Renovate & Extend magazine is a good example of an un-viable title from Universal Magazines about which I blogged last week. The five month on-sale is an unreasonable financial and space impost on newsagents. A fairer solution would be that we are paid for stock as it sold. The technology has been able to facilitate this for years. This takes the financial risk and the cost of theft away from us.
In addition to the unfair long shelf life there is the supply model itself. I have received too many copies, considerably more than I sell. The distributors know this. The publisher knows this. Yet they continue to supply.
The proof of their gross overprinting is seen with each issue when they bag it with old stock – the never seem to run out of old stock.
Universal Magazines causes the problem by printing far more than they sell. NDD, their distributor for this title aids and abets this crime against newsagents by permitting poor trading terms and supplying too much stock.
I am early-returning part of what we were supplied yesterday as I should not have to carry the cost of their bad behaviour.
The cash Universal sucks out of our channel with titles like Renovate & Extend reduces the cash we have available for better selling magazines and other product categories.