I noticed comments posted here recently drawing differences between distribution and retail newsagents, indicating that the distribution newsagent had it tougher and were more real. I think such a view reflects an unhelpful prejudice.
We each have unique business and personal circumstances that determine the difficulty we face daily in our businesses and lives. To label one more real than another because of the type of newsagency they run is something I don’t agree with Our situation is real to us.
Today, newsagency businesses are more diverse than ever and the world in which we operate more competitive than ever. These factors and the overlay of personal circumstance make it unreasonable for us to judge another based on the type of newsagency they have.
Thinking about this from an overall newsagency channel perspective, all newsagents deserve our respect and support. While we don’t all have to agree, we ought to at least have respect for each other and accept that the challenges of one type of business could be more than what we know.
I read the comments over the last couple of days on the post which prompted my comments here and was not planning on saying anything until a taxi ride last night in Sydney.
I hailed a taxi in Redfern and asked the driver to take me to the Hilton in the city. He asked where the Hilton was. He really didn’t know. I ended up navigating him with the map my iPhone. In the city, stuck in traffic I asked how long he had been driving. He’d been driving two years but only regionally out in Parramatta. He came to Australia as a refugee and while he had an engineering degree, driving a taxi was the only work he could get. He was in Redfern because of a rare fare close into the city. He did me a favour by stopping.
While maybe he should have learnt the roads in Sydney better, I found myself thinking about his circumstances and that I’d been too quick to judge without all the information. Realising this, the next thought I had was about the post talking abut the differences between the types of newsagencies.
While this is a somewhat personal reflection, it represents part of the reason I started the blog. I hope it makes sense.
Great story Mark, a simple message yet full enough of the complexities that make a good read.
I love the way lateral connections are made that way (joining of the dots so to speak) in your example of the linked post and the refugee. Which is another story on it’s own.
My partner and I have also run Distribution as well as a Retail outlet (non-Newsagency) for a period of time and the challenges were significant. Despite modest success with the Retail venture, ( mostly due to my partner), we were compelled to opt out of this for non-business reasons.
Yes we all do have unique businesses and when our Distribution business was just run by the 2 of us, I can recall the challenges were different then than what they are now that we have expanded and have a number of employees to share the operational load so to speak.
But, in the different structures of Distribution and as with the Retail component, all challenges were/are real, just different and required slightly different managerial skill sets.
I also think that sometimes (perhaps as in the post you linked to), for want of a better single descriptive word, the whole message can go pear shaped for a writer whom may not have had that intention at heart at all.
Mark, as one of the people involved in the discussion, I wish to clarify my views.
I know retail only, distribution only and newsagencies with both retail and distribution all work hard, as well as have difficulties, challenges and rewards unique to their business. I don’t think any one is better than any of the others, it all depends on the circumstances each business and its owner finds themselves in.
My point is that people who own both a retail and distribution newsagency have it – harder is not the right word, perhaps more challenging, still not sure that is the right word either.
This is because they own 2 very different businesses with different and competing time commitments, cashflow, hours of operation etc. These conflict with each other in a number of ways.
The most significant conflict for us before we sold our shop was the hours. We were often at work at 3am, and still there at 7.30pm, every day of the week (except Sunday when we closed at 12pm). We decided to sell the shop as our territory provided substantially more profit than the shop did. We have improved our working hours by making the change. I know a number of newsagents who have sold their territory and become retail only for similar reasons.
Dean the point I was trying to make is that a retail only newsagent who is a single parent of young kids and caring for a dying parent has it tough as does a retail newsagent who owns another business as done a distribution newsagent with a partner with a terminal illness. Each of us has different circumstances and I think it does not serve us well to draw a distinction between retail and distribution as has been done.
Boys, for goodness sake – the word newsagent in SA has always meant a distribution only agent. The rest of us are
retailers and that is how it has always been here. In SA distribution only accounted for 93% of all agents (not sure what % it is now as I am no longer in that arena.
I was just meaning Real Newsagent as I have always understood it. I was not inferring that Retailers don’t work hard.
You’re such a sensitive lot.
I know (after 39 years of it) how hard we
ALL (yes Mark, I now know I am yelling and I didn’t know that before) work.
My point was that Dean sounded distressed and the mother in me wanted to help but some of you are sounding pretty paranoid.
Sorry but I feel like I’m listening to my kids arguing with each other.
Dean, Mark, Al, et al we are all nitpicking here. Not necessary.
Mark, I did not agree with your taxi driver
analogy but we live in a democracy so I know you will let me have an opinion.