wihin a week I had access to their wholesale site and an acount. Verbaly promised the cheapest prices particulary on inks ever. I buy inks from a known national distributor and staples/corporate express where 10 to 15% dearer. Same with Stationary against Group. Told sales manager my yearly spend and nothing cheaper forthcoming.
Meanwhile I sold an expensive stamp from GNS to the local Tafe at a very reduced markup. Two days latter the TAFE rings me and stated the price on Gov Contract from Staples Corporate Express, was significantly cheaper. I then checked the price to me for this item on their wholesale website and it cost more than Group. Staples has the Gov contract and is selling on it to Gov at cheaper rates than wholsale.
Have been advised to never give the adrress of a customer especialy including for delivery to Staples Corporate Express as they will attempt to poach the customer. When asked about this the sales manger did not deny rather stated they now had walls in place to prevnt this sort of thing.
From my experiences to date they are a pack of unprincipiled cowboys with no morals or ethics.
I opened an account with them ages ago just to get a look at their pricing. Like with office works we beat most of their pricing without reducing ours. Sure they’ll offer great corporate pricing early on as they need to create a footprint in the market place but that will not be profitable for them in the long run. Newsagents need to stick with group as in the long term they are better for us and industry focused on newsagents. JMO
Did anyone read the latest stationery news which had an article on GNS teaming up with Officechoice? I have an Officechoice in my town which is in direct competition to me for the stationery market. They are now able to access GNS. How is this supporting the newsagency industry?
Well put Chris, I posted a comment about this a while ago and the silence was deafening. GNS has agreed to supply Officechoice stores out of OUR warehouses. I say ours as most newsagents were encouraged to buy shares in GNS as it was Group Newsagent Supplies.
Staples may come later but Officechoice is a competitor NOW, and GNS is helping them be more competitive.
I questioned our GNS rep about this last week. Apparently it was a board decision and the reps are not happy about it either. Its all about the dollar for them. Overall sales are down so they must look to sell into other avenues. (so our rep tells us). It wont be long before someone has a bright idea to start a stationery wholesaler who supplies only to newsagents. (lol)
Unfortunately GNS has missed several boats over the years and now finds sales slipping. They run a good wholesale operation and have created a sound financial base, but they have set it up to supply the newsagent of yesteryear.
Other marketing/buying groups do a much better job supplying the industry. Realistically they traded themselves into a corner with no other option than to supply office choice to maintain volumes and a level of competitiveness. In doing so they may well lose what remains of the industry loyalty.
The offer to supply Office Choice was directed from an Office Choice request as apart from COrporateExpress or Officeworks, there is no other national wholesaler than GNS. Choice wanted a preferred wholesaler to supply items to the dealers. With GNS already carrying over 90% of the catalogue lines that are in the Choice catalogue, it was a no brainer. This way, GNS gets extra revenue from more purchasing which they can then put back into the newsagency market. From what I can gather, Choice sales through GNS are very small overall and there were probably quite a few Choice dealers who had a GNS account anyway.
But Aaron this is the point, this was our point of difference that we built up overd decades of paying extra on all our invoices to build this network but now we are allowing a direct competitor get the same supply as us to compete against us.
As a shareholder of GNS I am disapointed that it was not put to a vote but unlike other shares I can not easily just sell up my shares and vote with my feet.
We have an officechoice near us but we could always beat them on service because if we did not have it in stock we got it asap but now that had gone, will they be getting the same prices as individual newsagnets or will they be offered officesmart prices and will they pay the levy like the rest of us?
Whats the big deal….the office national franchisees in melb all have gns and stationers supply accounts and have bought off them for years,and i would guesss in the rest of the country as well…they buy,as they call it,broken pack lots for small orders
Thanks Luke – my thoughts exactly!
In every GNS newsletter Ted Rogan writes about the need for unity among newsagents, the need for us to support GNS & how GNS is the only wholesaler who is there just for newsagents.
