The supplier of the 2025 Australian Firefighters Calendars has made this demand of retailers, via a major wholesaler, GNS:
To move forward, I will need written guarantees by the directors of your company that all GNS customers will not sell my calendars online. I will not supply GNS unless I have directors’ guarantees that GNS customers will not sell my calendars below my listed price until January 1st, 2025. I have attached a supplier form for you to sign.
To their credit, GNS responded well:
At GNS, we believe in upholding the law and ensuring our customers’ freedom to conduct business as they see fit. As such, we are not willing to impose any restrictions on how you go to market with your products. Unfortunately, this means we will not be receiving any stock of the Firemen calendars.
What makes the move about the 2025 Australian Firefighters Calendars interesting is that these calendars are widely available online. A quick search shows them as available online in Australia via Amazon, Calendar Club, eBay, Just Calendars, Mega Office Supplies and more. It is even listed on the catch.com.au website.
I can’t figure out why the supplier would demand the directors of GNS to agree that retailers they supply will not sell the calendars online.
Of course, the directors of GNS can’t impose such a restriction on their retailers. Their response is good.
The move makes the 2025 Australian Firefighters Calendars less appealing in my view. No matter, there are plenty more Australian designed and made calendars supporting worthy causes available for newsagents and calendar retailers to stock. That’s what we are doing: focussing on calendars we can sell in-store and online, calendars where the supplier does not place restrictive requirements on how we run our business.
The 2025 Silo Art Calendar is a good example of a calendar well worth stocking. It raises money for a good cause, shines a light on Australian towns and, best of all, features Australian art. This is a calendar we sell plenty of in-store as well as online. People love posting it as a gift to friends overseas. We have offered this calendar for years. It’s been a huge hit.
If you are looking for calendars to stock for 2025, look at Bartel, Browntrout. Waterlyn and other local companies that have terrific calendars available.
It would be good to know if sales of the 2025 Australian Firefighters Calendars are impacted by the restrictive conditions.