It has been interesting hearing from newsagents and reading comments from other newsagents about the adult colouring phenomenon, especially those complaining about lack of stock from Gotch and Network.
While I welcome the colouring titles from the magazine distributors, the real money is in the specialist books, pencils and erasers we can access from other suppliers.
Informed newsagents were in this space many months ago, late last year even. They are the ones making the most from this. They got in early because of engagement with suppliers outside the traditional newsagency supplier mix.
Newsagents will not find new traffic by relying on traditional suppliers to get them in early on a trend. Traditional suppliers can help but rarely will they lead. I do not mean to be disrespectful to them – they play a role for sure, just not a new traffic leadership role.
We have to be on the front foot, out there looking for new products far are wide away from what has been traditional for us. It can be done as some of us have proven with success with adult colouring from months ago.
This is where the groups play a role. I know from my work with newsXpress what we were doing with adult colouring long ago in terms of product sourcing, training on the phenomenon and go to market strategy. I expect other groups were doing this many months ago as it is what groups do to demonstrate a point of difference over being independent.
I don’t think anyone’s going to be complaining about a lack of adult colouring books from magazine publisher in the near future. Quite the opposite. If you check out what’s in the pipeline (on top of what’s already in store) we’re about to get a deluge. Now the fad/craze is well established there a a lot of titles both local and UK coming to a store near you.
Yes, I mentioned here a few weeks the 25 or so colouring magazines currently on newsagent shelves in the UK.
a little off topic but still important.
The reissue of the Symply cookbooks is infuriating.
They have arrived en masse in the last week and take up too much space (No 6 is $28) and
we have had them too many times.
Mine came with old label gunk on them and bent copies and we can’t return them until
June next year (they are DB until 20/11)
It is a disgusting way to treat your customers and the assumption that they will stay on our shelves for that amount of time
is SYMPLY not on.
If we choose to return them we have to step outside our usual system and keep a separate book on when the returns are due.
IT SHOULD NOT BE OUR PROBLEM.
June I agree ,SIMPLY not good enough they have done the rounds to many times now . Sorry to the lady that does the magazines but unless there is a new one coming out I don’t think there is a need to redistribute it again and again . Is there a new one coming out ?
Topped and returned the number 7s that arrived today. Simply no space on the shelf and the last ones hung around too long to pay for the pockets they were sitting in.
Same with us, more today with old labels. Going straight back!
I think this magazine has had its day.
Symply should be an opt in only magazine. I will be discussing this at my next meeting concerning the trial I am part of.
Oops June you’ve led us all off topic!
Placed a very large order of various books last night, as everything we have so far has sold out, supply from magazine publishers fill the gaps when we run low and are certainly selling well but I’m making double the margin on books I purchase from other suppliers.
Found out there’s a local colouring in club in our area, a customer bought 2 books last week then spent another $100 on more books for the club after she received a discount voucher from her original purchase 🙂
Network did send an opt in/out email on the 3rd August giving two days to agree or disagree with the Symply allocation. Very close to distribution date.
No email here
Nor here – how do others cope with early returns. I know we can early return the early returns but how do others manage the
paperwork for this and do they keep a separate book for it or can the computers handle this (if so I don’t know how).
I just return it and hope for the best , not the best management practice but how long do I want to spend working on something that didn’t make any money
I’ll open a fresh topic on this tomorrow to bring focus to these issues.