2012 is barely underway and there are already reports of newsagents early returning magazines to such a level that they leave less stock in-store than the average sales achieved over the last three of four issues.
This is dumb. It results in newsagents losing sales and is certain to push these customers away from the store.
Way to kill a business!
I’d encourage all newsagents who do early returns and use the software to guide this process to speak with their respective software supplier to ensues that reasonable settings are used which to not cut the newsagency out of certain revenue.
These sales will end up elsewhere, possibly outside the newsagency channel.
I understand why newsagents early return, because of either oversupply or a perception of oversupply. Don’t let the bad behaviour of one publisher and their distributor cause you to cut yourself out of business from the product of another publisher.
My early return settings are pretty good, perhaps not perfect like your software. They are in my mind and if sent more than I ordered, put out the new magazines by emptying old copies and removing other items to make room, I go online adjust the level of supply requested (which has been adjusted by much smarter people than me back to more than I asked for last time) and send those back with the copies that were not requested. Look at it like this, we were once a small newsagent and I guess the previous owners made money from newspapers and magazines, but this business is constantly evolving and magazines and newspapers are only a service paid for by other parts of the business or my pocket. Give me a return on my investment or my commitment to newspapers and magazines will only erode.
I’ve set Tower Retailer to look at the last 5 issues and magazines with 70% or more return rate. Like Tim I adjust the required levels on line to better reflect actual sales achieved. Probably half the titles flagged are accepted without early returns due to only a short history or recently reduced supply quantities.
I believe that the setting used are conservative and result in realistic returns that won’t harm sales but enable us to give new titles a fair go and infact increase overall sales.