It feels like there has been a rush among magazine publishers to send more titles to newsagents with delayed billing. It feels like someone has opened the floodgates.
I am concerned about the number of delayed billing titles I am seeing in my own newsagencies – from multiple publishers! Do other newsagents feel the same?
Delayed billing of itself is sort of fine, it’s the long shelf life attached to the delayed billing that offends and as long as there is not an increase in the range of titles supplied.
Four months is too long for us to hold a title – unless it is selling well and is profitable for us after allowing for shelf space, labour and opportunity cost.
Delaying billing does not make a long shelf life okay and magazine publishers need to understand that.
delayed billing does not justify a publisher using our space and labour to showcase their stock. Space and time cost money!
I know some publishers think newsagents are less likely to early return a title that is not billed until the end of the on-sale. While their assumption is probably right for some, it is not the case for all. Retail space in shopping centres is expensive and this is what I consider when early-returning … am I getting the return I need to deliver a profit? If not, the title goes back regardless of whether billing is delayed. The only way I will keep an underperforming magazine title on the shelf longer is if the retail space it takes is being paid for by the supplier through a subsidy.
If you are a magazine publisher considering delayed billing as a way of keeping your title on newsagent shelves longer, be aware that delayed billing of itself is not the way to achieve this.
Has the amount of delayed billing changed or is it now just more obvious because it is printed on the stickers ?I have noticed an increase but i wonder if it is just i didn’t see them all before . As far as i am concerned that if a mag does not sell in the first month or the second month at the latest well it isn’t going to sell with the exception of AWW cook books
Def more.
We pay no attention to delayed billing at all. If a magazine is selling it says, if not it goes back.
delayed billing will not keep it on the shelf longer, i may not actually early return the mag but it will go into a draw until the month its charged, them it gets returned. I do not have room to display all the different titles i get, its a constamnt battle working out what to return each week to make room for more titles. Some mags just should not be sent out, like I received Alaskan Sporting Journal heh other week, (im in Nth Qld) ??? I would love to see the circulation figures on that one, has anybody ever sold one of those or think they would ever be likely to sell one?
Morning group, Mark Darton here from Universal Magazines, Poolside is one of our publications. We have been offering delayed billing on our longer shelf life titles for years now. The motivation is so newsagents do not have to outlay cash for a category that is not timely. In other words customers purchase over the whole on sale period unlike a monthly where more sales happen in the first two weeks of on sale. I was also keen to ensure delayed billing could be indentified on the label and worked with Network and through them Xchangeit to achieve the additional information on the sticker.
The delayed billing offer is made by us to encourage newsagents to keep stock on display. It does not take away the need for good and responsible allocations which I think you will find we have for our portfolio.
Our research shows sales in categories such as home improvement and weddings take place during the whole on sale period so 3 to 4 months for high production titles such as Poolside doesn’t appear too long to me.
In addition to delayed billing we also sometimes split deliver 70% of the allocation then the balance half way through
the on sale period. The motivation is to help with space management in recognition that many of our titles are big offers with lots of pages.
Bottom line… It’s a transparent commercial offer in conjunction with responsible allocations to encourage you to display our magazines so we all sell more copies.
I am always contactable out side this forum to discuss individual concerns just email mdarton@universalmagazines.com.au
Thank you
Mark
The ultimate problem being is space , when you have a few magazines in the same area that have been on there for a few months with no sales you eventually have to make room for other new tittles . I have never worked out the cost per pocket (something i should do soon) but i am sure that a pocket with the same mag in it for 3 months makes no money at all when it could be used for another tittle with a chance of paying its way .
Did anyone else get the email that all early returns of the AFL cards would be rejected? This stuff will sit on the shelf for the whole season unsold as we are not in an AFL area and did not order the stock to start with, we are flat out getting rid of the NRL stuff as we have been grossly oversupplied twice.
Luke i am sure the email stated that you just had to contact them first so that they would go back in good order instead of the usual returns procedure
We called and were told no early returns or I had to pay for seperate returns. why should I be out of pocket for extra shipping
ok , that is not good then . i didn’t recieve any AFL cards so i didn’t have to go down that path
Luke, how many do you have? where are you? we may be interested in purchasing your allocation and paying shipping to us. Email me at mitchnews@iprimus.com.au.
I was in a newsagency yesterday that had magazine labels indicating that they had received House & Garden delay billed ?????
Mark, thanks for commenting. I used the label as an example and not to highlight Universal specifically.
There has been an increase in delayed billing and it is clogging newsagent shelves. It risks a backlash from newsagents publishers are wanting to avoid.
AFL cards have been selling out for last 3 years so if you intend to early return they want you to send it back separately.
I know we sold out in August last year, and could’ve easily sold out another 1000 if we had the supply.
While appreciated, delayed billing doesn’t keep an underperforming title on our shelves any longer than a month. We are not a warehouse and will only stock magazines than sell in the first 30 days of release. Ifey they sell ok they stay on the shelves a bit longer but will not be kept if they only keep other product off our shelves.
