Funny Bones is not funny

I have had $8,000 in revenue taken from my newsagency by a ‘genius’ allocations clerk at the PBL owned Network Services. Here’s how: Partwork publications are a point of difference for newsagents – we are the only retail channel offering partworks and many newsagents embrace them wholeheartedly. Funny Bones is one of the most popular partwork series to come to Australia from the UK. This De Agostini publication has been a huge hit here. In fact, it has been too successful. As with all partworks we encouraged our customers to sign up for our putaway service – we keep each copy aside and send them an SMS message when the stock arrives. It’s a premium service without any additional cost.

We have firm orders for ten copies of Funny Bones and have sold out of each issue we have been sent. We have not received the last four issues and have called and emailed with little success in getting a response until yesterday when we were advised that some genius within Network Services decided that our stock would serve their needs better if they sent it elsewhere. This is despite us selling out and them knowing that we sell out each issue.

The Network decision to cancel supply to my shop means I have to cancel the orders for the ten committed customers. Some may stop shopping with us. Over the life of the publication this could cost us $8,000 in direct lost revenue plus lost add on sales. Add on sales amount to $10.00 to $20.00 worth of purchases each time a customer collects a partwork issue. This equals an estimated $20,000 in revenue is at risk as result of the decision to cut supply.

We have actively promoted Funny Bones in our shop since its launch, giving over prime real-estate in pursuit of long term customers. In return for our gift of labour and real-estate we have been abused and no one cares. We have taken this issue and other similar issues with partworks to the Australian distributor, Bissett Magazines, with no success. As I said to Bissett and Network yesterday:

How newsagents are treated over partworks makes me question the viability of being the ‘magazine specialist’. I am tired of getting done over. I am tired of dealing with incompetent people making decisions which hurt my business. I am tired of working hard to launch a new product only to have it taken elsewhere once the hard yards have been done (Alpha, Cosmos, Funny Bones etc). How would Coles or Woolworths react if Network and Bissett treated them in this way? They would demand compensation for sure.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

I love partworks and partwork customers. It’s the suppliers and distributors who are killing this golden goose for newsagents.