Newsagents not a protected species.
This is the headline from an editorial yesterday’s Australian Financial Review – the national business daily of record. Ignoring the inaccuracies in the editorial, it is disappointing to see a newspaper publisher gunning for a retail and distribution channel they created.
The editorial was in response to reports of concerns by newsagents about the possibility of newspapers going into McDonalds. Of course newspapers are chasing incremental sales. Based on past experience, putting newspapers in new locations won’t achieve incremental sales.
Working with the newsagent channel on leveraging sales out of existing foot traffic might be more successful at generating incremental sales. It’s working in my shop – 10% newspaper sales growth year on year – achieved by understanding the shopping basket and finding cross promotion opportunities.
Newsagents are a child of the publishers. They at our publishers who created the channel are engaging with others without more completely engaging with us is disappointing.