Further to my earlier post, I have now determined now many titles of the 1,650 titles I carry which generate above the required $5.00 per month gross profit return. It’s 35% based on July 2005 sales.
That is, in July, 65% of the titles we carried generated an uneconomic return for my business.
This strengthens my claim that newsagents ought to be paid a service fee equal to the cost of real-estate and labour for the title on their business or they ought to have the opportunity to permanently stop supply.
This independent owned small business channel is drowning in stock at one and, for some titles, starving from lack of oxygen (supply) at the other end.
The Federal Government in 1999 led us to the trough of deregulation and did a half baked job. The years since have been very tough on newsagents yet they continue, struggle many, without the benefit of the subsidies of other industries.