I learnt early in business that you compete from in front and you do this by making sure that your product offering is better in the minds of your customers than any other. Newspaper publishers and their partner newsagents have an opportunity to make a significant move on this as they work through the issue of how and when to introduce flat wrap home delivery of newspapers.
There are at least five trials of flat wrap home delivery going on at present. One is being driven by News Corp. in Adelaide and the rest are being driven by newspapers. Despite the name, none is delivering a truly flat product. Each is delivered with one fold and while that is a big step forward from the tightly rolled newspaper, it is not flat.
Newsagents have an opportunity to take a giant leap forward by going truly flat and delivering to the front doorstep. My sense is that enough customers would like this service to justify a premium price. The bag used to carry the newspaper could also carry other items. Newsagents working together could leverage the doorstop delivery as a new marketing channel for companies wanting to get brochures, sample products and other items onto doorsteps first thing in the morning.
I know from my own discussions last year that newspaper publishers have the view that they own the bag. That is, that newsagents could not put anything else with their product in the bag, not even another newspaper. This is nuts as it denies newsagents an opportunity to be business like.
Newspaper publishers ought to consider allowing true flat wrap in return for removing the restriction of what can be in the bag with the newspaper and what advertising can be printed on the bag. They ought to also consider removing restrictions on what can be charged for such a premium service since the costs will vary from area to area. This is what deregulation ought to have been about – creating mechanisms for entrepreneurial effort.
Some newsagents will label my suggestion stupid. Maybe it is. However, with newspapers under so much threat from online and with home delivery under threat from an ever increasing number of retail outlets, one way newsagents can get a bigger piece of the pie is by reinventing their offering and providing a premium service such as that which I propose.
In addition to the current flat wrap trials I’d like to see a trial of true flat wrap with the newspaper in a bag and delivered to the door. For newspapers to compete with online they need to reinvent themselves not only in terms of content but also in terms of the customer experience. Hence my push for a true flat wrap product.
As a consumer I refuse to have my newspaper home delivered. I like a pristine newspaper as the publisher intended it.
The current flat wrap trial, while a welcome initiative, is not pursuing the ideal home delivery experience and therefore does not explore the opportunity for providing a compelling point of difference for home delivery of newspapers versus news online.
Here’s the website for the News Corp. flat wrap trial: wraptrial.news.com.au
FOOTNOTE: Newsagents were forced in the 1990s in purchase and use rolled wrap machines. These machines have struggled to cope with the increasing thickness of newspapers – especially thre Saturday and Sunday offerings. Many newsagents would be carerying equipment on their books with a value of around $5,000. The (folded) flat wrap machines range in price from $5,000 to $25,000. Newsagents would need some guarantees on publisher commitment, on bag advertising, in bag insertions and weight to make the move worthwhile.