So what are the Associations doing about magazine over supply? I draw your attention to the letter section of National Newsagent mag April 2013 titled “Let us control out magazines” from Bill Wareham, Tea Tree Plaza News Plus. Great article.
But i notice there is never any editoral comment on articles, why not? Someone from the ANF must read the letter and wonder why some Agents feel some negativity about Associations and Mag distributors.
So what is the ANF doing?
there will be no change to the oversupply issue until the publishers are serious about it. The assoc wont touch it, too hard, the best that newsagents can do is to early return ruthlessly. the publishers hold the key to oversupply, they need to bring network and gotch to heel. while they say they don’t like it, publishers pay network and gotch to oversupply, that’s how the model works. my current returns each week for both amount to about $500 each, but supplementries are anywhere between $1500 and $2500 each week. talk to the distributors and they say what oversupply?
Rick I think the answer lies in our contracts and some of us having the guts to deal with it through there.
Take The Week. The local issue closes, Network sends us the UK version even though the local issue never worked for us. This disgusts me. The ACCC responded to me on this and said go away. I have gone back to them.
Delayed billing, agree with most, Mark Fletch has the right idea, delayed b illing has definitely increased, it would be good if a date of arrival could still be on those particular stickers. If mags havent sold within 4/6 weeks(most) they go back , I have tried changing alloc. but long term it doesnt work, they just change the alloc back after a time.
I agree Rick and act in a similar manner. After cutting 30% of my mag space for other useage and adjusting my supply through the two distributors websites my supply has magically increased along with the number of unwanted new titles I’m receiving. I’m sick of receiving 4 new 4wd titles each month as I simply don’t have the room for them anymore so they just go stright back into early returns without even seeing the shelves. Regardless of whether a magazine is delayed billing or not, if I don’t have the room on the shelves anymore and I didn’t request it, the magazine will be heading straight into early returns.
TBH I’m so disenchanted with magazines as a whole that if the new lines develope as they are currently I’m going to seriously look at losing another 50% of the magazine space I have left currently to channel into these newer and more profitable area. If it leaves me with only a core of performing titles then so be it and “my early returns cup shall runneth over” so to speak !
Colin 100% agree it would help having the arrival date on there as well , Mark do you know if that is possible at all ? I have cusomers asking from time to time when mags come out and it is quick and easy to have a look at the sticker and you can also predict when the new one will come with out going to the computer
I rang G&G to complain about supply last week. I was told by my credit officer at Gotch that “Publisher’s control supplies, not Gotch”.
I was then transferred to a representative from Supply management and told I was a category 1 store, which means we get anything new and any supply cancellations we make are restored in 6 months time automatically.
The only option to stop getting those automatic supply restorations would be to downgrade to a category 6 store which would stop those supply restorations, but would also mean I would not automatically get any new products (e.g partworks).
Can I also say, that it was nice to see a response from a Publisher above..(Mark Darton, Universal Magazines)
“Publishers control supplies, not Gotch”. Good heavens, the Gotch comedy show, what next!
As a publisher whose magazine has been distributed to newsagents for many years, I assure you that Gotch (and Network) get a lot of their jollies by making it nigh on impossible for publishers to control supplies.
Another sign that Gotch and Network pitch themselves as comedians is that these “professional” distributors regularly fantasise that newsagents who have never sold more than 4 copies of a magazine, can suddenly sell 17, despite the number in the ‘Average Sales’ column for each newsagent. Oops, computer malfunction or time their expert “allocationists” went to SpecSavers?
Yes, publishers can over-ride the “professional” distributor’s recommended supply, but to do so they have to spend many hours carefully reading all the spreadsheet pages for each forthcoming issue and calculate the appropriate number of copies for each newsagent in the ‘Publisher’s Changes’ column. Given what I read here, I suspect quite a few magazine publishers don’t do that.
Australian Family Tree Connections
Great post.
You maybe able to answer a question for me. Who sets the print run for Magazines, the publisher or the distribitor or a combination of both. The amount of bagged mags that agents are supplied is over the top with mags up to 18 to 12 months old supplied with the latest issue.Like a lot of agents room for these titles is becoming an issue.
It must a tidy sum for someone to warehouse, bag and distribute these items.
Gregg, I’m happy to share my understanding of “Who sets the print run for magazines, the publisher or the distributor or a combination of both?”
The publisher sets the print run. They have the contract with the printer and they pay the bill.
The contract the publisher has with the distributor is for distribution only, however there are optional extras which include paying an additional fee to have unsold magazines returned to the publisher (Gotch maximum is 500), or an even higher fee to have unsold copies returned to the distributor, stored, bagged and eventually re-distributed. In my opinion these optional extras are merely attempts to “absorb” the results of inaccurately set print runs.
I firmly believe there is absolutely no reason for magazine publishers to offend newsagents by supplying them with ‘bagged mags’ that cause cashflow and display mayhem. Why would a publisher think the copies of an issue that didn’t sell first time round will sell second time? The fact is, not all titles have an after life (i.e. a genuine market for back issues).
