Newsagents may want to the quantity of Scooby Doo stock received yesterday. In our case supply was increased without justification. Yes, yes, we can early return. We should not have to do this.
I was discussing this with a newsagent late yesterday and they are at their wits end about magazine supply with the cheques they regularly write for the magazine companies equal to or more than the value of sales in the month. And that is without even factoring in the cost of real estate and labour.
Newsagents have complained about the supply model for many years both formally and informally. Millions of dollars have been invested by newsagents to provide magazine distributors with more timely and accurate data with a fairer supply model as one of the promises.
While newsagents can and do early return to manage stock levels and cash flow, there is a limit as to what can be achieved. Plus there is a labour and freight cost with this.
Negative cash flow for magazines is worse today in 2010 than I have seen it in years. It is the extra one and two copies of a title, like Scooby Doo, which is causing real damage as it is under the radar.
I can see a time when newsagents en masse refuse to pay magazine distributors on time and through this exert cash flow pressure of their own.
The better alternative would be for distributors to agree to a fair supply model with penalties for failures on their part – like sending extra copies of Scooby Doo without justification in the sales data. They need to hold themselves as accountable to us as they hold us accountable to them when it comes time to pay the bills and put up displays.
Unfortunately, the most likely outcome of all this will be more and more newsagents simply closing their accounts.
If trying to directly discuss such problems has been fruitless all these years, many will just opt for subbing, especially in these challenging times.
Just how long are we expected to put up with this? Options like ACCC and representative body support haven’t solved anything meaningful as yet. And for how long has this been going on?
We’ve been here for nearly two years now, and it seems nothing has changed in that time, so how many years has it been a problem before that?
If I were a bigger primary agent, I’d be quaking in my boots regarding more approaches from would-be subbies in my locale.
I don’t understand how Otter Press make money out of their comics. They contain little by way of advertisements, and returns must be massive give the continual recycling either through reissues or “value packs” neither of which can be cancelled due to the continual change of title code. They have never sold for us, so we just send them straight back.
we usually receive 2 or 3 comic value packs from ndd, however yesterday network sent us 8 of one title and 2 of another and 3 scooby doo comics. Comics do not sell well here . so once again we have to early return these titles.
Pressure “en masse”??? Sign me up Mark!!!
DB sounds like I got exactly the same allocation as you did.
We do sell a few of these comic packs but I’ve noticed the numbers we’re being sent has increased each week for the nearly three months since I’ve taken over the business. I have an early return to finish up tomorrow that will be somewhere in the region of $800 worth for the week after spending some time looking at numbers on hand versus historical sales as well as just “pruning” the number of titles in some catergories (do I really need 18 different comic pack titles when I sell maybe 3-4 a week ? ).
I also wonder if the publisher realises that when the distributor sends me 12 of a title that I historically sell 3 or 4 of a month that I’m just going to rip the cover off of 6 and send them straight back at the end of the week. Perhaps they need to be made more aware of this waste of their resources due to poor allocation ?
Newsagents need to be paid a returns credit of 10c for every full copy return, whether early or current. The 10c would ultimately be paid by the publisher but applied to the network or gotch statement. Whereas a 10c fee may barely cover the cost of the return, it would discourage oversupply of many of the problematic titles.
Got some sad news for you all it wont change as long as g/g and co get paid by the numbers they push out + the use of our money
Can someone explain how Scooby Doo has any relevance in this day and age??
Surely in this day and age kids aren’t the slightest interested in this 70’s has been.
New movie out not so long ago.
I have a 6 year old and a 4 year old and they will not watch old scooby doo dafffy duck road runner or any other cartoon that dad could relate to (watched as a kid)
“en masse” thumbs up.
what about going to some sort of media outlet…with the topic of “absolutely appalling waste of trees” especially in these days were people are more concerned about environment.
imagine this, segment opens with a shot of trolleys full of magazine returns….. interview a few anonymous newsagents….some more footage of how so many trees are wasted….. more testimonials…..
sometimes….naming/shaming is the only way to get thru to big companies like gg and net.
has this been done before? if not, do you guys think its a good idea
Ed i thinbk it is an excellent idea , with one draw back for those that send back tops only would probally go back to full returns so they can “recycle” them (throw them in there bins where it is out of sight out of mind ). I quite often get people asking why i am throwing away so much while i am at the bin they cannot get over that tere is so much waste in this industry , by the way i have just loaded up 2 full woolworth trollys full of magazines destined for for the dump …..what a waste
if i may add… i think part of the reason why nothing is done is because there is not enough awareness of what is happening (the waste). Heck, maybe even the publishers don’t know that they are sending us too much and the distributors just keep sending us stuff from publishers to get their commission.
Or maybe publishers purposely do it to increase circulation and increase ad rates. whatever the reason, i think we all agree something is wrong.
By going public thru the media, maybe just maybe, a couple of scenarios might happen;
a. advertisers see it and act upon it with publishers
b. there is a public outcry and for PR sake, they finally use the sales data that WE send them.
like what shaun just said now, i do get questions from people why i am throwing away trolleys full of mags, my response was just distributors send us too much.
I have a blog post I plan to publish next week on this. I have held off writing about the extraordinary waste because the result may not be what we want.
what is the worst that can happen anyway mark?