Some Newsagency suppliers offer trading terms that help mitigate risk of holding unsaleable stock.

Sale or Return

Magazines & Newspapers are mostly provided on Sale or Return. Say you get 100 papers or magazines, and sell 90, then you return the 10 unsold items for a full wholesale value credit. The returns are processed either in Full or Tops/Covers (majority of titles). Full papers are normally stacked & strapped for pickup weekly by the driver dropping off the next issue. Full magazines are boxed and bundled for collection by a freight forwarder, or dropped to Followmont for return to the magazine distributor. Tops/Covers are the removal of the front cover, or cut-out of the masthead title showing the issue number, and are mailed or boxed for return to the magazine distributor. Both systems have accompanying paperwork to claim credits.

Most Greeting Card companies also have a sale or return policy on major seasonal cards. For example, say you get $10,000 of Xmas cards and sell $9,000 worth, then the left-overs come boxing day get counted and returned for a full wholesale credit.

Sale or Exchange

Some suppliers will offer a Sale or Exchange within certain terms. For example, Greeting card companies will, case by case, credit out captions that may not be working in your store, to replace with a different caption that may work for your demographic. This “exchange” mitigates holding unsaleable stock.

A very few gift suppliers like certain Soft Animals suppliers, may offer sale or exchange also. Say you make a large order of Bears for valentines, and sell 95%, the supplier may then collect the un-sold product to credit, as long as you order some Bunnies for Easter. As long as the product has not been on the shelf for too long. Again, this is always case by case, and very few make such generous offers.

Credits

Certain suppliers will usually provide a credit for expiring stock, as long as you have been monitoring it and contact them in time. Drinks suppliers and tobacco as example. If the product is coming up on the use-by date, the rep may credit the expiring stock and replace it with current stock.

Other

Most other items in a newsagency are normal supply. That is, you order it, you find a way to sell it. Stationery, confectionary, most gifts etc need to be ordered this way. If you order the wrong product number, there may be some immediate return opportunity, but normally not. And it would normally cost you the return freight and perhaps a re-stocking fee, so as long as you place your orders with care and consideration, you should not have a problem.

So overall, newsagency supply arrangements are quite favourable when compared to other industry types.