I am publishing this post to give newsagents a place where they can comment about any allocations concerns flowing from the take over of magazine distribution by Gordon and Gotch by Network. Please be detailed in your comment … i.e. what you used to get versus what you get now.
From Network today:
Penrith Panthers Planner received 2 which is strange being in Qld and they aren’t a team even people in Sydney particularly like.
Live to Ride Received 4 normally 2 haven’t sold one for 12 months and are early returned
Street Commodore News received 3 normally 2 haven’t sold one for 12 months
Hot 4s received 3 , normally one or two again haven’t sold one for ever
Best Used Cars Redistributed (first issued 12/2014 according to my system) Received 6 returned previous redistribution too so nil sales.
Gotch
Country Style Received 5 previously between 2 and 4 sell one or two copies only
Multihull World. Consistently receive 5 though have sold 2 monthly at most in the last 18 months
Thats just a quick glimpse. I wonder what Mondays allocations will be like?
Mark,
From the start the big concern and I believe still not addressed in any forum, is where a Newsagent (or lookalike) has a direct G&G account and NO Network account.
Now I know NS have said all Bauer product in this case will still come through the Distributing Newsagent and any 3rd party product will go direct via the sites G&G account.
However how will/does G&G know for example how many say “Lovatts XYZ” I send to the “lookalike” newsagent, who has a direct G&G account.
No one has asked for this data.
Will all Distribution Newsagents receive supplies they no longer have an outlet for?
Will direct account G&G stores be under or over supplied?
I’ve been waiting to see the answer, the best I’ve seen is Julie G’s comment “that all data is being sent over to G&G”.
My understanding is NS have do not have an IT “backend” that could use the individual subagent sales sent via XIT, if I’m correct, then how will G&G know the correct allocations of say all Lovatts titles to non NS account store?
Could be way off track here and happy to say sorry if wrong.
John
John my understanding is if your system is compliant the data flow is there.
Mark,
It would be good to hear from NS, based on my purchasing of delivery runs, never in the last 15 years has NS asked or confirmed who our subagents are.
The XIT Sales data file only lists my internal Subagent number, useless to NS (if they don’t have an up to date listing – and they don’t) to pass onto G&G for allocation purposes.
Further from my discussion at the last Connections Conference with a NS person, they said quite clearly they had no idea of what went where for Distribution Newsagents.
I only raise this as an issue so retail outlets (who did not have a NS account) are NOT caught short come March changeover date.
NS people read this blog – if they have passed onto G&G third party allocations for stores who did not have a NS account, how were the allocation numbers determined?
Thanks
John
John by data flow I meant they know the supply to a newsagent for retail across multiple allocations. My understanding is Gotch will continue, initially, the Network allocations.
The ONE thing GG need to get right from the start, is to INCREASE the performance of their website.
I have always found it to be incredibly slow and clunky to use.
With being the only disty now, a LOT more people are going to be logging on to fix/adjust any supplies that are mixed up with the transition, the performance of the existing site will suffer even more (and so will we)
Slightly off topic, but my hope is that EMG mags aren’t given the same “latitude” by Gotch as they currently enjoy.
ie If, for example, Live to Ride is replaced by a new issue today, I’d like to return the old issue at the end of this week, not 3 or 4 weeks later.
If I receive Kitchens and Bathrooms today, please don’t send Kitchens and Bathrooms 2 weeks later.
Further to the above, please don’t have a recall period of 3 months on these titles.
Please don’t reissue EMG titles over and over and over again. It can be difficult to explain to a customer why “prices quoted in this magazine are current as of 23/3/2012”
And so on…
OK, tags were stripped from the above post. It should read
If I receive (adjective) Kitchens and Bathrooms today, please don’t send (different adjective) Kitchens and Bathrooms 2 weeks later.
Now with one main dust, G&G, any chance we can advise them how many pockets we have and then expect only enough titles to fill our number of pockets? Or is that to much to ask?
Yes the G&G site is clunky and slow compared to the NS site BUT…. at least on the G&G site I can set supply of magazines or stop unwanted ones for up to two years. A vastly better outcome than the rubbish adjustments possible on the Network site.
Interesting that when moving to Gotch, the base price for NW and Time both increased. I think that means our 25% will be worth less. Not sure of the reasons why, but worth watching to see if it happens to any other transitioning magazines.
To most individual Newsagents, not much impact at all, but industry wide on a National level, good money if you can get it.
Maybe its rounding up. Not sure why there would be a difference between the 2 distributors. Perhaps its just a business decision by Gotch.
Answer could be I’m up a wattle.
Dennis, look back over your history under NDC and you will see the NW price fluctuate between $3.4015 and $3.4026.
It’s not new to Gotch.
There you go. Thanks Bill.
The higher I climbed that wattle, the less confident I felt.
i have a Coles Xpress I provide Gotch to but not NDC.
Do you think I can get a straight answer from Gotch as to whether we will pick up the NDC mags moving to Gotch and re deliver to Coles ? and do you think I can get extra supply next Monday to supply them if thats the case….???
No… Gotch say its a Privacy matter and they cant let me know answers to any of my questions…
David, put your request in writing, on letterhead and fax it to Gotch.
Mark, I sent my inquiry to higher than that believe me..
Still no respectable answer
Well, it has begun.
A network magazine that we regularly sold out of, Australian Sky and Telescope, that was cut from supply back in September last year (for no reason at all) was also down as NOT to be supplied by Gotch.
I wonder how many other magazines out there will have incorrect historical data attached to them?