Author: Mark Fletcher

While being in a shopping centre has its benefits, it also has its challenges – such as when an anchor tenant departs. The troubled Top Ryde shopping centre in Sydney is to lose Myer as reported recently. With Coles and Kmart taking the Myer space the traffic mix and frequency of visit will change.

Independent retailers in shopping centres are there for the ride in many respects, hoping the majors work and bring in a traffic mix off of which they can benefit.

Further to my post yesterday about what newsagents want from suppliers, here are some of the things supplier representatives have told me recently they would like from newsagents. Given how I collected this data there is no duplication. The list is in priority based on the number of suppliers asking for an item.

1. Consistency of buying. Some suppliers say they cannot predict newsagent purchases whereas they can predict purchases from other channels.
2. Payment on time. Several say newsagents pay, on average, 33% later than others.
3. Communication. That newsagents tell them if they cannot pay on time instead of not ordering and buying similar products from another supplier.
4. That newsagents use their own business data for buying decisions.
5. That newsagents are more careful with money.
6. Discipline. Some say newsagents will purchase a stand and put products from other suppliers in the stand.
7. Straight talk. Several suppliers say it is frustrating when a newsagent says one thing to them and they hear from another that the newsagent actually thinks something else.
8. Honouring contracts. That newsagents not sign contracts if they do not intend to stick to them.
9. Courage. The more newsagents had courage to change their businesses.
10. Standing up to bad practices. That newsagents actually stood up to magazine companies and others who treat them bad.

This list is the top ten. It covers almost all the points suppliers have mentioned to me they would wish from newsagents.

There was far more consistency among desires from suppliers from their newsagent relationships than from newsagents.

It seems to me that work is needed to bring the two groups together.

I was not going to post this here as I figured it would frustrate some but then I thought why not. The opinions are the opinions of suppliers. I think we each individually and collectively need to think about the list and what we could achieve by working on this. By working on this I do not mean agree – no, I mean consider and explore what life could look like if we address the list.

A couple of months ago I ran a survey inviting newsagents to respond with what they’d like from suppliers. I sought responses to one question: How can newsagent suppliers help you improve your business?

Here are the responses unedited:

