Several newsagency suppliers are actively researching what our channel will look like in five and ten years time. They have engaged professional researchers to look outside and inside the channel for information to guide their view.
It concerns me that newsagents appear to be unconcerned about the same question.
Maybe 2020 is too far away to consider. Maybe they are swamped in the day to day to worry about the future.
Given that an average shop fit investment lasts five years we need to consider this. Good news or bad, being more aware of what might be will better inform the shorter term decisions we need to make in our businesses.
Mark,
Your assumption I think is wrong. What I will look like next year, in 5 years and in 10 occupy my thoughts constantly, and many others I know.
I think what we lack is a ‘secure’ group-think area to bounce ideas off each other, to model options etc etc. As a result of that what we hear is silence.
I think its a duck on a pond thing, placid on the surface, flat out underneath.
Brett,
I would agree and disagree,
I think part of the ongoing problem is that many newsagents plan to be in the business for 5 to 7 years these days and aren’t as worried about 10 years down the track as we would like them to be.
This is where I think associations and marketing groups together can both protect the brands and identities of the industry.
We need to find ways of encouraging people to stay in the newsagency business. Apprenticeships, funding breaks to help the industry prosper long term.
Some capital investment in the industry from our industry partners would also provide strength.
Mark,
“”Giveb that an average shop fit lasts five years” i think you mean that Shopping centres requires partial refit of a newsagency within a lease period of 5 years.
New concepts in presentation are being tried depending on store size (area) and shape. I believe more attention needs to be focused on just that, store size in sq metres and store shape. This will determine our rental pathway for the future. The business of newsagemcies will evolve shop by shop and area, geographically. Forecasting ten years in advance is a fools paradise. Look at the World economy was it forecasted 10 years ago Can one forecast the World economy 1 year from now? 2,3,or even 5 years from now? My thoughts are let your core products be dictated by your customers therefore evolving by demand or lack of demand and experiment with other products (wholeheartedly I mean not just a toe in the water) especially anything to do with communications as it parallels our business model.
Also it should be noted that our stores customers are favouring more browing and less urgency purchasing. This may be a good time to focus on an industry just that and interpret customers needs in our layout so that self service is NOT the main objective in good retailing. More browsing, means more attention to the customer which means emphasis on product knowledge, something lacking in most newagencies today.
Brett, I’ve made no assumption. Duppliers are actively working on this. Newsagents I talk with are not.
Also, groups like newsXpress facilitate this.
Graeme, by thinking about ten years out we force ourselves to at least contemplate a future many newsagents have been ignoring.
If you are in business then you have an obligation to plan. A short, medium and long term position is essential. If you are planning to be in for 5 years and go then in order to max your sale price you need to have an efficient business that is pointed in the right direction. A planning regime is required for this.
Your long term plan has a very very slim chance of being even vaguely right but it is important to picture not the minute detail but the big picture stuff like perhaps where your shop will be.
A marketing group like newsXpress is really useful as it can see the issue on a larger scale. It could even spend some money to employ a group to research this and then be on the leading edge of change rather then following.
Graeme, your comment seems to indicate that we should follow the lead of the customer, personally I would rather arrive at the same place as my customer at the same time.
Are you suggesting that newsXpress are working on a neesagency plan of ten years-is that I wonder, after your many comments, with or without newspapers?
Graeme, newsXpress is in perpetial planning mode and this does include contemplating what a newsagency could look like ten years out.
This work is, in part, helped by the trend data I have covering the last ten years.
Brett I am suggesting that we should look at consumer’s needs and cater for them in today’s market especially ijn the chosen field that we are in, that is communications. To look at a ten year plan to me given the GFC and it’s ramifications (still not clear except there is not the same amount of lending money around) is too far into the future. Big picture plans are fine if they come true however little plans with tweeking build up big futures. As you mention that you would rather arrive at the same place at the same time I hope that doesn’t that you will join them shopping somewhere else. Retailers create markets they just exist ands we don’t create impulse buying by planning a ten year result in this day and age. Look at what is/has changed so much in the past 12 months alone. I believe strong that a 12 month business plan and a 5 year financial one reviewed every quarter is about as much as you could commit to today.