Late yesterday, new magazine distributor IPS issued an update for newsagents. The update includes news of additional resources for customer service and other information.
I’ve signed up for an account with IPS. While they have had teething problems and have not been helped by XchangeIT as they should have been, I (and several magazine publishers) feel that we need their model to bring more competition to magazine distribution.
Hi Mark
How does IPS work and would this be a service worth joining up to?
Account arrived today (have not signed any contract) showing an overdue amount. Posting a cheque back with my term indicated.
i want to stop my acc with ips.
increase workloads with no extra income
iam not signing
Dom – check out my earlier posts on IPS for details.
Eric – it will take at least 3 months before a reasonable evaluation could be made.
i have not had any real drams with IPS all my returns have gone through and all credits accepted. A few hicups at the start but overall all is good (at the moment )
Same as Tim there is an overdue amount but i presume it is because the day it started and was not worth sending out bills for such a small amount .
Same as when we start someone up on a new account and it is the last few days of the month we do not send a bill out with just one days charges we send it out the folowing month and it will say it is over due ande customers can understand this .
After telling them they are sending wrong barcodes in the ExchangeIt files (4 magazines last week), guess what? The Guardian file received today had the wrong barcode.
If you want accurate sales and return details, I would suggest you print labels for all IPS publications.
They are impossible to contact. I don’t want most of the titles they are sendind but can’t get any response to emails or phone calls. I have never had an agreement wiht Fairfax and won’t be signing one with IPS.
cant get any help from them missing parcels ???? my neoe komo goes missing they cannot tell me if its lost wether i will get it tomorrow or not at all thats ok for a voice on the phone but dosnt help me with my customer service
Love IPS! Tell them that a magazine is not wanted and hey presto completely ignored, again and again and again
LOL Yep, they’ve taken distributor arrogance to a whole new level.
And FF & IPS only blame each other for the stuff-ups at the start.
And 35 minutes on hold is the only way to get through, because emails and messages are never answered.
And they’ve billed us for stuff we told them not to send. Some they sent, and some they didn’t. Still got billed for them.
Closed means “Closed”, peoples.
i made the best decision ever since being a newsagent by not signing up with IPS.
i look at the titles they sent out and none of them ever sold a copy in my store. would have been 100% effort for 0% returns maybe even negative returns if we missed their stringent no supplementary returns policy.
question to you guys. if you don;t have contract and they insist on sending stuff to you, then you are not obliged to pay right? you don’t even have to incur return cost at your expense.
i mean, if i started sending them stationery supplies and just bill them, do you think they will pay us? will they ship the stock back to us at THEIR cost?
if they will pay us for stationery supplies using same procedure they do….them i’ll be the 1st to send them half of my stationery in store and wait for my profits =)
@Hate Bullies: Obviously your comment is tongue in cheek, but if you value your relationship with the Fairfax stable, tread warily. They all are part of one big machine and when appropriately provoked will behave accordingly.
Maybe it’s about time we behave appropriately when prevoked too Ricky. They want to play bullies then I’m sure there’s plenty we can do too to make it difficult for them.
I’m getting supplied for a contract I haven’t signed and have no intention of signing with the current terms. The two mags that they distribute that I want I’ll just organise a sub with another newsagent hopefully for. One I’m going direct for. After seeing the rubbish we’ve been sent so far I see no reason to see any positive scenario or need from a business case PoV to sign up with IPS.
Have had a brief chat to my legals today re the unsolicited supply and will have a more solidified position next week. Looks like the problem isn’t mine though.
please keep us informed about what your lawyers say Paul. really wanna see how they think they can expect people to pay for unsolicited stock.
Give it a go numbers are good they will get there
No longer happy with IPS , just got an email with a whole lot of returns knocked back because they are out side of there 2 week reeturn guide line , oh well i am not happy with there 2 week guideline because i do not get enough stock to warrant me doing returns every week it is a waste of time a waste of paper and a waste of postage to send off returns every week . I will call them monday and if returns are not accepted i will close the account that i did not open . I was on board up untill now
It’s taken a phone call and an email (bcc’ed into my lawyers incase the issue continues and gets messy) to get them to stop supply to me for a contract that I hadn’t signed and didn’t want. (Well it hasn’t actually stopped completely but most of the supply seems to have finally !). The IPS customer service and accounts people are very polite I must say. I was told to just destroy the stock I’d been delivered already and the account would be cleared. Will await the end of this month to see if they send another account for me to file in the circular file or if they’ve got it right finally.
Does anyone have a contact at IPS for someone who can actually help me.
I am not getting the commission for Trader Tag that goes to 7/11’s. As I have 3 stores, soon to become 4, I am keen to receive the commission owed to me since July.
I have called and emailed on multiple occasions, and no-one at IPS is willing to assist.
Trader Tag has even called on my behalf to one of their senior managers asking them to call me, but still no reply.
I shouldn’t expect any different though. My experience is it is a 50% chance that the person who answers the phone can help, and they don’t return phone calls.
I won’t be paying next month’s bill until this is resolved. Maybe IPS doesn’t care about my $3,000 per month.
Dean I have put this in front of IPS management for you.
Mark
today we received 3 australian sky calanders from ips what do you think we will receive next that i dont need.
Andy, nothing if you go to the IPS website and control what you receive.
What about a china newspaper ,did you get that one andy
Shaun S,
I got a few. Would you like some ?????
I will put in the post before you reply !!
And i will pay for them them asap .
Say it aint so……Newsagents with a sense of humour 🙂
Shaun
got 10 sold 0
Cheeky sods sent us a bill for Melbourne Cup Best Bets!
We’ve never been their customers, and that was finally made official a couple months ago.
In the interests of fairness I must say as I have said before that we have a great girl
here in SA (Tizi) for whom nothing is too much trouble.
Instead of blaming the company I think we need to find the “can do” person within
our own state.
I am not complaining and IPS have been hugely helpful to me by supplying me with
magazines to give away at our opening last week.
I am sure it was because Tizi is a long term
member of our industry and understands
its idiosyncracies.
Maybe the IPS people need to get a similar
person in each state who understands our/their industry instead of newcomers who will take a long time to get “up to speed”.
So far we haven’t been inundated with product and any issues we have had have been speedily resolved.
I haven’t had to reduce any supplies yet but I can’t see that it would be a problem to do so in our state.
June i will admit besides me having a winge about not getting my returns in last week (which has now been fixed )overall i am happy with what is happening . There are a few mags that i do not want and have stopped . It might take a awhile to work as i am still running at a loss with these guys but see what happens