I was reading at The Telegraph online about the Official Starships Collection, a new partwork in the UK from Eaglemoss. The information in the report coupled with local magazine sales data and the success of non-circulation science fiction products provides us with enough information to set our expectations about sales of this new series – months or even a year before it reaches Australia.
It’s frustrating newsagents are not part of the conversation. I’d love to talk with Eaglemoss about what we could do with partworks if the scale out and distribution were better handled. So many missed opportunities.
Here’s some of the report from The Telegraph online that I found interesting:
The launch of The Official Starships Collection has been long awaited by some, Eaglemoss began test marketing the collection in May 2012 and was due to officially launch in the UK and Ireland in February of this year but due to extraordinary demand for the publication as well as other manufacturing issues, they were forced to delay the official launch until August 21st 2013. Retailer WHSmith sold almost 7000 copies nationwide within the first 2 days of the first issue being available.
Eaglemoss has not officially announced how many issues will be included in the collection, however the first 30 have been confirmed and include a number of Federation vessels, from all series in the franchise, as well as a Borg Sphere and several of the more common Romulan and Klingon ships. Those hoping for a Borg Cube will have to subscribe to the publication, which is at this time rumoured to be running to a total of 70 issues (R.R.P. £9.99), which could set the most avid collector back almost £700.
I see Woolworths is promoting a collector album and cards – Aust Wildlife. Bif stand in my local store yesteray and I bellieve tv advertising
oops – big – stand……
Some of the really avid collectors are already sourcing this from overseas via the various fan forums. I have a customer who’s an avid sci-fi fan who is having it sent from the UK via a friend just so she can add it to her Star Trek collection now rather than wait to see when/if it arrives here !
I love the length the died in the wool fans will go to to get their “hit” . 🙂
h, I have seen the ad on TV, glad it’s Woolies and not newsagents!
just opened an email from Network telling me they had not received the physical returns returned to them in July.
I am posting this here because there could be thousands of dollars at stake if newsagents don’t ensure that they keep a memo book and INSIST that the driver sign the book each time he collects the returns.
We pay for stickers to go on the boxes and when they are collected we have a page with the form no and there is no way
that they haven’t left us.
We get threatened with “no credits” but if we can absolutely show that they were collected and the person who collected them then we don’t have to worry.
NEWSAGENTS MAKE SURE YOU DO THIS AS IT HAS HAPPENED TO ME TWICE IN THE LAST 6 MONTHS AND COULD HAVE COST THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS.
All the newsagent promotion in the world wont make a difference if the publishers/distributors of these partworks dont fix the supply issues and ensure that newsagents actually get consistent supply of all issues of the partworks.
I would personally love this partwork. Give me 125 of part one please……
Or let Network Services handle allocation and i will get 50 on Monday, 30 on friday, won’t be allowed to re-order until friday, will re-order 40 on Friday and sell out on Saturday, to then get my 40 extra’s two month’s later!!!!
Come on Amanda it is not that bad ……..ok yeah it is . 😉
I don’t lay the entire blame at the feet of the distributors. Sometimes the UK publishers of partworks are the problem with the volume they do or do not supply.
If the publishers and distributors trusted newsagents who robustly support partworks more we could all win.
It would not surprise me if publishers deliberately withhold supply of partworks (especially later in the series) in order to push people into purchasing a subscription (which is no doubt more profitable to the publishers than retail sales)
Spot on Jonathan.
I have had on backorder for months some copies of the Real Life Bugs. Network Services claim they cannot fulfil the orders, Bessett Publishing say they have stock, but we must purchase full price.
Go figure!