I was fortunate to meet with Gabriel Ladikos yesterday from Gordon and Gotch. Gabriel manages partworks within Gotch. He has been with the company for seventeen years and working with partworks for thirteen.
While I will not cover some of what was discussed in confidence here, I would observe that, as with all things in life, there is more to partworks than we see in our newsagencies. For example, orders are placed with publishers eight weeks in advance. These orders are based on sales achieved in the UK for the partwork already as well as trialled in Australia – usually South Australia or Western Australia.
The eight week in advance orders can be problematic when a national release performs differently to the UK and trials. Then, publishers need to either weather the storm of backorders waiting for returns or air freight stock to Australia – if such stock is available.
It is in this area of forecasting for more certain supply that our discussion was most interesting.
While I knew that partworks are sold through supermarkets in New Zealand, I did not know that they were sold through Tesco stores in the UK. Newsagents in Australia have exclusivity on partworks. This is one reason I love them – especially those supported with TV campaigns tagged to newsagencies. When I see those I know it is essential to promote boldly in store to connect with the TV coverage.
Gabriel outlined some improvements coming up with partworks. These will apply to Parts 11 onwards for all partworks. No change will occur for Parts 1 – 10 to allow the partwork to settle in and allow newsagents to establish their customer base for each partwork.
Weekly partworks’ onsale will reduce to 7 days and Fortnightlies to 14 days. The second recall will remain and will appear on returns forms 2 weeks after initial recall. This will provide a weekly with a maximum on sale period of 3 weeks, and fortnightly 4 weeks.
This change will provide both newsagents and Gotch with a faster turnaround to ensure better allocations and speedier backorder fulfilment.
The hour and a half with Gabriel was insightful – on both sides I suspect. One outcome will be better dialogue on how to create more valuable win win win situations from partworks. Publishers want to sell more product. Gotch wants to sell more product. Newsagents want to sell more product. If we understand each other better we can achieve that.
Partwork customers are more likely to purchase another product in your newsagency than any other customer – this is based on 2005/06 basket research. Their efficiency and value demand support from newsagents.
Mark, interesting to see improvements in partworks. The two things that i have never understood is why wouldn’t you market test NSW or Victoria rather than the smaller states and why wouldn’t you stage introduction so that say NSW is first followed by Vic 6 weeks later and so-on. The initial state wouldn’t have too many supply issues and the following states would benefit by additional stock being on the water if it looks like a partworks is going to be succesful. Perhaps it’s about advertising costs.
Craig, They test in WA and SA because, apparently, they provide the most consistent test results – a snapshot of the country if you will. Also, once they go out of small states, it is easier and cheaper to advertise nationally. That’s my understanding at least. Mark