I took this photo in a newsagency recently. This business tries hard to display magazines well yet every week they are sent far more than they can reasonable display.
Magazine publishers take a look – you cause this.
This is one section of the magazine department. There are two others like this.
No wonder there are newsagency businesses without a magazine department.
Did you ask the owners permission before taking and publishing this photo
Another amazing contribution Andrew. Yes.
Then you should qualify your photo/comments. I doubt whether you would have asked in any event.
Everyone,
I just don’t get it.
Regardless if you are a Retailer or Distribution Only, at the point of XIT allocation surely your POS displays your net position for the magazine you are arriving?
If so and the supplier allocation is over your net sale (even if your net sale is zero) just immediately return the mag. We allow 1 additional copy over net sale, everything else is returned immediately.
I’m not a Retailer and understand there are different pressures, but just return the stuff.
The above policy enables us to remove unwanted items and interestingly allows us to sit at about #48 on the Connections list for sales.
G&G have XIT Sales Data from us, I don’t waste my time editing supply on G&G website, if they are stupid enough to incur distributions costs from Sydney to Adelaide only to have full copy returns the same week – well fool on them.
IPS is another matter, we will not accept and pay for any magazine sent above our set allocation. If allocation increases are done without my permission, a quick email telling IPS to credit immediately and I’m throwing the mags in the bin.
John
Pretty much what I do John. Bit like the allocations today. Received 7 Readers Digests. We normally only sell one or two at a pinch so topped and early returned 5. And thats only one example of several this morning.
TBH I’ve totally lost interest in magazines and it shows in that part of my business figures but why would I put time and money into it when I’m getting much better growth & returns from another part of my business where I don’t feel like I’m fighting the distributor/supplier at every point ?
The pic above is not the distributors fault but the retailers. The shop is owned by the retailer who has total control of what their magazine unit looks like and what their end supply is. As John said, if you are oversupplied, early return. It is that easy.
This is what I do to control the rampant oversupply and it means my magazine shelves are neat and gives me the ability to run waterfalls etc. If i was a customer I would walk away from a display like the above as it would all seem too hard trying to browse.
I clear titles regularly (if it has been on the shelf for a month it is returned) which also keeps stock levels at a manageable size.
The photo could tell another story.
It looks similar to our setup where we only keep what sells +1 allowing us to keep a much broader range of magazines overlapped in a vastly smaller space than having all single faced.
On a side note we had a regular customer in the shop today with magazines in her trolley purchased from the supermarket at discount prices. The sales for these weeklies are lost to us for at least the duration of this promotion and maybe forever.
With the sales of weeklies and all magazines for that matter decreasing rapidly in newsagencies this discounting only reinforces my intention to reduce magazine space at every opportunity.