A while ago, I blogged that Fairfax shares were doing badly here.

I was concerned then as Fairfax shares were 86 cents, then they went down to 69.5 cents. Then part of the reason could be explained as much of the ASX went down too. It went up with the market but now, unfortunately, the slide has not stopped, shares in Fairfax Media are today hit the lowest point in the company’s history of 69 cents. This is despite that the ASX as a whole has moved upwards since.

How it will affect us all remains to be seen. I can only imagine more of the same. More cuts, including layoffs, years ago Fairfax before they did anything would send a few people over; they would discuss possible changes and scenarios. I used to see their reps at newsagencies; their senior reps were regulars at our user meetings.

Now I think the number of people have gone n Fairfax has affected service levels. People I have worked with for years are no longer there. The new guys seem to change around a lot. I do not see how they can collect the relevant experience simply because they keep changing around. A good distribution executive needs years on the job to learn.

The last major price change was disgracefully handled. The advice is given only in the last minute, much of the important details were missing, such as the dates and there was a refusal to supply details. Their attitude I think could be described as “We do not care."

For a company like Fairfax, the distribution should be one of the top priorities I wonder what other departments are similarly affected and maybe these lower prices on their share reflect some of these concerns by the shareholder.

Note: If Fairfax believes that they can get the revenue required from digital and drop printing in the short term, I think they are dreaming and maybe that is what the shareholders think too.

Our support bay took quite a battering over this, it looks like it is now resolved.

Hi all

We have now resolved the issue with recall forms dated 23/4/12. As mentioned this morning any forms already submitted that were rejected we will reprocess using the original files stored in our DB. There is no need to any agents to resend.

Please note as part of the reprocessing file some agents may get a file note from the XIT Client saying that the supplementary return they sent is a duplicate. We will be advising agents to ignore that message for this form and instance.

If you have any question please call me.

Regards

Daniel Tisi
Supply Chain Project Manager

We have just spoken to Network. They have had an issue internally with their system with the return forms, and they are now in the process of fixing it.

They have a copy of all the returns files (RTD's) that have been sent.

What they intend to do is once the problem is fixed, they will resubmit all the return files that are being rejected now, and newsagents should receive the proper email response.

Anyone who submitted a return form from late yesterday will not receive a response from Network until the problem is fixed as they have turned any processing off.

They expect the problem to be sorted some time today.

People who got the rejected message (invalid file format) should ignore it and wait for the correct response in the next day or so.

Regards,

Phil

XChangeIT has called us to advise that there are problems with the Network returns.

Until the problems are resolved there is no point in sending it. If you have already sent the form, later you will need to marked it as unsent and sent again once Network has sorted out their issues.

I has been reported that customers who have sent their week 15 (last weeks) returns to Gotch, have received an email confirming the returns. Now that they are sending their week 16 returns, they have had week 15 marked as not sent.

It appears that Gordan and Gotch has resent the week 15 returns form last Thursday. This has reset the sent status on the list of returns forms.

My advice is to notify Gordan and Gotch to fix the problem and in the meantime ignore the unsent returns form.

An automatic patch has been released to handle the change in price of the Sydney Morning Herald coming up this Sunday so POS Solutions windows users need not do anything as the prices will be updated automatically.

For the older DOS system, information sheets have been sent out.

This will run on Friday morning.

Regards,
Phil

We have improved the feature in our software that automatically updates Bumper Editions, paper price changes and paper stops so you won’t need to process the changes manually. This release is going out now.

Our software will automatically set up the stops and starts for your customers for bumper editions, change paper prices according to the supplier releases and will also set any papers that will be stopped over Christmas and the New Year with stop/start dates.

With the new feature, you subscribe to the feature you wish to be automated (i.e. Financial Review Bumper Edition) and it will automatically set the papers and customers accordingly when the schedule is set to process the change.

To set this up, please follow these steps.

