Thank you for sending your sales data.
Based on the information you have provided, we have raised an extra order on your behalf.
This order will be delivered to you on the next available delivery day.
Outlined below is a list of what the order will contain.
This is the opening of an email this week from Bauer to a newsagent. The Sales Based Replenishment (SBR) system / experts at Bauer advised he was getting two additional copies of Top Gear. The problem is, he has only sold two copies and has four copies of the initial supply in-store. The sales data sent to Bauer was for the two copies. This is not evidence to support the Bauer claim to supply more. Their email is wrong, it makes this newsagent trust them even less.
It’s not the first time Bauer has said the sales data made them do it to justify sending extra stock. Nor is this newsagency the only one in Australia to receive such an email from Bauer where there is no evidence in the sales data to support the claim.
This action makes Bauer’s systems look broken and their allocations people stupid or deliberately abusing newsagents to serve the company.
My suspicion is that the Bauer SBR system, if it is a system, is broken and raising new allocations without any evidence – causing newsagents to incur more costs over which they have no control and for which they are 100% liable.
This is unfair. It disadvantages our channel. It makes us less competitive against supermarkets.
Looking at Top Gear sales for this newsagency for 2014, I see no evidence in the data for the newsagent to be suppliers more than three copies each month yet the initial Bauer allocation is six copies. Then, weeks into the month, they allocate two more.
No wonder this newsagent does not trust Bauer. The data informs his position on this.
This is another example that makes a mockery of the pressure newsagents are put under by XchangeIT for data accuracy. There is no evidence of magazine distributors being put under similar pressure.
What do you make of us receiving SBR 2 copies of Real Living October issue on the same day as the November issue arrived ???
Pretty weird, they must think we love topping.
Very occaisonally SBR works well but most of the time it’s as useless as Delayed Billing.
Not weird. It’s stupid.
…and to make matters worse another 2 copies were sent SBR without an additional copy of top gear being sold.
SBR = Supplements Bauers Revenue
After receiving 7 October issues of Top Gear on the 29/9 I am to receive 2 more tomorrow (23/10). I still have 4 of the original 7 on the shelf and the November issue will arrive next week.
It was a similar story with the September issue. Received 5 on the 1/9, sold 3, then received another 3 on 22/9, the week before October issue arrived.
May sold 3, June sold 2, July sold 3, so no history that I need more than 5. So that’s Network.
G&G are no better. Take the WA Auto Trader for example – a weekly magazine which I was receiving 4 each week and selling on average 1 every second week.
The last four weeks from 25/9 I have received 7, 11, 15 and 20 copies. Tomorrow I will receive 25 copies of WA Auto Trader. There is no data that justifies sending more than 2 copies of this magazine each week.