Australian magazine publishers need to get serious about barcode placement on covers. Lack of consistency costs time.
Take a look at the four covers in the photo, staff selling all four or a mix have to look at the cover to check where the barcode is prior to scanning. Take 5 and That’s Life are purchased together 47% of the time according to basket data I have seen. The staff member scanning both needs to shuffle the covers based on inconsistent barcode placement.
It’s worse with New Idea and Woman’s Day given their sales volume.
If the barcode was always in the same place we would save time and, as a result, improve the shopper experience. I am sure supermarket staff would agree.
Personally, I’d like to see the barcode on the lower left corner of the cover – for every magazine. This suits the efficient swipe of the cover in front of the scanner as that corner is closest to the scanner when holding a title in front of you.
To newsagents who say it does’t matter because they use a hot key – I prefer to scan every title as it is good practice for data accuracy. Plus you can shake the title and free up greeting cards or other items in the magazine by ‘mistake’.
What about it magazine publishers? Do you want to improve the shopper experience? I hope so as you would benefit from the consistency encouraged as a result of the change too.
If you think this seems like a minor issue, think about it in the context of a newsagency processing between 250 and 1,000 transactions a day. Anything you can do to improve efficiency and consistency is a good thing.
Footnote: some magazine publishers complain about lack of compliance by newsagents in terms of scanned sales data. I suggest this would improve as a result of my barcode placement suggestion.
This is proably not what we want to hear but if Coles and Woolies complain i bet it would make more of a difference than if we complain
Has anyone tried this morning to send their returns to GG only to find that the returns file has not been sent yet through
xchangeit?
The fact that returns for the month have to be done before 12pm today means that I have come from home (my only day off for the week) because the file comes through on Tuesdays (and I usually handle returns on Wednesdays) but to get the last lot of returns for the month on the current statement I now have to sit here from 8am waiting for this file.
The cynic in me tells me that GG will be as late as they possibly can getting this returns file out so that most newsagents miss the deadline and they continue to erode our cashflow with this sort of behaviour.
I am furious but there is nothing I can do
about it but wait.
Is anyone else still waiting???????
Mark
The ideal location is top right – we read from top left to bottom right – this would leave the valuable top left space for eye catching grab lines, rather than an ugly barcode .. But if you use consistent placement of the barcode, than recall dates should also be placed – if a publisher wants to re issue the product – at their expense they sticker with a new barcode and recall date.
If barcode and recall info was to be printer them top left is the only placement of benefit to Newsagents
I reckon top right is the correct place for all barcodes.
It’s exactly where I stick all our barcode labels on.
Doesn’t interfere with Magazine title, it can be seen easily on the flat stack and vertical shelves, and always look in the same place for it
I’m okay with just about anywhere as long as it is consistent.
One of my pet dislikes is doing a whole lot of work for little gain. Another is having to accept lower productivity as a consequence of poor practices by another person/body that impacts upon what I do.
This is a very good subject for a post Mark.
Even good ole cigar chomping Joe can work out that we all need to improve productivity in order to stay in the game.
Looking at just our Newsagency using a bar-code scanner to scan returns from subagents. So we do a batch of about 400 once a week and if I use a ‘hunt for the bar-code’ time of 1.5 seconds lost per unit, then we would lose 10 minutes per batch. So that’s nearly 8.7 hours lost per year for just one Distribution Newsagency.
But it’s not about one Newsagency; it’s about what happens collectively across Australia.
I don’t know how many newsagencies there are, but I doubt it’s being unrealistic to suggest some 30,000+ person hours are being wasted each year hunting for the location of bar-codes. Who is footing that bill???
So if improving productivity can also be described as eliminating waste, then how about it Publishers. Is it really so difficult to self-achieve a standard much like you desire in others?
If you don’t want to ‘spoil’ the look of the magazine by placing at the top, then do it on a bottom corner. As long as everyone knows where the go to spot is there will be an improvement in productivity as the auto movement is quickly learned.
Dennis,
I’m sure we all know publishers and distributors read these postings – so how about it guys, give us, your partners, a real reason why you are holding back Newsagency best practice.
Come on Bauer and G&G, lead the way and they (publishers) will follow. How hard can it really be?
Either here or through the ANF come out and tell us why this can’t be done.
Happy New Year to all – Make 2015 the year of barcode placement!
John
That’s a case of the zacklies John, you are exactly right in alluding Gotch & Bauer need to take a lead here.
They are the only ones who can do this because I don’t think there is a controlling publishers body as such.
Nice touch to make 2015 the year of barcode placement. I’m lovin it.
Happy and prosperous NY to you Fay as well John
I am taking this matter to Magazine Publishers Australia (large publishers) and to Publishers Australia (smaller publishers). I know it has been raised before, years ago.
You might as well slip into conversation the bit about oversupply while you are there.
Happy new year to you all
Always Peter.