Did you receive your new phone books yet? Delivery problems led to some delays this year, and that’s a concern for small businesses advertising in the Yellow Pages.
Edmonton business owner Dave Mulder feels he shelled out thousands of dollars for nothing. Mulder paid more than $20,000 to get his new business name in the book.
His Yellow Pages contract states the ad is published from April 2006 to the end of March 2007. But Mulder doesn’t think his ad is reaching a big enough audience. “It’s gotta get fixed, because how long can we keep going? Personally I have not made one dime. All the money that comes is going to pay my techs.”
Mulder just started a new business called Big Bad Bull Computers. He prepaid about $22,000 for his new Yellow Pages ad, which he says isn’t getting to every potential customer. “I’ll be in Safeway standing in line, and say, ‘Hey have you got your books yet? Yellow Pages books?’ Yes, no, yes, no, yes, no is what we’re getting.”
Distribution of the phone books starts at the end of March in Edmonton. Yellow Pages says delivery takes anywhere from three to four weeks. The company also says it’s now finished Edmonton. But Dave Mulder says he knows how effective advertising in the phone book is – and he’s not getting the calls. He figures entire neighbourhoods have been skipped.
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But Annie Marsolais of the Yellow Pages says, “We’re distributing over a million books so it happens that one house out of a thousand might not have received the books.”
Yellow Pages does admit to delivery delays, but only by a couple of weeks.
It contracts out the distribution to two Edmonton companies. But this year, workers were hard to find.
Marsolais adds, “We had more problems this year and again, the delay was due to the low unemployment rate. That’s why we will make sure in the future to address that specific issue.”
That doesn’t help Mulder now, whose business rides on the Yellow Pages. “Most Edmontonians are not aware, ‘Oh my goodness – April 1st, the Yellow Pages comes out! We’re all excited about it!’ It’s not like Christmas, so they’re really not aware of it, and of course we advertisers are getting hurt really bad.”
Mulder says Yellow Pages is reimbursing him for the month of April, but he’s worried almost two and a half months after the distribution date, a lot of Edmontonians still don’t have the book.
Yellow Pages says delivery of the books in the Edmonton area is completed. But some Global Edmonton viewers, including those living in Southgate, Riverbend, Blackburne, Westmount, Bonnie Doon, Castle Downs, and St. Albert, said they have not received their 2006/2007 phone books.
© 2006, Global News Edmonton.
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