1. From the Main Menu, go to System Maintenance and then Pos
Scripting.

2. In this screen, you will see a list of features you can subscribe to. When you click on one, you will see in the window below the changes available that will automatically run on the scheduled date.

For example, if you click on Financial Review Publication Withheld,
you can see the Christmas 2011 and New Year 2011 is scheduled to
run on 20/Dec/2011. This means that on the 20th of December 2011,
PosBrowser will add the stops and starts to customers for the Financial review Christmas and New Year bumper editions.

3. Double click on one of the features (i.e. Financial Review Publication Withheld) and you will be taken to the Details tab.

4. Tick the Financial Review Publication Withheld option.

5. In the Withheld drop down box, select the Publication Withheld stop
reason.

6. In each of the day drop down boxes, select the Stock Item for that day. (i.e. Monday would be Financial Review – Monday).

7. Click the Save button.

8. If you wish to subscribe to any more features, click on the Purpose tab, double click on the feature and then follow steps 4 to 7 again.

Once setup, it will automatically download any scheduled changes and process them on the scheduled date. The above steps only need to be performed once. Once you have subscribed any future Bumper Editions, paper stops or paper prices will be updated in automatically so you won’t need to manually do them.

If you decide you do not want to subscribe to the automated updates, all you need to do is double click on the feature and untick the option in the top left of the screen (i.e. Financial Review Publication Withheld option). Once unsubscribed, you will need to process any changes manually.

On Sunday April 22, 2012, The Sun‐Herald will increase in cover price from $2.00 to $2.30.

Additionally commencing Monday April 23, 2012 The Sydney Morning Herald Monday to Friday editions will increase in cover price from $1.50 to $1.70.

Saturday SMH remains unchanged at $2.50.

For a Specialist Newsagent the margins

For The Sun-Herald are now
Newsagent 23.9%
Subagent 12.0%

For The Sydney Morning Herald Monday to Friday slightly higher at
Newsagent 24.1%
Subagent 12.1%

Click here for details

Hey I just got this myself now!

Regards,
Phil Doensen
National Support Manager

Question, do you think that confirmation of this being sent out the night before is good enough?

There is a scene that occurs a lot in newsagency. After the newsagency gets a bundle of publications, put them on the stand and starts to sell them someone brings to their attention that there has been a price rise on one of these publications. They are selling at the old price. Then a mad scramble takes place to fix up the error. There has been no warning and nothing said to them.

I expect something like this to happen to NSW newsagents very shortly.

Much of the problem is the suppliers' locked in a competition match with a competitor does not want to release information to the other side what they are doing. As such the information is released only to "need to know" people.

As newsagents are put into this group that "do not need to know" so they are not told.

What often then what happens is the supplier turns around and said, "I talked to newsagents, all the major industry bodies and computer suppliers..." I can assure you that this is often a lie.

I think newsagents should have been at least one-week warning.

Network(NDC) have been trying to encourage newsagents to keep some titles on the shelf longer using "Delayed Billing".

Normally if a magazine arrives today, the invoiced amount will appear on the statement at the end of the month. Not however with Delayed Billing, as Network is not charging the newsagent in the current month, but delaying the billing until a future month.

Our software has always handled delayed billing as our invoicing has a separate Due Date to the Invoiced Date.

Network have however contacted us concerned that now apparently, once the stock is on the shelf, Newsagents do not realise, or cannot tell, that the item is Delayed Billed and are returning it early anyway, so defeating the purpose.

Currently when a normal invoice is processed (one that is not Delayed Billed), our software will place the date the item was invoiced on the label. There will be no change to the label here.

This is what you get now.

Next Tuesday, the automatic update will load into your system the new label format so your label will changed slightly for a Delayed Billed invoice, the invoiced date will be replaced with the letters DB

This is what you will get with a Delayed Billing Label

s/media/blogs/Newsagency/DelayBilledLabel.jpg">

The important difference here is the DB before the date.

Regards,
Phil Doensen
National Support Manager

Implicit in the Fairfax fee increase is an increase in the price of the Sydney Morning Herald.