And then, lo & behold, I read the story about the deal with Office Choice in Stationery News!!
Why wasn’t there any communication from GNS to all of their stakeholders BEFORE this decision was made, or at least before it was made public.
Shame on you GNS – this is not the way to treat the newsagents that have supported you.
With newsagents “hitting the wall” at a rate of knots maybe GNS (and Ancol in our
State) have had to look to other areas of
profitability. Newsagents have had to do the same since Magazines/papers are reducing in sales. We have had to turn to
gifts and books and cds and dvds and lots of other product apart from what was traditionally our core product.
We newsagents need to ensure that we are
not throwing the baby out with the bathwater when we talk about shunning GNS/Ancol because we could end up with a
similar problem as the Coles/Woolies duopoly. Once the new players get us on board the prices will increase so support our own industry folks.
As an aside “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” occurred when the man of the house had his weekly bath (phewww)
and then the women used the same water and then the children and last of all the baby and the water was so putrid that the baby got lost in it and was thrown out with the bathwater.
Thank goodness the MOTH is no longer the
first into the bathwater and we are lucky enough to live in a country where we can
have clean water for all the members of the family.
A little light relief from all the politics.
June did Mark send you a pack of that wackie weed from his NZ trip ?
i have a question , if GNS are moving more stock now that they are supplying others does this mean that we might get better deals ,because they should have even better buying power now . I do not care who they supply as long as they are passing on some savings to us if they want us solely buying from them .
Do not confuse stake holders with customers.
So long as ONLY newsagents can be stake holders in GNS then we benefit from all the customers of GNS, even those who are outside our industry.
The two big questions to be asked of GNS are 1) are only newsagents allowed to be share holders and 2) are only newsagents given special pricing and promotional assistance at BTS, Christmas etc.
If the answer to these questions is affimative then customers from outside the industry strengthen the ability of GNS to support newsagents. If the answer is no the we may have issues developing.
Yes Brendan, there are questions to be answered. Sad GNS did not answer them BEFORE we had to ask them. Their explantion will be forthcoming, no doubt.
If not, I will develop contingency plans.
I did have a giggle at your post June, thanks for the smile !
Buy from stationers supply if you are in Q ld ,i have been for years
h, my expectation and belief is that both the questions I put forward would be answered in the affirmative and that we are on a good thing with GNS. I have faith in them and would be dissapointed to say the least to find it misplaced but through their initiatives such as the Your Local Newsagency site they have developed for us I think they are proving to be highly committed to newsagents.
D R, as for Stationers, I was purchasing from them 20+ years ago and was not a newsagent at the time so they certainly weren’t and aren’t as newsagency focused as many seem to think.
Back to Marks topic, why would newsagents trade with Corporate Express who are owned by Staples and will compete with us at every opportunity? Why help the competition get a leg up and they are our competition.
GNS are not competitors but strategic partners to the newsagency channel and deserve our support. If we fail to support the they will have to look at alternative revenue sources just as any of us do to survive in the current climate.
Luke, GNS is owned by newsagents.
Brendan how can you say “Why help the competition get a leg up” when this is exactly what GNS has done for office choice? What benefits are we as newsagents getting from the deal, we still pay extra for stationery compared to other suppliers, plus delivery fees, plus the 2% capital levy.
As part of my previous marketing group I was encouraged to ditch GNS and sign up with Stationers and Wilsons for my stationery and now sourcing from ALL three suppliers gets me the best deal.
IF GNS is owned by us then stop feathering your own nest and give me a better deal ie get officechoice to pay the capital levy (that I have paid since day dot on all my invoices) and stop charging newsagents.
Officechoice is our competitor as is Staples so why give either a leg up. If GNS is not getting enough stationery business from newsagents maybe they should ask themselves why that is.
But it may just be me as not too many others are concerned that our money is being used to offer others a better supply model so they can compete against us.
And before Stationers the Shed