As part of my presentation at the ANF Convention yesterday I put on the table several tough decisions newsagents which I think need to address. I broke these down into network wide decisions, store level decisions and supplier related decisions. Here are the network wide tough decisions for newsagents as I see them.
Forget about territories. Newsagent commitment to territories is holding us back. It’s dark ages thinking. Unless we can ditch this we will run and be treated like second-class businesses.
Resolve the exit and entry conflict. We need to price our newsagencies for sale in a fairer way. Otherwise, we charge too much and leave incoming newsagents with a business which cannot support the price paid.
Drop the newsagency shingle. Is the term newsagent relevant any more? Maybe not. It ties us to our roots and since we have strayed so far from them maybe we stop calling our selves newsagencies and our businesses newsagencies. We are no longer agents after all.
Improve supply chain efficiency for us. Our supply chain is grossly inefficient at our end. We need to cut costs out so we can compete with others. We should stop pandering to out of date practices suppliers require us to follow such as paying freight on stock which we did not order and which has not performed.
There was more to the presentation than these points. I wanted to share them here to open a broader conversation on these points. Each is a challenge to our future. Each has the potential to block us growing.
Take the issue of territories. That newsagents still think in terms of territories is a major barrier to us thinking and acting as competitive business people. Territories were all but abolished in 1999 yet we cling to them in parts of our business sin a hope of protection. We are kidding ourselves.