This photo shows some of the magazines I took off the shelves for early return in one of my newsagencies on Saturday in my weekend cull.
Every Saturday I review all magazines on the shelves, considering the stock on hand, the length of time on the shelves already, the pressure on space and sales history.
The extent of the cull as shown in the photo is average for a Saturday.
Why Saturday? The pace in the shop is different, headspace is different, it’s a management function that for me works best away from everyday.
This is how I manage my magazine accounts – by culling to serve the needs of my business as opposed to the needs of publishers and distributors. The culling is considered, careful – focussing on monthly and longer on-sale titles, not top sellers but second tier and beyond titles.
If I am unsure about early returning a title I check sales history – I don’t want to cut myself out of certain sales.
I take care with publishers who actively support the newsagency channel and are fair in their allocations, publishers like Pacific Magazines.
The weekend cull an opportunity for a fresh eyes view. Being done by the owner of the business clarifies the goal – managing your magazine account.
I trained a newsagent on the weekend cull strategy recently and the result is a 50% cut in their magazine bills and no loss of sales. In their case this has freed up more than $10,000 in working capital, cash that was tied up in the systematic oversupply merry-go-round that is newsagency magazine supply.
If you are not doing this type of cull already and follow my advice, let me low how much cash you free up.
Note: I recommend against early returning the day stock arrives as there is nothing to be gained from this – unless you see gross oversupply.
Sunday too is a good day to do this as our shop is quieter and it makes space for the weeks incoming magazines.
Totally agree owner should do this, it’s not something to teach staff as you need to make the decision for that title and that particular issue.
Gross oversupply can also mean number of titles as well as number of copies. Recently I counted 27 “new” titles arriving on a Thursday (last delivery day of the month) made up of titles we had never seen before and had no space for or titles we had previously cancelled but keep reappearing.
I hope that 50% reduction was a one off for one month as they got their stock levels right. If their acheiving a 50% reduction on an ongoing basis then they have obviously halved their magazine sales.
Steve it all depends on how the magazine companies behave. If they continue to oversupply the returns will continue to be high.
I am just so sick of delayed billed mags taking up space. If we take them off the shelf we still have to store them somewhere. The worst are the puzzle books. I feel like cancelling everyone that is delay billed.
Mark what I’m saying is if your carrying too many magazines because you dont early return hard enough then when you get your stock levels right you will get a once off smaller magazine bill as you reclaim the working capital which was tied up in excess stock. Once you’ve acheived that though your magazine bills should return to the same level. If you find your continuing to have lower mag bills it would be indicator that your culling too hard and its costing you sales.
If your Network bill is $12,000 and you do a carefully considered extra cull saving $3,000 the bill next month will reflect the $3,000 saving. This is one off. If network does not adjust you will need to stay on top of the considered cull to manage cash.
Return all last months and week One of this month, I see no other option these days.
Early Return from one supplier is over $1100 every week from me. The EDI is totally ignored other than to see what the baseline number is they can add too.
One title I have watched for 4 years now without interfering, no sales in that time but one copy arrives every week without fail. They told me their software cancels mags that have so sales history, OK, how many years of no sales does it take?
Yep there is definitely a one off gain to be had. But here is the strange phenomena that is magazine supply. No matter how many pockets you have, or how hard you early return, getting your total returns less than 50% is an unattainable nirvana. It seems that somehow it is locked into the their distribution software dna and no matter what happens, you will get double your actual sales come hell or high water. And sadly no amount of blog centimetres seems to alter that.
James that is true in terms of distributors. This blog has encouraged to more publishers taking over their own allocations and that has helped newsagents.
no point flogging the distributors, they are doing what they are paid to do, distribute magazines. the more they pump out and the more returns they process, the more they get paid. the ones paying them are the ones that need a good slap
If were going to slap publishers can we start with the pommy porn merchant Paul Raymond (though considering the business he’s in he’d probably enjoy a good slapping). Up till about 4 months ago I’d never received anything more than the odd M-rated Playboy from G&G. Now Paul Raymond Publications is onboard its out of control, culminating in receiving 5 separate titles today. 3 varieties of Mayfair plus an EscortXXX and a Razzle.I dont know how they think I’m going to display them all. Perhaps they think porn been such a growth segment (NOT) I’m going to expand my range. And when all the early returns come through these genius’ will probably have a good whinge about how bad newagents treat their titles. Its just moronic.
No one mentions the fact that Gordon and Gotch have billed us this month for (I assume) FFA soccer cards that will not be supplied and a credit paid to our account next month. ( according to the email we received)
This is not fair on Newsagents. G and G cash flow blossoms as a result….
David you will see a debit and credit on your statement next month. Cancelling each other out.
How many playboy mags have you been getting, like I’m in a small town and I get 15, mind u I cut 13 straight away, just dumb dumb dumb by the publisher. I’m in nth qld so I get to cut everything and I go mad at the end of the month
Rick I reckon if all newsagents were tops only returns oversupply would fall dramatically.
Steve, send them an email. I’ve done this 2-3 times over the past four years and have not been sent porn in ages now as a result. Be persistent.
I think they have a commitment to bot sending porn if you ask.
I’ll have a go at stopping G&G’s porn Tsunami but I have to admit its the “Be persistant” and it takes several goes that gets up my nose. Why do we have to waste so much of OUR time chasing this crap up? You should be able to say these things once and it doesn’t change back till you request it changes back.
Steve I agree with you. It’s an example of where you could take acton against them depending on the state you are in. The problem with that is the time it would take and probably around $500 in costs. But it would get them to the table to talk with you about it.
That said, you should not have to do it.
A little off topic. I get a mag called Fete.
It is distributed by GG but a customer came into my shop requesting the “new”
edition (mine said spring and she wanted summer) I told her it wasn’t out yet but she insisted she had seen it out in the village so I went looking (at coles) and it wasn’t there.
I continued to search and finally found it
in a small card and gift shop just around the corner from my shop.
I rang the publisher and asked why I didn’t have the issue yet and she said “only the retailers have it and newsagents should get it soon”. I then gave her a lesson in having her cake and eating it too and have cancelled her mag.
I was selling 15 at $14.95 so I am probably being bloody-minded but it makes me so angry.
Publishers need to make a decision when they launch about how they want to distribute.
They don’t want to pay the fees to a distributor so they try to do it themselves and they can come unstuck.
I asked for the principal to ring me back and she did so and when I explained how
distribution works she had no idea that she
might be interfering with someone’s expensive shelf space etc.
This is one of the very large issues with our industry. It lacks respect and I don’t mind competition but I would like the playing field to be level. In other words I am sure that I would sell more of this mag than a small card and gift shop but I need to at least get it on the same day.
ps. still don’t have it after a week of waiting