Easter newspaper bumper edition frustration
Newsagents in NSW tell me they have been hammered over Easter as a result of the bumper edition strategy adopted by Fairfax for the Sydney Morning Herald. The duplication of some parts of the newspaper over two days confuses customers. Other customers are angry when the newsagent does not have the stock of both parts to make a ‘whole’ newspaper. Staff in newsagencies Friday and Saturday copped a fair beating from customers over this.
Being Easter, Newsagents have no one in authority at Fairfax to take the problems to, they are left to deal with customer anger alone and in the way of these things, the impact on goodwill is felt by the newsagent and not the publisher.
What newsagents want is the newspaper of the day to be provided to them as a complete unit for delivery. Not a bit today which is also to be used tomorrow and not at a quantity which someone in Fairfax controls as opposed to the newsagent applying local knowledge.
While the Fairfax executives reading this will say, here he goes having a whack at Fairfax again, I invite them to actively engage with newsagents across NSW on this issue – find out how botched the bumper edition strategy is and how much it upsets customers and newsagents.
In Victoria we have smarter people working at Fairfax and The Age this Easter has been bumper edition free.