Newsagent suppliers who want a healthy and valuable relationship with newsagents need to read this, all of it … especially if you want to grow the revenue your company achieves through newsagency businesses.
Our channel started with us as agents, being told what to do by everyone dealing with us. While that has changed, key traffic-generating suppliers – newspaper publishers, magazine publishers and distributors, transport operators, telcos and Tatts – continue to treat newsagents as agents. But worse than that, some of them don’t trust newsagents.
Tatts, newspaper publishers and magazine publishers and distributors have the worst track record of trust in and of newsagents – or should I say lack of trust. They all have stories to tell to justify their lack of trust. Here’s a story of trust in newsagents that’s worked for me.
My newsagency software company serves now close to 1,900 newsagents as active customers. That’s a pretty big pool in the channel so my experiences are more than those of a small group, they are genuinely representative.
In March 2009, after reading Jeff Jarvis’ excellent book, What Would Google Do?, I decided to make the process of selecting software update changes more transparent and user-engaged. Fast forward to today, more than four years on, and I am thrilled to share that newsagents actively suggest changes and vote on changes. I gave them far more control than usual for a software company and it’s worked.
Newsagents have benefited from software enhancements they want based on their business experience. The changes have helped drive efficiency. In the last four years the Tower market share in the newsagency channel has grown tremendously – so I have benefited too. Suppliers have benefited too with ideas being passed back, for example, for XchangeIT.
So when a newspaper publisher or magazine distributor or publisher says they can’t trust newsagents to set their own supply I say nonsense, I’d trust them.
The key I have found from my own experience is to create an interface newsagents can use, an interface that is transparent and engenders mutual trust. Provide this and they will use it and deliver more value for your businesses.
My team created Software Ideas at the Tower website and opened this for newsagents to use. Newsagents set the agenda. So much for them not having time or not engaging about business management matters.
By engaging in old-world processes that magazine distributors use today they are forcing the channel to be inefficient, they are forcing us to deliver an outcome that allows them to say we can’t be trusted to serve the needs of the publishers the distributors serve.
My experience has been that if you give newsagents the right tools and freedom and show trust, it will work for newsagents and for you. What I have experienced over the last four years is proof of that.
So I have to ask myself, those who do not engage in a more trust-centred relationship with newsagents – WHY? Maybe to do so would not serve their commercial needs.
If you are a magazine publisher who wants newsagents to set supply, DEMAND IT! You can trust newsagents to do right by your title because their need is aligned with yours. However, ensure that the process is right, transparent and, of itself, trustworthy.
I feel like the newsagency channel in on a merry-go-round sometimes given the regularity with which common problems are reported here and elsewhere. This will continue, sales will fall and old-school suppliers will be less important to us – unless they demonstrate trust in newsagents. We have to break the merry-go-round.
Kudos to Tower. When I first started in this industry 3+ years ago I assumed it were just a software company selling a program. I discovered that Tower was a value added company. I was given tremendous assistance so I paid for it by getting the support assistance. I purchased my hardware thru tower although on the face of it I could have got it cheaper because of the added benefits. I have always found the assistance and tech nous to be excellent. And I TRUST the company. It is nice to have a partner in my business like that. This is not a paid advertisement but a thank you to Tower.
Wally, I reiterate what you’re saying. I’ve been with Tower for almost as long as they’ve been in business and the service I have always received has been “above and beyond”.
I purchase all my software and hardware from them because I, like you, believe it is a value added company.
Mark Fletcher has been a constant for many years and if you want an honest answer to something just ask him – you might not like his answer but it will be an
honest one.
There is NO-ONE in this industry who has done more for newsagents and I include all the state associations and certainly the NATIONAL (SIC) Association.
Excellent article Mark. I just hope some of those suppliers take notice.
While I appreciate the comments, I do hope that suppliers read this and see from my own experience that trusting newsagents works. Especially the magazine distributors. I fear that more newsagents will get out of magazines because of the lack of trust by suppliers.
I am always surprised when we find a new giftware supplier how helpful, efficient and friendly they are compared to other “core” newsagency suppliers. Not naming names but we all know who they are…. Just sending out reps does not mean you are engaging with us….