From where I stand, the cause of the ‘bagged mags’ problem, for both newsagents and publishers, is described in the last paragraph of my previous post. Magazine publishers must do the hard yards of analysing the sales data provided by the distributor before setting their print runs. Reliance on the supply number suggested by the distributor when setting a print run is tantamount to a publisher handing over control of his/her business to the distributor. Not a smart move.
The biggest problem with Delayed Billing is that the returns will NOT be credited through edi xchangeit until after the delayed billing date so even if you take it
off the shelves you still have to store it until the date on the sticker.
It comes out as NOT ABLE TO BE CREDITED and then gives 4 reasons why and one of them is “not billed yet” so we are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Hopefully newsagents are not just sending them back and HOPING to get the credit because they won’t.
Gregg, I should have added to my last post that IPS doesn’t offer the option of having unsold copies returned to publishers. Also, by supplying according to a newsagent’s desire to stock and ability to sell titles distributed by them, IPS effectively encourages publishers to set realistic print runs.
AFTC you hit the nail on the head, it is the publisher that has the contract with the distributor, it is the publisher that pays the distributor. So the publishers need to grow some nudgies and bring the distributors to heel. Don’t pay them to get returns back, because guess what, they over supply so they get extra revenue for collecting returns. The DISTRIBUTOR is contracted by the PUBLISHER, guess who should be holding the reins? That is why I say over supply is a publisher issue!!! Talk about the tail wagging the dog. Put some penalties in the contract that flag if they constantly get supply wrong.
Rick, not sure what you mean by “Put some penalties in the contract that flag if they constantly get supply wrong.”
Whose contract?
your contract with them to distribute your product, or do they set the terms? If so then as an industry group you need to tackle the issue with the 2 distributors. The current system is in terminal decline, its no longer acceptable to just say its too hard.
Rick,
There is no “industry group” for us as independent publishers and the distribution companies are owned by the same big media companies that publish most magazines on the market, so they are always going to serve their titles above independents.
You frequently talk of “taking the distributors to heel” but I have tried and because I have been so outspoken about the unethical way they do business I now have been informed that after this next issue they will no longer distribute my magazine. I can’t MAKE them distribute as per MY rules and I don’t think they like the fact that I’ve been pretty vocal about my disgust with their procedures. We don’t have much choice in distribution here – it’s Gotch, Network or IPS and I’m yet to meet a newsagent who recommends any of them (and I’ve spoken to plenty of newsagents about my distribution woes)
I have so many examples of wrongdoings by them that I could write a book!
But I think I’l just stick to doing what I do best and making a great magazine!
Lisa, speak to Chris and Maree Mullett of Motoring Matters (think that’s correct name) they are a small publisher of three magazines and are happy with IPS.
Hi Jenny,
While some publishers may be happy with them, I haven’t met a newsagent yet who is. They say that they operate on a “pull” rather than “push” method but apparently that’s not true either as they still send un-requested magazines to newsagents who don’t want them and who have no option to early return when they do.
What I didn’t appreciate was that they upped their quoted fees on me at the last minute saying that the former employee who had initially quoted me (who has since gone to Gotch?!?) underquoted me, and I think that is unethical, especially when they had plenty of time to assess it and had emailed me during the negotiations to say that they didn’t envisage the fees changing since the first quote, but then waited until after I had ended my contract with Gotch to hike them up considerably.
At the end of the day it doesn’t matter how happy the publishers are, if the newsagents aren’t happy with the distributors then they won’t sell my magazine, simple as that.
It matters more to me that the newsagents are happy with the distributor than to hear that another publisher is. After all it’s the newsagents who are selling my magazines, not the distributors who make their money out of simply moving them around, or the other publishers who make their money from over-priced advertising rather than sales so can afford to have over-inflated circulation numbers that give advertisers a false sense of exposure (now if only advertisers were told actual SALES numbers instead of “circulation” figures wouldn’t that change things!)
Hi Lisa,
I can honestly say we don’t judge magazines in who the distributor is. Some distributors make it easier to order extras, something I feel is more important than over supply. I support Australian magazines over imported titles, both large and small ones.
We early return mainly American magazines and bagged magazines (home and gardening titles). If we receive too many of a particular title and don’t have room to display it I place in in a drawer for a week or two just in case.
After many years in this game I am still surprised at what customers buy.
We have more chance of winning the lottery than ever being happy with a distributor.
Lisa your comments are refreshing for newsagents. Your needs as a publisher are aligned with our needs as retailers – we both make money selling product. The distributors are trucking companies that need to keep their trucks full to make money.
Hi Jenny,
While you personally may not, it is obvious that many newsagents will not work with IPS as is evident in this blog post
http://www.newsagencyblog.com.au/2013/04/29/are-newsagents-losing-magazine-sales-because-disinterest-in-the-category/
Lisa
And Mark I disagree that distributors are “trucking companies” they are owned by media groups who serve their own titles at the expense of independents
Lisa, Network is owned by a publisher while Gotch is owned by a printer. I call them trucking companies to distinguish them from publishers and retailers who make money from selling product.