EMG has written to newsagents today with an update on recently implemented magazine distribution changes. The update explains why they have had to adjust their changes, in response to shopper and newsagent behaviour.
The biggest change is that EMG bi-monthly and one-shot titles will have a maximum on sale period of 8 weeks. No title will be on sale for longer than 8 weeks and we will still, where possible, schedule on sale dates for the first two weeks of the month.
In talking with EMG prior to finalising these adjustments, I felt they had no choice.
It is disappointing that the EMG experiment of increased margin, tops only returns and shorter on-sale period has not, yet, led to newsagents reducing sales-damaging early returns.
Click here for a copy of the EMG announcement to newsagents.
Mark there is only so much room on our shelves at any one time . Maybe it is because there is a big EMG on the front cover now and i notice it a bit more but from where i sit i have never seen so many tittles coming from them . unless they have a proven track record of not selling i try to fit them all on the shelf .
It does feel like we have lost a big opportunity for change. Other publishers will take note of this disappointing result.
It seems that sometimes we are our own worst enemies.
That being said, even with better display positions and no early returns, there was no increase in sales in my store.
Steven, We can reverse this by talking to every newsagent we speak with and encouraging them to be smatter about early returns – for all publishers.
Lies dam lies and statistics. Interesting few stats for you all. I have not early returned any EMG titles since the changes, as they are clearly identified, well done to EMG. However allocations have increased, sales have not even though they have been a focus, ie positioning at eye level, multiple facings etc yet my returns on the bulk of their titles will be 70%+
Last day of the month we receive EMG titles. So I call EMG to ask why. They are titles with 13 issues per year, so late every month they will continue to arrive. I asked why they could not have been delayed for one day, sorry not possible was the response. As I looked for early returns to balance my account for Nov, I noticed so many of the titles I would have normally returned in the last week due to lack of sales against time on display were EMG titles for W49.
30% or 32.5% of not alot is still not alot. Where is our increase in cashflow?
As an old boss of mune would say to the marketers, if you need to add a scratch n sniff (ie value add) to your brand, then your brands in trouble. Every EMG title is bagged with a scratch n sniff.
I would not of thought the data would of been availiable for Novemeber yet for EMG, I thought that is when the changes kicked in.
I promise I will not post on here for a month if EMG does not see a very positive improvement for the Data for November / December.
Nicely said Bill, gave me a chuckle.
I have to agree though. I’ve kept nearly all of the EMG titles sent without early returning – there were a couple I sent back early because I’ve had a history of not selling them – and even kept ones I wouldn’t normally keep and positioned and promoted them more favourably. While most of my departments were up significantly last month my mag department was down so what they are seeing may just be a slow magazine sales month ? Who knows really, you can make statistics say whatever you want them to say. I did notice though that after all of their talk we still seemed to get a larger EMG supply, most of which arrived mid or end of month.
maybe they need to sit back and think , well it has taken a magazine publisher how many years to make change and how long have newsagents put up with all the bull in the magazine world . eg long on sale full returns etc and now after a whole one month of change they are not happy withh how newsagents have performed . It takes time for change to happen , just like we have had to wait many years for even the sligthtest of change .
If newsagents early return something justy don’t send it to them next time it is not that hard to do . Newagents should not be getting the blame for early returns when clearly they shouyld nopt be sending them in the first place .
I f i give one of my subbys 5 of something and he sends 5 back i do not keep sending him 5 or more the next time .
Shaun S you are spot on. I have received a whole heap more EMG magazines this month that I previously did not receive or returned and tried to cancel because they did not sell. Just because they offered something new to newsagents does not give them license to dump heaps of magazines on us. If I have continually returned a title from EMG previously because it does not sell in my shop, these changes they offer are not going to change this. So why continue to send them to me.
A one month trial for magazines means one issue trial. A trial during a downturn is grossly affected. They should at least ran the trial for 6 months or 12 months to get a true and accurate results. Looks like to me like a half-effort attempt…
Luke EMG used data from six weeks, covering data from multiple issues of some titles. The only thing which has changed is that they have gone from four weeks back to eight weeks. Based on the sales data I have seen this one move makes sense. This move will help newsagents not lose as much money.
