The Australian Financial Review is reporting this morning that Bauer is set to announce the closure of Grazia magazine tomorrow on the back of another poor audit result.
This will be a welcome move for those newsagents where Grazia sales do not even cover the cost of the retail space it occupies. Unlike supermarkets, newsagents are not paid a fee for space allocated to a title.
UPDATE: Bauer has confirmed the closure of the title this afternoon.
I only receive 1 a week and probably sold 1 a month. Always thought it suffered from a split personality being both a Celebrity Gossip mag and a Fashion/Style mag and a reasonably high price for a mass weekly as well.I wont miss it much but my wife is going to be devastated.
I put the UK Grazia (never sells) in the old
Grazia spot because I’ve sold out this week and guess what – sold both copies.
I didn’t personally sell them (my conscience would have made me tell the customer that they were UK editions but some of my staff probably wouldn’t know the difference anyway???????????
I wonder what crap Bauer will send me to replace it ?
I COULD NOT BELIEVE MY EYES when down loading mondays files i have not recieved Grazia since mid 2011 on the base of never selling one and now they are finishing up i am recieving 7 copys tomorrow . %^$^$^% ripping us off
And I’ll bet you received somewhere around double your normal allocation for the last issue of Burkes Backyard as well SHAUNS
just about normally get 4 been returning those and recieved 6 this time , i didn’t really care about that one so much becasue i already had an allocation but to start off a new allocation at the end that is just plain stupid
I went from 6 to 10 for BBY. What I can’t work out is if the sales for these mag’s is so low they have to close why do the distributors think customers are going to jump on board when their on their last death roll.
what will happen is we get paid for them they get the money and i suppose a lot of agents will keep them for the full onsale and bang they have made money on our money = profit for them
sorry that is we PAID for them
We sold out of the last issue of Burkes in two days and ordered more than the initial supply as top-up.
shauns,Don’t know what you’ve done to offend the gods of allocations.I just checked and my Grazia allocation is 3 for the last issue up from 1. Your zero to 7 just seams like another case of Network/Bauer taking the piss.
Mark, that’s excellent. I loved the cover placed the BBY poster in my prime spot. So far 2 put away sales 1 sale of the shelf and 7 stacked up on display going nowhere.
the cover of BBY is a winner, i have always had a few regulars, but have sold more this time due to the cover and the fact its the last one. I have been given more than normal, but have to say this time i think they have got it right. I am happy with the extra allocation and i think with a bit of work we can sell out.
Burkes Backyard with the Head Axed Garden Gnome (oh what a Joy a bloody Garden Gnome) was promoted by us and has sold well.
We normally sell 5-6 copies of Grazia a week. Tomorrow I am receiving 25 copies.
Good timing Grazia – normally get 5 got
31 today.
I guess we are funding the next month for
the publisher/distributor before it bites the dust.
Notable that it is the last couple of days
of the month so they can bill us in a couple of days for a month’s normal supply which probably helps them pay their bills before they close the mag.
We are treated shamefully and should send them all back this week to get our
credit on the next account.
It is a blatant grab for cash and nothing else
Odd, we received a slight bump but not that much.
June maybe Network thinks you’ve moved to larger, not smaller, premises.
Lucky us, normal allocation of Grazia.
We haven’t even received Grazia since August 2011 but received 7 copies today
Just checked new allocations of AWW and Gourmet Traveller (due Wednesday)
Gourmet Traveller best sales figures for
last 12 months was 34 but I’m getting 64 this week.
AWW got 100 last month (and sold out) but this month I’m getting 160 (60% increase)
Jenny, maybe you’re right. Maybe the
companies think that I have done hours of work on this to move to larger premises. It means no one is taking any notice of my new allocations which I asked to be started in Mid Feb.
It is a very frustrating thing – being ignored and it also means we are wasting our time just doing the huge amount of work that it takes to change all the allocations of all publications to both companies.
Once again IPS have followed through with
all my requests.
June, just to really confuse the issue, we normally recieved 7 Grazia but we have been selling out in the last couple of months we even asked for more copies, which never come. Todays allocation 5 copies
Gregg, that is atrocious. Sums up exactly what’s is wrong with distribution.
Allan, the people i feel sorry for is the publishers, afterall they are the ones stumping up the money and want to sell their publications. The distributors seem to not care about the publishers products and the distribution of these products in the market place to achieve maximum sales, benefiting the publisher and the newsagent.
The publishers make the decision who they want to distribute there mags it is their problem ,for us we have no choice who to deal with when it comes to mags
I normally feel for the publisher but in this case the publisher is the distributor which means either they don’t care or one section of the company doesn’t talk to the other. Its obviously ingrained in the company culture because a change of ownership has changed nothing.
Let me first say the behaviour mentioned above by Bauer/ACP is deplorable.. Supply a product in line with sales so we can sell 60% + of our stock. Easy.
From my previous life, I’d like to put to bed a complete myth regarding supply increases prior to end of month etc… In my 10 years working in sales both for a mag distributor and as a publishing client, I can categorically state it was never and I mean ever discussed at any level. It is simply the biggest myth out there. Whilst the facts you may produce tell a story, distributors don’t increase supply to get a quick payoff..Its just completely un-true. I was never once part of a meeting whereby we all got around a table and said, ‘cash flow is a bit low this month lets pump sh$t out to newsagents for a quick fix’.. IT IS A COMPLETE MYTH.. Yes the system is flawed, beacause of a number of factors, publisher & distributor failures, some newsagent failures too.. But they don’t target newsagents to fund other areas.. It simply doesn’t happen in a calculated way.. One thing I will say is that the data is there and with system enhancements & more care taken with the allocations and more sanity checking completed, these type of supply f’ups would be greatly reduced. How one person can look across a retailer with an average sale of 30, a last issue supply of 40, then provide them with 90 is beyond me.. I just had to say something here as I cringe everytime someone mentions it…
We have been receiving 7 copies of Selector magazine for 12mths, selling only 1 copy each issue. Yesterday I received 9 copies. I rang Network to discuss this and other issues, and was told allocation department have a formula they work with and they must have thought you needed 9 copies. She told me sometimes this works for some and not for others. Who would this allocation work for? Who would be happy with this?
I was then told I need to go on line and change my allocation for anything to happen.I then proceeded to tell her that back on the 28th December I did what she has told me to do and I went on line and cancelled a magazine that I have never sold any issues of. I also changed the allocation of another magazine from 8 copies to 5.
Tomorrow I am getting 3 copies of the magazine I cancelled and 9 copies of the magazine I changed allocation to 5.
WHAT IS THE POINT
WHAT A JOKE