At a meeting with Tower newsagents in Perth yesterday, the management of partworks supply was a topic of hot discussion. The story is always the same – newsagents love partworks but are angry at not being able to get sufficient supply to service customer standing orders. This is despite the magazine distributors being given standing order data on a daily basis by newsagents.
I heard a story yesterday of one customer who is two pieces away from completing the dolls house and the newsagent is unable to source the required parts from the magazine distributor.
I know when I take these issues to Peter Bissett at Bissett magazines – the major partworks importer in Australia, he does his utmost to resolve them. However, there are too many complaints for them to be glitches. Partworks problems are systemic and newsagents and their customers are the victims.
So what’s the answer? The magazine distributors ought to start using the data they asked for years ago – they ought to supply newsagents to at least the pre-sold quantity, thus allowing newsagents to actually serve their customers. I’d also like to see newsagents have the opportunity to purchase partworks on a firm sale basis – I know in my newsagency we would do this, for a better commission, if it guaranteed supply. We push partworks hard and are frustrated with the time we lose having to chase stock from the broken partworks supply chain.
Next week I will post part 2 of the problem with partworks.