I feel for Australian magazine publishers who see a title achieve a sell through of 80% in newsagencies where there have been no early returns yet have seen more than 47% of stock early returned either the day of on-sale or within the first week or so in other newsagencies.
A decent chunk of the 47% of stock early returned would have sold had it been left on newsagency shelves.
Some newsagents are using poor settings on their computer systems to drive early returns while others run businesses with processes that permit poor shop floor early return decisions.
The data I have just been shown is irrefutable proof that some newsagents collectively cut themselves out of more than $15,000 in revenue. These same newsagents are probably complaining about declining magazine sales. Well, magazine sales will decline if you make ill-informed decisions about early returning.
I’d note that my concern here is early returns the day of on-sale or within the first week for a monthly or two weeks for a title with an on-sale of eight weeks.
I pulled several titles off early on the weekend. In each case they had been on the shelves for more than 75% of the on-sale. My decisions were based on the sell-through to that point and demand for space.
I don’t early return using settings in my computer system. I prefer to make a decision based on more factors than a computer system can allow for.
I pay special attention to Australian titles and titles supported with strong mastheads and publishing houses which add value to our businesses.
Just where are we supposed to display these wonderful new magazines. Without doing early returns I would be broke.
Carol, I am talking about a very specific type of early returns.
If you are getting more magazines than you can reasonably display then let Gotch and Network know your total pockets, how many magazines you can carry. If they continue to supply beyond what you can reasonably display then you could start a QCAT case – it’s very low cost.
I let Gotch know that we had a very generous 80 pockets allocated for puzzle books, but the stock they were sending was still too much. I asked them to delete titles that we don’t sell, because we have to clear stock each week so we can fit the next allocation in. But this was like a green light to them, we now recieve even more titles.
I have a major problem with what network and gotch are sending us, last Wednesday we had to take off two very large trolleys of magazines just to find some room for the EXTRA magazines they both sent us. I have contacted both distributors and asked them to please delete all the titles that we constantly send back to them with zero sales and they have advised that we need to change our allocation ourselves, they will NOT use their data for deleting only for sending more magazines if we happen to sell more of a title. We are constantly overallocated titles that we do not sell, our returns are HUGE each week and very labour intensive. It is getting beyond a joke!!
Jill, depending on your state there may be a low cost legal avenue open to you. Email me at mark@towersystems.com.au.
Lyn, Let both companies know, in writing, the number of pockets you have. If they continue to oversupply after this your next step is legal action.
Has any one ever taken legal action against these 2 before ,I have never heard of this in the past .
Try running an under supply report. I have since reading this post and I’m now increasing some titles that are selling far better than I realised. It draws attention to the fact that Network seem to increase supply in response to sell outs but G&G don’t do this nearly as well instead providing more of what ISN’T selling at the expense of what is.
Shaun, not aware of any but I plan on lodging a complaint next week now that I have solid evidence.
Brendan, this data is damning. Gotch has not cut me back on a bunch of titles to where supply is a fraction of what we were selling. We’re told it is by manual action within the company.
I got very upset when they did not put me on allocation for the one direction book. Because of easter break, i will get it on Monday. And the My kitchen rules as well. They said sorry which i appreciate that, but it doesn’t help.
We are one of these publishers, we have had a consistent 30% early returns since launching our magazine in August 2010. We have a niche title that raises a lot of excitement from those that find the magazine, but we are frustrated by the fact that many newsagents are not giving the magazine a go and early returning and the amount of people that contact us saying they cannot find our magazine in their newsagents. We are only a new publisher in the industry and we are looking for support from the newsagents? How can we help you guys to help us?
Brian are you getting data about when the title is returned early? i.e. the day of or in the first two weeks?
Also, what are sales like in the newsagencies which do not early return.
This information could be helpful in showing newsagents who do early return too early what they are missing out on.
From my point of view, if publishers want a new title or a niche title to be given a go then they need to have it in store in the first 1 or 2 weeks of the month, that way newsagents can give it shelf time and still be able to return it by months end if it is a non seller and not be out of pocket. We return most of our slow moving stock within the last few returns days of the month to keep the bill down and clear the clutter for the new months titles, if we get a mag in the last week of the month and it is does not have a 80% or higher sell through then it is culled to get credits by the end of month. With all the oversupply and junk titles sent within that last few deliveries it is hard to give new titles a go, but if they arrive early in the month there is no pint returning as we are not out of pocket until we miss the returns cut off.
Again just one persons thoughts.
What are the names of the magazines we are talking about , this helps to give out all the information at the start of a conversation so we actually know what you are talking about . For all we know it maybe a snow boarding magazines and of course i know i will early return it .
Luke, only 20% return and its culled? A bit on the harsh side in my view. We work on 60% return rate and even then this is only a trigger to bring the title to our attention as if the supply rate has dropped in the last issue or two we may now have a more appropriate supply and won’t early return. I believe this has contributed to our strong magazine sales growth.
Brendan, this applies only to mags that we get in the last week of the month when we tend to get hit with a load of junk titles. If a title arrives early in the month then it is given longer shelf time.
Shaun, based on what I have written you don’t need the title. The data speaks for itself. The newsagents who did not early return the day of or i the first two weeks achieved an excellent sell-through. Those who did early return missed out on sales. They are the facts.
My post is not about new titles.
What we do is put all mags up other then xwords as we are being overloaded ,on those we must get 3 or more to go on the shelf .Our labels print the number that we receive and when we take them off we then phone g g and ajust our supply it works well but you have to keep at it. End of the month we go around and pull all that have not sold ,we do leave some stock of most titles. Once you get this started it works well ,first 2 months are a strain e g 4 on shelf from say 6 we will ajust to 4 , 3 on 2 left cut order to 2 got 10- 7 returns cut to 5 ,always check covers
Mark , I was talking about Brian’s comment
Mark, My question is.
I receive 20 One Direction mag
I believe that we will sell around 5 this is using sales data from other mags around that age group and 13 years experience of being a newsagency.
So therefore I would of kept 8 and early return 12 which could have been sent out to newsagency like yours that were selling out. But instead I did no early returns and therefore they will not be sold.
Just a thought that early reurns can be good for the publisher
I agree Garry, there are circumstances where early returns can be good. With a one shot it is always difficult. More than for any other title the publisher needs to maxis sales. My understanding is that Pacific was thorough in determining supply.
Garry, can you send them to me ??? LOL!!!