Help desk call traffic more than trebled for my newsagency software company today as newsagents updated data managed by their software reflecting the transfer of many magazine titles from Network to Gotch. All in all it was an orderly process. With 1,750+ newsagents using the software it could have gone any one of a number of ways.
While I expect help desk calls to remain high all week and into next week, today was the day of proving the process and testing the value of all of the preparation communication including that from Network.
Small business newsagents can be proud that they are handling significant change with calm professionalism.
Newsagent suppliers ought to take note. What is happening this week is newsagents demonstrating they can deal with challenges of a technical complexity. How newsagents have gone about this is another reason to support our channel ahead of supermarkets and other mass retailers.
Newsagent associations ought to take note. This is all being done without you.
Stardate 20160203, 1000hours. GG EDI’s not yet including Network weeklies. Only 89 magazines arriving 20160304. Time for a sleep in ?
Beam me up Scottie
And I thought it was just me Colin.
Looks like tomorrow is going to be an interesting day.
And I hope NOT in a bad day
just downloaded my files and all seems good for now ..
Yes,
there they are. Someone must have figured out we were talking about them.
ha
WOWWW just did a report on supplier arrival stock totals and instantly felt sick in the guts . Tomorrows delivery is $1000 more than any other week over 5 weeks with the 2 combined . If this is a sign of what is going to be happening we are in for some really bad times .
Shauns, I wouldn’t sweat on it you’ve got a whole month to sort it out. I was expecting a big delivery on Monday with lots of SBR from Network as they cleared the warehouse, it turned out to be a small delivery with no SBR so I can’t complain.
Got to say that I’m not overly impressed with todays delivery. Some of the increases in numbers supplied are crazy.
Well, what a diabolical mess that turned out to be.
Way more supply than normal supply – even for the 1st delivery of the month.
The standard GG bundles (SAT, SUT, SAF) all sorted well as normal.
The extra ones were just a mess. Nothing in invoice/packed order – it may as well have been done by network cause thats what I expect from them. The only difference (with network) is it was expected, and we could option to print them in alphabetical order to cope with their crap.
The worst offender was an 8 bundle run with magazines split across bundles to the point where we got excess of some magazines and missed out on others. And now I have to sort out the mess.
I can assure you that I’ll be putting the excess mags in the bin, and just re-ordering the shortages. It’ll save me a lot of time.
What’s with the Standard after the title? Motor Standard for example? Do supermarkets and petrol stations get a different version? Maybe Motor Premium?
I’ll go along with Alan. A long way from impressed.
Yep, pretty unimpressed though it could have possibly been worse. Oversupply of a couple of titles beyond what is reasonable based on previous sales. A couple of new titles that have appeared and worse still undersupply of a couple of titles such as English Womens Weekly that will probably mean I’ll lose a sale or two.
Good side of all of this is being early in the month early return will correct the over supplies, though I did notice at least one title that was topped with Network is full with Gotch, and Gotch generally allow you to return right up till the last day of the month whereas Networks cut off was always notified as being several days before end of month and even then seemed to have been somewhat arbitrary in deciding when you had submitted your returns.
Got to say totally unimpressed, we have kept a very close eye on supplies from both G&G and Network now we have gone pear-shaped again. Mags are being over supplied again by up to 80%. eg expected 12 Aust House & Garden received 21 copies. BHG last week we were undersupplied by 100%!!!! When I tried to order extras none available. Today NI today oversupplied by 80%
Today I even received 2 tittles that I had already early returned to NDC and now they are sent out again
Payment of February statement due in next few days. I wonder how many will pay with credits kicking in from March and deposit refunds due,