A Woolworths manager speaking with a newsagent recently advised that while they count and top returns, they do not return the tops. This is another item on a list of operational and valuable benefits given to competitors of newsagents by magazine distributors.
Newsagents who provide accurate sales data ought to be rewarded by being permitted to not have to return any unsold stock.
What about it publishers? Would you lobby your magazine distributor for us? Please, we need your help to reduce the cost of magazine returns. Achieving a returns process equivalent to Woolworths could reduce the pressure many of us feel to process returns early.
This post should attract a lot of interest Mark. I hope all Newsagents reading this respond to your post to let publishers know that we would all like to be treated like woolies….i know i would.
As my magazine sales improve and the variety of titles I receive increases, I am really starting to appreciate the bugbear of physical returns. More and more space is taken up with returns in my shop and I either lose half a day returning them myself or pay for it to be done, either way an unwanted and uneccessary cost incured.We should have the same practicle and cort effective terms as the big supermarkets, after all I expect that newsagents are still by far the largest and most thorough distributors and magazines.
Lots of posts by me today. Guess whose home convalescing after an arthroscope?
Good luck with the recovery.
It is a bit hard to falsify returns when we have computer sales data for arrivals and sales data sent daily to the supplier. However there are those out there who will try.
When I receive another newsagents mags in error I send them on but any time I have them missing they never turn up so are we all such up standing honest newsagents that would never try to cheat the system?
Carol, do you think an employee of a supermarket chain would be above doing the wrong thing with returns. Remember, we are not talking about manament here but some one in the despatch/arrivals area yet they are trusted to to the right thing.
Thanks Mark. As Con the Fruiterer used to say “ahhh, couple a days”
What is annoying is that no tops also means no possible audit!! Complete trust!!
So Supermarket staff don’t make mistakes?? Their counting is always flawless?? These same people who give me say 4 paper return bundles each week logically labelled “1 of 1”, “2 of 2”, “3 of 3” and “4 of 4”!! At least they get the last one correct (by mistake)!!
I don’t mind sending in returns, but please please please let me do tops only… We don’t usually have the option of delivering them ourselves, being four hours away from the collection point. This month, as I had to drive to Perth anyway, I’ve dropped off one batch of nine boxes. (two of gotch, mostly tops, the rest network) Can get someone to drop off more in a few weeks. But otherwise its post… Completely sucks!
We service 2 large supermarkets. They are diabolically hopeless at doing their returns.
They put numbers down on their returns form which have no relation ship to the physical count.
We have a strict policy that we only credit the physical count.
More often than not this is in our favour. Ie we win if we count physical returns. We would lose if didn’t have to count them.
It is clear that whoever does this task at the supermarket does not care about their job.
Based on our experience, if magazine distributors are not requiring physical returns it will be to the supermarkets advantage – ie yet another discount level.
We return all our magazines ourselves on the way to GNS every week and the absolute mess we are greeted with each week at the Distribution warehouse is mind-blowing. I think it would make commercial sense for GG and NDC to stop taking physical returns from shops that are 100% compliant with Xchangeit.
A small publisher’s persepctive:
When I ask the distributors for unsold returns that they say they have sitting in their warehouse after one month and get boxes of my mag delivered from GNG with no stickers and still bundled exactly as they had come from the printers, you can see where the trust issue comes in.
Yes, publishers and newsagents are bound by a certain amount of trust in our dealings. Do I trust my distributor after my first foray into the world of publishing? Not a bit! I reckon publishers and newsagents alike are all getting screwed!
I agree a full automated sales database should suffice, and if I could have some kind of accurate data on exactly how many copies were scanned and sold on a weekly basis, I’d be stoked! But in my case, the numbers just aren’t adding up and I now want all copies returned because I suspect I am paying distribution fees on copies that are merely sitting in a warehouse while newsagents who request copies are being told they haven’t got any in stock.
if the publishers got the same information from agents that the distributors get I wouldn’t care less about returns, but what I get is a “summary” that surprise, surprise for my very first issue showed that total sales EXACTLY equalled the cost of distribution and therefore I got not one penny back….hmmmm…
Perhaps as a small publisher you need to consider selling direct to the retailer and bypass the distributor. Analyze the costs of the distributors margin and apply it to a direct supply system. You may be surprised.
Our fault guys if Woolies/Coles have better trading terms than us. They are negotiated nationally and we should be able to do the same.
There is no other way except for total unity at a national level but I still have to be confident that the ANF is working for me and not for the publishers/distribs.
When my confidence is restored in this I will happily join the ANF again
Little, there are ways to get sales data direct from newsagents.
both network and GG have my sales data on a daily basis and its accurate, ask them for it
MARK do coles/woolies even pay for the papers as we have their returns rejected at least once a month?i think that could even be paid to boost circulation