I received two titles yesterday from Gordon & Gotch which should not be sent to newsagents unless explicitly requested. Body Art 3 and It Happened to Me are fringe titles. They are expensive – $24.95, have a long on-sale and deliver magazine margin for book products. Gotch should know better. If distributors want to use my shelves in this way then they need to develop a different model which takes all the risk. Let me pay on scanned sales only. Give me free returns freight. Oh, and pay me for the use of my shelves.
There is bound to be an excuse, there always is. In the meantime, from the moment the titles land on my doorstep, I am responsible. No wonder newsagents get angry.
Magazine distributors often say that newsagents complain, make mistakes and are late at getting things done. If we did not have to put up with stuff like this maybe we’d have more time to work on our business.
I expect better from Gordon & Gotch.
i have a problem like this but not isolated to books/mags.
my monthly statements from each of the mag distributors shows approx 50% credits.
why do we get such a great amount of unwanted stuff.
are the distributors going to use the sale files we send back each night via xchangeIT to amend their supply.
are the publishers and the retailers are paying for the distributors to play the short term (30day) money market?
A bit off topic, but has anybody else been copping the ‘jeez, it’s a bit thin, isn’t it?’ line since last week re papers?
All I can do is apologise for being too tired to stay up any later and write more stories for them 😀
the sales files are a complete waste of time sending them they obviously do not look at them and for anyone to say they do they are just kidding themselves . my return rate is still at 50-60% no matter how much i cut back the more that gets cut back the more new tittles arrive the following month . As far as publishers go i am not so sure they are completly blind of the fact over supply is bad in this industry ,i recently emailed a publisher about a massive over supply of one of thgere mags that retails for $19.95 and by over supply i mean i normally sell 12 at the most and this time round they sent me 36 so at least 20 of these mags are going for a short trip to the industrial bin out the back and suprise suprise no reply back from my email . Don’t get me wrong i see sales data as the way forward but they must actually take note of what information we are sending them ..
oh and here is another one Bacon busters i normally sell about 25 this time round i received 69 and no guessing who the supplier is …. GG .
He he, have you ever read Bacon Busters? Very interesting read.
Here, we don’t sell any Bacon Busters, I browse through it when it arrives as I find it somehow grotesquely amusing however sales figures – 0!! To my suprise we recently also received an increase in our supply??
And yet those magazines that we are selling, mainly the weekly mags, have been serverely cut back???
Has someone had too much egg nog????
yep my new idea also got cut back for the busiest week of the year …
we recieved 3 OK magazines which is a double issue, normally sell on average 8 weekly. We queried network and recieved back an e-mail explaining the publisher chooses the numbers allocated, is this true?????
Just checked our allocation for tomorrow with network. Apparently we’re getting colouring books.
Yay.
With distribution, the publishers give them a fixed amount of copies based on an agreement that was signed. The distributor then has to allocate all of these copies. This is why everyone complains about oversupply because the distributor has to send them SOMEWHERE, they cannot tell the publisher that they won’t distribute that many.
Just checked our allocation of AWW tomorrow and I am going to receive 100 more copies than my monthly average sales throughout the year and 180 more than my sales last January.
same here it is utter #####$#%. yet they continue to get away with it
people! People! It’s Christmas time. Let that anger go and enjoy the journey.
Five buck colouring books made of the cheapest paper?? I’ve got balsa wood model aeroplanes heavier than these.
You’ve got to be kidding!
We buy the ones we’ve got retail, better quality and half the price, and we can still sell them for a dollar less than network want us to charge for theirs.
We won’t bother putting them out. Would make us look bad.
read item 12 perhaps from anon and let it go
gus oh gus this is the reason why we get walked over all the time .And yes it is christmass time not rip the newsagent off time again
Shaun, one day you, like all of us, will pass away. What I am trying to impart to you and others is that the journey is more important than the destination. Things happen along the journey that seem to be out of our control. Change the things in your journey that you are capable of but don’t get hung up and angry on the things that cant be changed immediately; they will change eventually. Anger and criticism on this blog which seems to be inherent with your occupation or perhaps your nature, I dont know. What I do know is that at the end of the day we all end up as worm fodder. My parents died in their mid fifties, my brother-in-law at 48 and too many others to comment here so – enjoy the journey old son.
Anon, gus et al,
How the hell do you enjoy the journey when the lifeblood (i.e. cashflow) necessary to sustain such a journey is ripped from you on a tri-weekly basis by those spineless bastards at Gotch & Network who don’t have the brains, balls, guts,intelligence or wherewithal to analyse the daily sales data most of us remit on a daily basis.
Magazine sales obviously aren’t that flash given the tripe we received this morning – I can buy colouring books at Big W, slap on a handsome margin and still sell them cheaper than the crap NDC expect us to carry for months at much lesser margins. If I take the time to source quality product then I will do even better.
The magazine distribution model in this country has always been flawed and worsens monthly so why should newsagents carry the can? We present magazines in a more than acceptable manner, we part with handsome amounts of cash on a monthly basis for sales that may never eventuate, bottom line, we merchandise produst in many varied and intersting ways however we are screwed so often and so fiercely by magazine distributors that there is a real risk that a small number of us are beginning to enjoy it!!
Anon if we are not using this blog for issues that effect us daily what would you like to talk about ??the lovely weather we are having ?
dear oh dear Jim/Shaun et al – or whatever other name you are using – chill out or sell up
anon, while it may be fun for you to snipe away as you do, Jim makes an excellent point about the push model for magazines. I reckon he likes the rest of his business. Itt is this one part which sucks cash and time.
Well said Jim.
Brother-in-law? WTF? I thought my step son’s funeral on my birthday was harsh. Go get some counseling anon, just mentioning that shows you need help. Stop commenting here till you get some help.
**On Bacon Buster’s I was wondering about how they were allowed to publish a picture of a dog doing a dead pig. Strange…
*** Have a Merry Christmas all. (yes even anon)
Stepsons funeral on your birthday
WTF!-
is this a competition for the biggest sob story now. You’re a challenge Michael
Michael…..please don’t feed the troll!
Ah Max –
The staff here at the institute were so sorry you didn’t elect to finish the program but you are more than welcome to return anytime – your ‘special anger room’is awaiting
I’m sure your bro-in-law is proud of your comments here.
I’d like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy xmas, and may all your new year’s wishes come true.
🙂