The NFRN has called on Menzies to come clean about its new carriage charges model after members reported being baffled by their new tariffs. The call for transparency came as retailers who receive their newspaper and magazines supplies from Menzies received letters advising them of new charges which take effect from Saturday Sep 27.
In the letter, Menzies says that it has moved to a new model of CSC calculation “with the carriage charge composed from a base charge, which changes based on a customer’s service model, combined with a variable charge, based on their news and magazines sales across a sampled 13 week period”.
National President Martyn Brown said: “This has totally baffled me and I know from reports that it has baffled other retailers who are supplied by Menzies too. Menzies talks about a 13 week sampling period but has provided no details of which 13 weeks these are, making it impossible for members to check or validate their new charges.
“What we want to know is by how much and by what percentage our carriage charges are increasing and what justification the company has for raising costs when newspaper and magazine sales continue to decline and petrol prices are falling. I would like Menzies to cut the jargon and be truly transparent when it comes to revealing its charging structure. But what is also needed is a complete overhaul of carriage charges before it’s too late and retailers give up on the newspaper and magazine categories completely.”
The letters from Menzies arrived just days after the news wholesaler advised that it was closing its customers call centre in Sheffield from Nov 28. This leaves just one call centre in Linwood, Glasgow.
Brown continued: “All but 373 NFRN members will be seeing an increase in their carriage charges from next week.”
