Subscribiption Woes

[Marcel in Longueuil]

Hi,

I have a question.

I received my copy of the mag this week, On Jan 16th to be exact.

You say it's because the mail is slow, but something really bugs me:

the address label's return address say:
IMEX
Station A P.O box 54
Windsor Ontario N9A 6J5
email: ReturnsIL@imex.pb.com

If you deal with a Canadian distributor, why can't I get my copy sooner than a month after everyone else starts saying they got theirs, and it's already been available on the stands for a couple of weeks?

It just doesn't make sense to ask people to subscribe when those are the conditions.

I also subscribe to other American woodworking magazines, and get my copies way faster than yours. You really need to review your subscriber's shipping policies!

Don't get me wrong, I like the content (...although not even one picture of the charity quilt??? that sucks!) but I'm not really satisfied with the service.

Regards,
Marcel

[Shannon]

Hi Marcel,

It's obviously and ongoing problem and one that I am definitely trying to remedy. The magazines are shipped in bulk across the border and then dropped into the Canadian postal service for normal delivery. I don't know why it takes so long to get to the end subscriber. I have forwarded your post to our Marketing Manager and asked her to look into it. She handles the distribution aspect and all communications with our distributors.

We did recently switch distributors, but I'm under the impression this is an ongoing problem and has not worsened just recently. So - I don't think it is an issue with the actual distributor, but maybe with the way we have things set up.

Believe me, I take these complaints seriously and will continue to follow up and try to make things better.

[Dragon]

I got a subscription this year as a Christmas present. We figured it was cheaper than the newsstand and also thought we could get it ahead of time. It is nice to have it delivered because where I live there is nothing available. I have to drive about 90 minutes to find a copy.
But I did expect it here much sooner also. I know it takes a few days longer to get to me than city people but this is still very long in waiting.
I'm still waiting for my copy.
Diane

[Peterpan]

This is one of those problems with the internet vs. subscriptions. I get lots of magazines, and they arrive later than in the US. With the Internet I know exactly how much. So it's a little annoying. Mostly I just buy stuff off the newstands since it's been rare that prices delivered have been cheaper since they harmonized the GST, often as much as 50% more expensive than the newstand. SS's rate actually is a lot cheaper. Now a new trend appears to have established itself while I was dozing, with FWW the same price delivered in Canada as the US. I found similar good deals among other magazines I read. At those prices, as long as the magazines do arrive in evenly spaced allotments, I don't really care. I got issue 26 fresh off the newstand last night. Where it does get to be a problem is if subscriptions are overdue and available locally. Then one comes to a point where it's cheaper to buy a copy off the newstand than mess about ordering back-up issues. Nothing seems to bring the lost magazines home faster than a freshly purchased newsstand copy. Overall though, at these prices, these are the good old days. I wish we could get the rest of the desireable US products at these kinds of rates.

[Shannon]

I checked with Andria who is our subscription guru here in the office. She said the Canadian and foreign issues mail about 5 days later than the US issues. That's because our distributor picks up from the printer and transports them across the border where they are then put into the Canadian mail system. The five days is the time it takes from pick up at the printer (in bulk without individual labels) to cross the border and be packaged for individual subscribers.

The spring issue mailed from our distributor (in Canada) on 12/26/06. Marcel received the issue on 1/16/07 which is 21 days from mail date (bulk mail in Canada) and actually not that bad for bulk mail services.

According to our schedule, the issue should not be hitting newsstands in Canada until 1/19/07. How they get issues before that is totally beyond me and I really haven't received a clear answer from our newsstand consultant.

The issue mailed in bulk (periodical rate) to US subscribers on 12/20/06. We allow 4-6 weeks for actual receipt of the issue.

I know it doesn't make it any easier to wait for an issue to arrive, but things appear to be working on our end. If someone has experience with bulk mailing and customs clearance and has suggestions - we're wide open.

The Canadian return address is a postal regulation. If the magazine is undeliverable, they don't want to return it back across the border, so we have to have a Canadian address where they can go.

Honestly, I'm not sure what else we can do to improve transit times. Buying off the newsstand is certainly an option, and frankly, I don't mind that at all - my "performance" is based on total issues sold - so any way you purchase it is fine - as long as you are getting a copy.

I don't mean that to sound like I'm not concerned over transit times - I definitely want you to be happy with the service - I'm just at a loss as to how to make it better.