Talk to any newsagent this morning and they will tell you that they will be glad when the week is over. Being the last week of the month, magazine volume has been high. Magazines delivered today have to be paid for in three weeks. A few years ago I had a report developed for Tower Systems to track the value of magazines by distributor by week. Click on the image for a larger copy of a small part of this report for one newsagency for August this year.
If a newsagent says to me they are overloaded at the end of the month, this report is the first thing I ask for as evidence is vital. Sometimes it shows that the problem does not exit. Other times it shows a serious problem. The key is that newsagents can get evidence if they want. Any challenge around overloading magazines in the last week of the month will require hard evidence.
The key to reports like this is that the newsagent only handles magazines for which invoices are received electronically, all sales are scanned and all returns are scanned. This level of data compliance is crucial if newsagents are to build the evidence necessary to drive change in magazine supply arrangements.
Evidence of this would be the woolworths shopping trolley full over supplementry returns just from wednesday alone and what really make me laugh is that my stock has been cut back but yet there seems to be an increase in new stock
A worrying trend has emerged in our store the last 2 weeks. G & G have started invoicing us every Thursday for “extra” copies of New Idea. These are extras that we don’t want, dont need and didnt ask for. The trouble is, the extra copies never arrive. As we dont print barcode labels for weekly mags, it would be so easy to not even realise that we are being charges for magazines we never get.
Shayne I will follow this up with Gotch for you. Mark
Hi Mark, thanks for the kind offer but I have someone in G & G trying to find out what the story is. I am hoping to get an answer today so will let you know what the outcome is.
Mark,i just did the report that you have mentioned and i almost fell off my chair the average wed for NDC is just over $1000 and what knocked me off my chair is week 4 it was $8898.01 . And as i have mentioned i have been in contact with them and i am ment to be getting less stock
Surley i am thinking there is an error somewhere as my invoices just don’t add up to this
Mark
Not for publication…
All the averages seem wrong. eg dividing by 5 on monday and wednesday… and they seem to be accumulating by supplier instead of being reset. Not Tower experienced, so may be reading it wrong.
well glad i had a look at the trcking magazine by week page ,i was charged $7500.00 for rugby league week ,an obvious mistake but i would have had a heart attack when i received my bill for the month
But was it in your favour Shaun??? Has anyone heard of it going the other way?
PS I would’ve had a heart attack as well!
no in there favour 7500 for 41 rugby league weeks an obvious error but when i open my bill next week i would have dropped over