The contract between Gordon and Gotch and each individual newsagency business covers the supply of publications. On the second page of the agreement is a definition:
publications means:
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The publications distributed by Gordon and Gotch on behalf of Australian and overseas publishers.
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Any other kinds of publications or products distributed by Gordon and Gotch to you or newsagents generally on or before commencement date
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Any other kinds of products agreed by you and Gordon and Gotch, in each case as nominated to by Gordon and Gotch from time to time.
While I expect that Gotch management would argue that supply constitutes nomination, I suspect others would disagree. Indeed, I would argue that the entire contract is built around the supply of publications and that publications are magazines. The processes outlined, the obligations documented all relate to magazines as the publications.
This is not a contract contemplating supply of products other than magazines. For example, while the definition above contemplates non publication products, the Magazine Ranging and Supply Policy does not. Indeed, there is no documentation in the contract on how Gotch will range non publication product to newsagents.
So: Is the supply of Christmas cards by magazine distributor Gordon and Gotch outside the terms of their contract with newsagents? I would say yes. This is a question better put to a legal forum where a determination could result in rewriting the contract. A VCAT, QCAT or CTTT could be an appropriate forum.
The contract we have with Gordon and Gotch is where newsagents need to start if they want to resolve what they could consider to be unfair behaviour against their business by Gotch.
This is a matter that the associations could take up on behalf of newsagents. Not by meeting with Gotch but by organising and managing test cases in state jurisdictions. That they have not done this is a poor reflection on their commitment to resolve the issue of most importance to newsagents.
Cards went straight into returns. Don’t these people know that we are in the middle of our best trading quarter and we don’t want any of their “addons”?
I would just like them to get their deliveries right.
This month GG have lost ????? (sic) all my majesty mags – all my royalty mags –
all my vogue patterns and various other mags amounting to about $500.
I have putaways for all these mags (9 majesty alone) and I have to tell my customers that the mags are missing and even though I have other agents I could ask they don’t have the same quantities that I need to satisfy my customers.
I just wish they’d work on excellence with their core product instead of increasingly
eating into our cashflow with other product.
As for mags with rubbish on the front – it just has to go back as it doesn’t go in our fittings and with a smaller shop we are very selective about which mags we keep these days.
Women’s weekly looks dreadful on display
today with the extra small cookbook – they’ve put out enough cookbooks but they prostitute their own product and do not get the benefits of a waterfall when they do these silly things.
I wonder why they don’t ask us or visit our shops and find out why we do what we do and why we early return product.
G & G tried to get us to pay our account twice this month. We already paid as usual on time. They still kept on contacting us to demand another payment. Is that “phishing”? Maybe they have a cashflow shortage and they want to double dip on us.
Gotch seem to be loosing more sales to NDC I see Peoples friend and My weekly have jumped ship .I also notice that my monthly bill with GG is slowly shrinking (DO NOT LOAD ME UP)
GG are both rude and arrogant in their approach to payments. We were put on “stop” on Monday when my statement clearly showed that we had paid and the amount was debited on our a/c.
I was furious as we only get 2 deliveries now and they are both ridiculously huge to handle in a small shop.
I rang GG and they gave me the “you have to pay by the 20th” routine and I told them that for 38 years I had paid on the last day of the month because I don’t have time to stop all month and remember everyone so that is NOT going to change.
I just think they have no idea THAT WE ARE THEIR CUSTOMERS!!!!!!!!
Surely they know who pays regularly and who doesn’t?