I’ve been on a plane for the last hour and a half and thinking about my post this morning about yet another partworks stuff up. There has to be a way to connect newsagents and overseas partworks publishers and cut out the middlemen – the importer and the distributor – since they are where the most expensive problems occur.
Newsagents who embrace partworks do so wholeheartedly. In my store for example we would go hard on every new partwork offering. We’d consider a firm sale commitment as long as supply was guaranteed and as long as we got access to all the subscription deals the distributor offers through their website. We would even allocate a permanent high profile space in-store to promote the category. The current sporadic releases coupled with hit-and miss management techniques mean we cannot allocate such space.
So this blog post is a call to partwork publishers such as Marshall Cavendish, Eaglemoss and DeAgostini. Give us your partworks, deal direct with newsagents and let us show how successful your product could be in Australia.
Although i would be extremely wary of taking on large numbers of partworks on firm sale, dealing direct with their publishers would definatly have its benifits.
An initiative involving newsagents and partworks publishers would be extremely benificial for both sides. For newsagents it would mean being guaranteed supply and therefore being able to guarantee customers the product. It would also mean having enough of each issue, on-time, all without wasting time dealing with the distributers. For the publishers it would mean more profit (as you say Mark, cutting out the middleman). It would also mean they are able to sell more of their product. If customers are guaranteed to get the product and get it on time, they will keep comming back, both for the partworks they are getting at the time and for partworks in the future.
The only difficulty that may arise is the number of different publishers newsagents would ahve to deal with. Dealing with four publishers may become time consuming.
If something like this is to happen it needs to be structured correctly from the very beginning. It means there has to be efficiant communication channels and supply systems, both tested and accepted by publishers and newsagents. It means using appropriate technology where possilbe to create and sustain an effective supply chain. This cold include, among other things, using electronic invoicing and returns through xchange it, as well as being able to backorder and change standing orders online.
This is one of the most poorly managed categories from suppliers and the current situation deserves a serious evaluation by publishers.