Slam magazine supply shows failure of the magazine supply model

I can’t make sense of the recent supply of Slam basketball magazine at of one of my newsagencies. Indeed, the allocations have been so mishandled that I am left wondering about the future of Gotch. Publishers using the company ought to be equally concerned.

Looking back on the last nine issues, for the first four issues – April 2012 through July 2012 – we received four copies and sold four copies.  Our increased supply to six for the next two issues and we sold 1 and 2 copies respectively. Gotch then switched us to 2 copies for the next two issues and we sold zero. Now, this month, we received nine copies.  We have decided to early return all copies.

All through this we have not altered the placement of the title.  The only explanation I can offer for the shift from selling four copies an issue to one or two is a shift in in shoppers we serve.

The accounts people at Gotch hold me accountable for the level of my indebtedness to them yet they do not give me reasonable leavers with which to control this level of indebtedness. Indeed, it goes the other way with some allocation decisions making them look like a customer using my business as an ATM to prop up their cash position.

Newsagents have been told to adopt best practice IT infrastructure to manage magazines. It is disappointing that the newsagent investment in IT is not being used by the magazine companies to deliver fair and equitable supply.

Magazine publishers need to realise that over and under supply of magazines are harming the performance of the newsagency channel.

Click on the image to see the data backing-up my claims.