Many newsagents across Australia are angry this week on discovering that supplies of the Harry Potter chess set partworks have been cut and they cannot get enough stock to satisfy customer demand.
Customers are angry when their firm order is not available – what is the point of such a firm order some ask. Kids are upset.
That the Harry Potter Chess Set has been a runaway success should not surprise anyone – yet it apparently has.
I love partworks like this Harry Potter series yet constant supply problems and an inability by the importer, distributor and UK publisher to solve the problem suggest it might be time to give up on them.
Newsagents are justified in their anger on what appears to be another partworks supply botch up and the damage it will cause in customer relationships. Newsagents deserve better.
Funny you should post on Harry today as I had a conversation with a fellow news retailer who regularly is being cut on this title. I advised that he talk to the Smiths News wholseale house manager as a first step and if that fails as we expect that it will I have another name and number in their copy management centre for him to talk to.
It is a real pain in the neck when part work supplies are managed so poorly after all these are sold copies in the main that the expensive early issue TV campaigns have generated.
Personally we only have one order and as yet have not been cut.
Mark;
I don’t see this as being a ‘botch up’ at all. I think it is a deliberate attempt by Bissett Publications to have customers ring direct and be lulled into subscriptions. There has been and continues to be too many problems with Partworks to suggest otherwise.
Vaughan
Beechworth Newsagency
Vaughan, Maybe I am naive on this but I have talked with Peter Bissett and consider him a decent bloke. That said, there is no doubt that each time there is a problem newsagents are the ones who suffer. I think we will see movement on this front soon. Mark