Our supply of Dance Australia magazine was increased from three copies to five with the latest issue. If you click on the image you will see the supply and return data for this magazine going back to February 2010. This data suggests to me that the ideal supply quantity for it is three copies. Clearly, someone or the allocations system at Gordon and Gotch disagrees.
I think that the increase of our supply of Dance Australia is another example of oversupply boy Gordon and Gotch. The evidence challenges their claim that they do not oversupply. It also demonstrates to magazine publishers how newsagents can be treated unfairly.
Okay so it is only two copies and, yes, I can early return them. Two copies played out over a few hundred titles soon adds up. As for the early return argument, there is a cost to that.
What I want is a magazine distributor that is true to their word and does not oversupply, a magazine distributor that does not increase supply, even by one copy, without justification.
If I was a magazine publisher I’d want to partner with a magazine distributor that respects the retailers of my title.
It is decisions like this one regarding Dance Australia where I feel as if they have sent me an extra couple of copies because the stock has to be placed somewhere.
over supply – We sell 1 sometimes 2 Rugby League, I keep 3 to 4 on the shelf. Network today supplied 10 , Thank you Mark for your wonderful Tower program it helps combat this over supply.
Mark, I’m lost in the irony here. The situation you found with this dance magazine happens to the rest of us on most titles daily. I’m sure you receive special treatment in regard to supply otherwise you wouldn’t be so hot on early returns. Unfortunately we tire of trying to do the right thing on reducing supply to a more realistic level, so early return is the only option left. I know because I have tried several times to do it the right way, only for it to change back all too soon. Bottom line is they do not distribute to demand but allocate down from a total produced otherwise we would have the over and under supply we do, ie girlfriend this month receive 6 copies and sold out asap with no stock for re-order ( av sale 15+)
What if publishers were made aware in real time every time a newsagent early returns one of their titles?
ie Tower generates a daily report of mags scanned into returns say more than two weeks before their off sale date, fires report off to central server, which collates and sends an email report to whichever email address is allocated to each title code.
I’m sure many of the publishers must be unaware of how much of their cash never makes it onto newsagency shelves. The email report they receive could list newsagency name, number allocated, number returned, etc.
Bill, no special treatment. I do not aggressively early return. My goal with this series of posts is to demonstrate to publishers situations which they are told by some distributor representatives do not exist.