Gordon and Gotch is taking too long to introduce its Sales Based Replenishment model. Newsagents continue to get treated as warehouses and cash cows. Check out the Alan Baroushek’s Calorie, Fat & Carbohydrate Counter and The Pocket Food & Exercise Diary.
Both products have an on-sale of a year!
Rather than sending a single display unit based on sales history and topping up as we get close to selling our, Gordon and Gotch loaded us with too much stock. Taking up valuable retail space (or creating a storage problem) and sucking our cash long before they should.
Newsagents, the weakest link in the magazine distribution model are once again carrying more than their fare share of financial burden here. If the publisher wants to print enough stock to last a year they should carry the cost of warehousing and distributing that stock based on need. They have the data.
Supermarkets and some other retailers would not put up with this. They do not put up with this. Why do newsagents?
With 65% of magazines cash-flow negative, effectively losing money for us, we have the financial incentive to control our key asset, our retail network. All we lack are a plan and will. More fool us.
We should all let G&G warehouse the stock. Keep enough stock for say three months {your sales history will tell you what that is} return the rest and re-order as needed.
We have already returned 60% of what we were sent. Our history shows that in 3 months we will receive another dumping of the same title, regardless of sales history! Gordon and Gotch know the problem, they know that what they are doing puts money in their pocket and no-one else’s; they know they are hurting newsagents with the way they distribute product to newsagents. THEY are arseholes; simply put!
Mark is right, Supermarkets do not put up with this shite; why the hell do we continue to????????????
Why? Because we have a National body that isn’t prepared to do jack; and State Associations that are equally as blinded.
There will never be an answer to the problem at hand until ALL newsagents stand up and say NO MORE!
We source these titles from Waymore Distributors, better margin and we control ordering while still sale or return at the end of the year.
We use waymore
What about talking about something other than magazines.How about newsagents that have created efficiencies in their administrative areas sharing their success.Wages are the biggest expense, let’s here success stories on streamlining various tasks.
Peter – Fair point
However this needs to be highlighted, besides the cash flow problems it creates one of byproducts of this is Newsagents Wellbeing, trying to pay for all this creates high stress levels for Newsagents.
This is a particularly bad case as there is a one year on sale date, what an abuse of the distribution model.
I am having real trouble with Gordon & Gotch who I have contracted to distribute my new Vintage Caravan Magazine. Customers are being told by newsagents that Gordon & Gotch has no more copies left, yet they tell me 630 copies were returned by agents without even being put on the shelf.
Another customer contacted G&G directly only to be told they had “never heard of” my magazine??? Yet another customer says that their local newsagent had 2 copies of issue one, which they bought both of, yet the same agent only received 1 copy of issue 2 (which had double the print run!)
The story I am getting from G&G now is that the sales on issue 1 just covered distribution costs and in fact, I may still owe them.
Two months after release, I still am to get any kind of final sales figures from them and quite frankly, I feel ripped off.
They are definitely NOT earning their $1 per copy I have to pay them.
Gordon & Gotch get your act together!!!