Mark
Are we talking about the same thing. The trial was for November & December.
One would assume that the Data is before the trial began or a few weeks into it. Correct me if I am wrong that history indicates publishers do not get data from the distributors that quickly.
I am dissapointed, yes nothing has changed except we now have some titles on the shelf for eight weeks. That is not going to work in my little shop.
Please can you provide information and the exact date range that this decision was made on if you can.
Derek,
The overall trial continues as announced by EMG.
The only change is that titles which traditionally had an eight week on sale and switched to four will recent to eight weeks. The sales data achieved in the first six weeks, two issues for some, indicates that the change is vital for the publisher and for newsagents.
Maybe the problem is not the newsagents it is the titles? How can you browse a title for the first time and decide to buy when they are locked behind plastic. In this day and age of try before you buy plastic bagged magazine hurt themselves. Supermarkets are different beasts, people load up a trolley and throw a mag in as an extra whereas we are places people spend time and browse.
It could be me but I have yet to go to Coles simple to have a look at stuff and kill time.
Luke I agree with you about bagged magazines. The thing is – every publisher actively engaged in bagging magazines I speak with says that it’s the bagged copies which sell the best.
The line from publishers about bagged copies selling best is difficult to believe for those titles that have been bagged issue after issue for years now. There isn’t any recent bagged versus non-bagged data available, surely? I am a crafter and am actively involved in a number of online craft discussion groups; whenever the issue of bagged magazine arises, the number of crafters who say that they like getting the freebies is tiny compared to those who say that they will simply not buy a magazine unless they can see what they’re getting first. There are so many craft magazines that many women aren’t interested in buying all of them (nor can they afford to do so), but they would like to buy, say, one per month. When all the publishers bag their titles all the time, they end up losing sales, because so many crafters end up buying none. Silly, silly, silly.
We were unable to display the last lot of bagged magazines fromEMG in a manner that did them justice. One bag per pocket over so many titles was impossible to manage. After giving them their own stand alone fixture which did not work they wound up in a basket at the foot of the magazine stand.
Bagged magazines are alright as an occassional bonus to customers but every EMG mag in our first delivery last month was bagged and this did not work for us because as much as I wanted to promote the EMG mags I cannot and will not do it at the expense of other mags that also sell well.
i wll not / cannot keep a mag on my shelf for 8 weeks, its as simple as that. They can change the onsale period to whatever they like. I dont have the room to keep all mags that arrive nor will i finance the dist company by holding a crap title for that long. At some point the mag companies have got the idea that my shop gets bigger every year, as i rec more titles. The truth is i have just cut about 100 pockets out to expand into moe giftware. I cannot believe that there is any real effort to tackle the oversupply problem, because its not that hard to fix. The only reason there is more talk from the publishers is that more newsagents are being forced to manage their mags in this difficult economical period, so more are early returning, so suddenly its a big issue on their radar. We have been dealing with the crap system for years, but now we are standing up and saying no more, and they dont like it. Well i say get used to it or fix it, as no other retail channel will take on mags under those conditions.
100% agree Rick
Mark (10), I am not interested in losing at all. Too lose less is not inviting, even if everything you say is true. If a magazine cannot show a profit on an ongoing weekly basis, it should not be kept.
EMG need to look at content and quality of their product to build a following.
Try something exciting, instead of getting returns, take a loss and let the newsagents sell them at half price or less to encourage new customers (Prove the product is right).
The way i look at if the mag does not sell in the first 2 weeks it is costing me money to leave it there just to fill a space and hope for a sale .
I do the same with everything else in the shop eg gifts i am not going to let something sit there for 2 months taking up room if it does not sell i discount it and get rid of it .
There are tittles that do sit on my shelf for a couple of months at a time but i know from past sales they will eventually go so they stay there , but to trial something at my own cost i do not like that idea .