1. Gift/Homeware suppliers help with displaying and suggesting packs of products that display/sell well together
2. The minimum order of the quantity it self. I understand the packaging issues come with it. But for the new stock that we never try or sell, it would be overwhelming to order every stock in minimum order of 12, in this case the supplier could be missed out the actual sales
3. PROVIDE RELEVANT CONTENT FOR READERSHIP 2. PROVIDE INDUSTRY TRENDING INFORMATION, WHAT IS WORKING, WHAT ISN’T 3. PROVIDE INSIGHT INTO NEW DIRECTIONS THE SUPPLIER IS TRYING SO WE CAN SUPPORT / UNDERSTAND
4. Magazines: realistic supply so we can stop losing money.
5. By being honest and offering the best deal possible
6. Better trading terms
7. Letting us know about specials that are on
8. Scheduled visits by reps – too many just wait for us to call. It may be only 3 monthly cycle but if we are not up to date it is a long time between opportunities that have been lost. If a line has flopped we think suppliers should be able to help.
9. Gift and Toy suppliers could reduce unit sizes by by 50%.
10. 40% COMMISSION IMEDIATELY
11. Honesty with what sells well and what doesn’t.
12. Early settlement discount
13. Account Management. You change their title but that does not change behaviours. The over whelming majority of salespeople calling on me a order takers and “howdy” reps. There is very little evidence of account management.
14. Barcodes: Begin with the end in mind, the customer purchases the product through the scanning of a barcode. This information is the foundation of improvements such as electronic ordering, but is often rendered useless information if the barcode is generic in nature, that is price point related instead of SKU related. With individual barcodes we can order electronically and the should be able to receive all stock through edi. Sadly there are many suppliers stuck in the last century in this regard. Of the 58 supplier attendees how many offer individual barcodes and edi invoicing. This would be the single biggest benefit a supplier could offer me. I see too many suppliers who I would like to give a chance in my store, but I’m not prepared to wear the manual burden this lack in standards requires.
15. Supply/source/share cost of appropriate fixtures to suit and display product. Reps to contact more often when new ranges available
16. All suppliers….look to invest in electronic invoices. Makes life a lot easier.
17. Suppliers could help with merchandising and marketing. If they help us present and market their products, we all sell more!
18. Magazines – the obvious one on this topic is for supply to be realistic and able to be set by the newsagent with fair and reasonable parameters agreed by all parties. Partworks supply should be guaranteed for entire series, particularly for models. Cards – pay account managers adequately so that they stay in the role for at least 12 months so that they can better understand what each business is like and set card ranges appropriately. Stationery – major suppliers (like GNS) need to be able to partially match competitors such as Aust Post and supermarkets, not necessarily in a loss lead situation but some discount that enables us to stay reasonably competitive. Rebuild the GNS website(s) to offer the agent and the public a more modern look in keeping with our competitors e.g. Officeworks Newspapers – either get out of the category now and stop pretending i.e. Fairfax or get real and produce newspapers with real content. When running a promotion ensure there is adequate supply of promotional advertising and the promotional goods. Whilst newspapers are in decline they still represent a significant part of a lot of our businesses.
19. better terms ie 60 day accounts or stock swap if not sold some insurance if a dud is picked
20. Good Products and good margin
21. Gift Suppliers (all suppliers that don’t) – Send invoices through XchangeIt or email their invoices in .ddo or .dd2 format to save data entry time.
22. Gifts – smaller minimum or no minimum spend
23. Longer trading terms (60 days)
24. Magazines – Print Return Dates on Magazines in a standard format and position. This would reduce labour costs required in labeling magazines
25. Any new stock,on consignment for a fixed period of time
26. GNS could do with a much better web site. Suppliers could emails us deals that are small on giftware etc, Magazine companies – well do you want me to write a book. They just have no idea of the cost of handling but don’t care. Showing that they care would get improvements started.
27. More discount and longer settlement
28. Magazines: Obviously the oversupply is the major issues with all Newsagencies. Packaging: Many hangsell items have massive packaging surrounding a small item, taking up to twice the space needed and reducing the GP per area. Accounts: Some companies accounting is abysmal, tracking credits, payments and invoices is time consuming and difficult. Ringing up days before an account is due to remind us – what a waste of everyone’s time when you have a history of payments made on time. Stock that does not turn over: Half credits would be useful so we can reduce the price ourselves and clear stock making space for orders of new stock. If we are caught with stock we are apprehensive with orders and may not order stock we feel may not be a quick seller at all. At present with most suppliers once we have the stock the risk is ALL ours.
29. Be pro-active, understand our position and know that we want to grow our business as well.
30. 1. commit SOME Products to sell as traffic generators means high volumn turnover products 2. commit Some Iconic products to sell as high profile image 3. commitment on electronic stock file /invoice
31. Have Network have invoice arrivals like G&G plus make it easier to reduce over supply like we can with G&G using the ALT T method. We have G&G under control and if NDC allow us the same we would have them under control. The above two simple changes by NDC would save us somewhere between 12 – 15 K per year.
32. Papers: as a retailer we are compromised with our supplies by the distribution agent. We sell out time and time again and if we request more we are often told that there are none available. Our distribution agent has about 20 rounds which were formerly run by single newsagents and the problem with one person owning so many rounds is that we all get lumped in together. I think it has cost us dearly in lost sales. Magazines: magazine supply is outmoded, outdated and simply archaic.
33. The volume sales previously enjoyed by newsagents for weekly publications has been severely diminished and now niche publications are our bread and butter (because the duopoly don’t have the same range as us at present). With this in mind each newsagency (retail) should be entitled to select which items they wish to receive and should be able to add and/or cease any item at any time. This would enable retail agents to use their very expensive furniture to be used to its most efficient capacity. The 50% returns ratio which I have experienced for 40 years is a disgrace and could be remedied immediately just by implementing the above. Surely I know what will sell in my business? e.g. CHICKS SMASHING GRUNTERS does not sell in the leafy eastern suburbs of Adelaide. There is a lot of commonsense missing in allocations and that is because the wrong people are doing the allocations. If a newsagent gets his/her allocations wrong they will soon put it right because it is their business but an employee at a distribution outlet simply cannot be expected to have this knowledge so it should be possible for any agent to request their own product unless they choose otherwise. Returns should be available AT ANY TIME. Delayed billing costs time and effort and energy and simply doesn’t work. SBR sometimes works (for monthlies) but never for weeklies because of time constraints.
34. change their attitude and update their business model into the current climate to make it easier to do business
35. MAGS – bad supply model ( this blog covers overwelmingly )
36. better deals

I was looking for a higher level response, more strategic -0 to provide suppliers with insights into things they could do with and for newsagents beyond the day to day frustrations between the two.