As we do not have yet exact details of this price rise or when it will happen so we are unable to finalise and release these instructions to our NSW and QLD agents yet.

We will endeavour to do so ASAP.

Recently, Henderson has released a stock catalogue file that has problems. Please instead use the file on our website.

It and other supplier stock files can be found here.  (Outdated file - decommissioned)

Our clients will not need to do anything about this, as we are sending out automatic updates like almost all the other software companies are doing now. This will save us support calls and our clients a lot of unnecessary time and frustration.

For our older DOS system, we have already issued an information sheet.

Over Easter both The Age and SMH will have bumper editions as normal on Good Friday/Easter Saturday.

The Australian Financial Review will have bumper edition with an extended onsale from Thursday 5th April, next issue Tuesday 10th.

We have been talking for a while with Fairfax about the new fee changes. We are still waiting for clarification on a few points.

From an accountancy and management view, the biggest problem will be that these commissions (gross profit) were calculated as a percentage of sales. Soon you will need to determine the number of products sold and multiple it by the profit amount for that product. In the long term, I can see problems as this profit amount is adjusted over time. It will be a formula like before this date the RRP was this and the profit fee was this, then on this date the RRP became this and on this date the profit fee became this, etc etc.

The immediate problem is subagents. Now most people have set up their subagents commission to be a percentage of the recommended retail price which will not be true anymore.

Note: All these problems will be addressed but it means that we need to do changes in over a thousand systems. Hopefully, the required changes can be done automatically with no user input though our automatic update procedure. The automatic update procedure has turned out to being such a great time saver for everyone - Best thing since sliced bread.

Nielsen's data released today showed advertisement measured by pages fell 4% in 2011.

Pacific Magazines declined 2%. ACP Magazines declined 4%, and Fairfax Magazines had a 31% decline (now that would hurt).

The most important circulation figures for us is the ABC circulation figures, mainly because that is the one everyone associated with newsagencies uses. These will soon include digital sales. The existing information, however, for printed publications will be unchanged so nothing will be lost.

I think this is a step forward both as it will give us real undisputed figures to discuss what is happening on online rather than the vague comments being stated now and also as only sold digital copies will be counted. Currently I think many publishers have been overstating their digital sales. Now they need to abide by strict rules.

One question I do have, is in Australia it is very common a bundled sale of a product which comes with an online subscription for a year. It is that going to be counted? I suspect so, I am not so sure it should!

If you want to know more, click here. [Link removed]

Some people who have a vested interest in making us look bad, recently and publicly attempted to cast doubt on what our loyalty card system did when Lucky Charm released figures that their sales went up this year by 10.21%

So these figures from the Lucky Charm was taken to LotteryWest

Here is what the manager of Lotterywest had to say when he was presented with these figures.

Hi Mike

Thanks for sending this through. Our figures support your data and show that your growth in February was significantly ahead of our retail network as a whole.

Feb 2011 v Feb 2012	Lucky Charm	retail network
Scratch'n'Win	+7.0%	+3.6%
Lotto	+14.4%	+8.5%
Total	+13.4%	+7.8%

...

Regards

Greg Cumming
Manager, Retailer Relationships and Development
Lotterywest
Ph: 08 9340 5350

I hope that this closes the issue.

A client who is reducing his shelf space in magazines, asked whether I could advise him about the magazine sales now. I data mined his figures for the last quarter.

My advice to him is that overall he has about an 4% drop on every magazine category except the home and garden category. The home and garden category in his shop is up by about 3%.

So I would suggest leaving the home and garden category the same or perhaps even increasing it somewhat and reducing all the other magazine area by 4%.

Home and garden category includes such magazines as

Title
Australian Handyman
Australian House & Garden
Australian Home Beautiful
Belle
Better Homes and Gardens
Burke’s Backyard
Country Home Ideas
Country Style
Earth Garden
Gardening Australia
Inside Out
Real Living
Vogue Living
Your Garden

Note some of these are not doing well