Scanned based sales are the only way newsagents will be happy (well me anyway)
I am positive when the results come in for November & December EMG and Newsagents will be on a winner. I think overall the posters feel a bit narky like I do because the goal posts changed while the trial is still ongoing, me included.
Overal my shop has benifited already with extra sales and Tops for returns.
However no disrespect to EMG, I cannot keep the same magazine on my limited pocket space for 8 weeks, I will in kind be delighted to keep them and not supplement them for the 4 weeks. I have not supplemented any EMG titles during the trial. Overall I am happy with EMG however I hope their are no more Goal Post changes.
If I’m not mistaken, there appears to be a recurring theme in a number of these comments. That space for magazines is becoming increasingly limited and that oversupply of non-performing titles, or titles for which there is no physical display space, is becoming more of an issue than oversupply of profitable performing titles.
The EMG changes were about increasing newsagent margin, cutting early returning being done without thought (a cancer ripping into the value of our channel), breaking free from other publishers and their newsagent relationships and responding on full copy returns and some there issues.
I agree that every magazine needs to be profitable. The debate is how you measure that.
Mark early returns would not be required if they stopped sending them after you have already showed you have early returned them . They already have all the data of early returns so why is it they continue to send the magazines that are obviously not wanted . From memory I think it is a magazine called fast fours ,I have never sold a copy so cancelled it but yet it is coming in again . So I have showed them I do not want the magazine but yet I now fall into a category of newsagents that are killing the magazine supply system
Shaun, Early returns are not a way to telling a distributor to adjust supply quantities.
Call EMG and go through your data with them. I am sure you will find it worthwhile. They have established a newsagent call centre which others are using with success.
I’ve ony started using the early return facility in Mark’s software and it is enlightening. I’ve set it at 70% return rate ocer 5 issues and use it carefully, probably only half of the issues it flags have any returns and unless there have benn nil sales we try to have one copy above usual sales on the shelves.
While importing the data I have the suppliers website open and adjust supply as titles are flagged in the system and it seems to be the an effective way of monitoring early returns and adjusting future supply. While some will say this is too time consuming it saves time once the correct supply quantities start to flow through. Gotch seem to be the main affoenders but if the quantity is adjusted properly the desired quantities can be set for up to 2 years. It’s worth the effort and hopefully stops the returning of stock that could have been sold but was returned out of frustration.
I applaud EMG’s efforts to put some change into the category. In my store their titles struggle. It is one thing to have a nice margin but you need a sale to make that margin work for you.
Their titles received additional energy as a result of their new model and we managed some additional sales but it was not massive by any measure.
I will say that I thought their trial period was arguably too short to get the data they needed
Irrelevant to this post, but to EMG, I received a ‘Launch Issue’ of Performance Grage.com.au today (5 copies). One of my customers pointed out that even though, yes it went on sale today as a Launch Issue, it had already been bagged with copies of magazines he had bought earlier in the month. I have checked and, yes, it was bagged with issues of mags received earlier this month – Aussie Muscle Enthusiast, Street Commodores, Extreme Action and Street Fords. Not the best way to launch a magazine, guys! Surely you don’t expect our customers to pay for something they can get (or have already got) for free??
What’s with EMG this month. Action and Adventure #6 has been issued to us
On Its own.
Bagged with Modern Fishing
Bagged with Overlander
Bagged with Modern Boating
Bagged with Camper Trailer Touring
Bagged with 4wd Camping
and maybe some I missed
What an abortion…..why? why? why?
A customer wanting 3 of the above titles will end up with 3 copies of the “Free” Action + Adventure Mag and have no need to buy the Mag on it’s own. This makes no sense to me.
If they had made the increase in comm only to agents who did not do early returns and then paid at the end of the next month or there abouts .Could not work out why they did not go this way from the start If we wont more money it has to be good for both sides. May they could give this a shot
Brendan I think your choice of words could have been a bit more professional.If you think abortion is an appropriate term to refrence magazines then you really need to have a rethink.
It just lowers the whole tone of this thread. JMO
Point taken Mary, It’s still a very strange way to distribute a current magazine. This was not an old issue they are trying to bundle out with current mags.