This is not that good of a deal, certainly not a best buy. We received 15 copies of Sound & Image Best Buys Home Theatre on December 31, 2008. As of yesterday morning we had sold two copies. For our gross return of $4.47 we have paid out $14.00 for the retail real-estate the title has occupied for two months.
Even though Best Buys is not due for return for another two months we are returning it this week – we have to cut our losses.
While I support independent Australian publishers, a model which sees me and other newsagents so heavily investing in titles like this is unfair. Wolseley Media, the publisher, ought to consider offering more equitable terms to newsagents if they want to stay on our shelves.
If you think this is bad, consider Bride Tasmania. Originally released last year with a price of $14.95 and six-month shelf life, it was due for return in March. I received six copies and sold none. Imagine my surprise to find not only that it was not included on the March return list, but that four additional copies of the same issue turned up yesterday with a new return date of September. I’ve boxed all ten for early return.
Chris, I’ve looked at the website – it’s an independent publication? Who is the distributor?
NDD.
Early return. Call NDD and tell them you want a credit this month. Let me know if they ,push back on this request. Consider writing to the ACCC about this too – sending more when NDD knows you have sold only one is unconscionable. The ACCC needs to know and the more newsagents they hear about this from the better.
I probably should add that a guy from the publisher has been around two or three times since the magazine was first on sale, asking how sales were going, and claiming that it was doing all right at other newsagencies. That may well be true as I don’t sell many bridal magazines.
I have them boxed for early return next week, but NDD wouldn’t have known that I hadn’t sold any because of the changed return date of the original distribution.
On the sam topic, we just received a fresh supply of the 2009 Country Collections Diary from Network – yes, the same one that was issued in July last year and already sat on the shelves until January with not one sale recorded.
Chris, NDD would get sales data from you daily. They would know.
Sorry, Mark, but a the risk of annoying most of the readership of this blog, I don’t have a POS system! NDD wouldn’t have known, but that doesn’t excuse them doing a reissue before returns.
No worries. Your point on reissue prior to return is well made. What you are experiencing is a symptom of a magazine distribution model where a key stakeholder makes money from moving boxes and not selling magazines.