The frustration of magazine undersupply

Based on our sales of People’s Friend magazine, I expect that we could have sold at least five copies of The People’s Friend 2012 Annual. We received two copies last week and both have sold.  While we are chasing more stock from Gordon and Gotch, it is frustrating that we were not supplied sufficiently to satisfy demand.

I understand that the problem may be at the publisher end in the UK.  If this is the case I hope that Gotch has taken them to task as it is disrespectful to the weekly purchasers of their product to not have access to sufficient stock of the annual.

If the problem is within Gotch then they need to look more carefully at these types of add-on items and place them where they do sell.  I’d be frustrated if I can’t get more stock and they end up with considerable returns from other newsagencies.

While this is a book size title, we were able to sell it by placing it at the front of the magazine fixturing, with the magazine.  I mention this in case readers remember my criticism of The Friendship Book 2012 recently and how the size makes it a challenge to display.  At least with The People’s Friend 2012 Annual we are able to locate it with the magazine and reach the target shopper perfectly.

More generally on the issue of magazine undersupply, magazine distributors can report to publishers on lost days.  They know the quantity they supply per store, they know sales and especially the date and time of sale of the last copy.  This enables them to calculate the on-sale days for which each store did not have stock of any issue of a magazine.  I wonder if distributors provide this data to publishers.