With Covid-19 causing disruption to the lives and businesses of members beyond anything you may have ever experienced, some retailers may be considering temporarily closing their shops for financial or safety reasons.
The news department has pulled together a guide on what you need to do to suspend your newspaper and magazine supplies.
If you have to temporarily close your business, remember that the value of stock on your shelves can be significant. To avoid financial losses and to boost much needed cashflow, please follow the guidance below.
- Liaise with your news wholesaler notifying them that you want to suspend the account. If you close it and then want to reopen then you may have to pay a deposit.
- Agree a suitable time for all returns to be collected, requesting additional empty tote boxes if required.
- As a recall note isn’t provided nor likely to be suitable, you may find it easier to request two copies of your standing order print from your wholesale. This lists all the titles you stock by frequency.
- List the quantities that you are returning on both copies.
- Send one with the physical returns and keep another for your own records to enable you to check you have received credit for all returns.
- Remember to Include any shop saves that are unlikely to be collected – you may want to phone your shop save customer first ,particularly for partworks, and explain what you are doing.
- Include collectables products that may be displayed separately instore.
- Check behind and underneath fixtures for any magazines that may have been fallen off your shelves.
- Ensure each tote box or parcel returned is clearly identifiable with your 6 digit customer number. Place a note with your customer number on top of the magazines in each tote returned.
- Check your credits have been received – you can do this online as you may not receive your usual paperwork. Cross reference this to your returns list.
- Raise any discrepancies direct with your supplying news wholesaler or online asap after notification is received.
- Advise NFRN Connect on 0800 1216376 if you have any problems getting returns collected, recording any discrepancies or if you do not get an adequate response to these within 48 hou
- Remember stock and returns are assets and have a cash value at all times.
When you are thinking of reopening try and give your news wholesaler as much notice as possible, ideally at least seven days.
Please remember that magazines will follow their usual patterns, so you may need to order extra of bestselling titles that are not yet due on sale.
Your business may take a short time to get back to normal, so discuss suitable quantities you need for each newspaper remembering that Saturday and Sunday editions follow different sales patterns.