Our sales of the launch issue of Military Watches partwork have been terrific. Copies are being bought by collectors, hobbyists – we had stock near our railway and military titles – and on impulse by others such as newspaper shoppers. The TV campaign has also generated people looking for the title.
We sold out almost before the TV campaign.
Many people without watches have bought #1 just for personal use. I am guessing #3 onwards wont sell as well.
Sick of partwork s when they cannot fill orders . no more watches left in stock .knit and stitch cannot fill my orders .art of crotchet cannot fill orders the whole system is really bad when it comes to part works
I agree Shaun I have missed the last two copies of Victorian Dolls House so a lass
who has purchased 58 parts suddenly can’t get her partwork.
After nearly 40 years in this industry I now do NOT keep partworks as putaways so when this scenario occurs (all the time) I can try to get a backorder but I am not so obligated as if I had a putaway for it.
The missing partworks were invoiced to me but missing in the parcel. This week the Barbie partworks were missing and the Disney partworks as well.
Someone (packing the product because it is delivered into my store) is collecting the series of partworks by not packing the requisite invoiced amount and it should be
reasonably easy to find out who.
If I was running the distribution area I would insist on signatures on each invoice.
We also get things “crossed off” the invoice so you might think it wasn’t in yet but it might come later but if you look online you will find that you have indeed been billed for the product.
There is a lot wrong in logistics in this country, and we are on the wrong end of it.
1-Invoice is generated for partwork. 2-there is not enough stock in warehouse so you miss out. 3-report shortage. 4-because there is no stock you are only offered a credit not replacement this is unacceptable. 5-ring customer service to request replacement (if Network count how many times you are told they answer 4 out of 5 calls within 3 minutes, it helps pass the time). 6-customer service requests replacement. 7-return to #1 and repeat till partwork is finished and unfilled backorders cancelled.
I really hate the backorder system. The backorder is “filled” so you get billed and a sticker is produced, weeks later there is still no product, you still get billed so you report as missing – sorry no, cant report that missing, or no, its on its way. The system is broken, build a new one.
Is there any value of contacting the publisher in situations like this to let them know of the terrible job there distributor is doing?
It wouldn’t surprise me if some of this has to do with the publisher deliberately making less stock of the later parts available to the retail channel to push people towards a (more profitable to the publisher) subscription (i.e. people have trouble finding a copy at retail so they go for the subscription)
Our partworks runs are usually at the end of a UK product run and often the run volume is based on the raw products, in this case watches, they have sources.
While I have no doubt that partworks publishers are focused primarily on subscriptions, I think the run size for this launch is more about watch availability and the amount they are prepared to lose on the first two – given the pricing.
This is the worst part works we have had to deal with, apart from not enough stock most are being returned as faulty.
Not enough stock here, either. But I doubt the watches are faulty, as per message from publisher – there is free play in the hands until the tag is removed from the winder mechanism. Id the watch is still in original packaging, it is probably covered by that.
Thanks David just checked and not broken!