I am thrilled to announce the beta release of the Newsagency Portal, a place where newsagents and suppliers can connect, advertise, do deals and promote their businesses to the wider community.
More than two years in the making and delivering a genuine first for the newsagency channel, the Newsagency Portal is unique in the Australian newsagency channel.
Access to the portal is free. Any newsagent can create profile pages for their businesses, advertise job vacancies, and find out about services.
Suppliers can list their services and advertise products for sale.
Product purchases made through the portal are prepaid. We, the owners of the portal, take a 10% fee for products purchased through the portal. This is the only revenue stream for the portal. Once an order is placed and paid for, the supplier is notified and the goods shipped.
I anticipate that newsagent suppliers will use the portal to release excess stock and to promote everyday stock at competitive prices. The portal is a marketplace which could be more efficient for suppliers than reps on the road which add to the prices newsagents pay for goods.
The portal offers access to business management advice as well as advice for new newsagents or those considering buying a newsagency. More advice will be loaded over time.
Here are the businesses we would welcome listing on the portal (for free): brokers, accountants, insurance companies, solicitors, newsagents, IT companies and newsagent suppliers. The more the merrier. This will be an online, live and changing newsagent services directory and directory of newsagencies.
It will be a real asset to the channel and make owning a newsagency more appealing to newcomers.
The portal also hosts a forum, a private place where newsagents can talk with each other, start threads and comment on other threads.
The portal has been created and funded by NXP Pty Ltd, a partnership between myself and Graham Randall.
Prior to today’s announcement we cleared out test data entered so we can start with a clean slate.
Over to you…
NOTE: This is a beta release. That is, it is a work in progress. Feedback from those who engage will help us make the portal more useful – for newsagents, suppliers and consumers.
Unless I am doing something wrong in the field of category and it is a must fill in field there are only suppliers from the drop down menu but no option for Newsagent
Brett I’ll get the development team to look at this.
found the same problem , great idea Mark i think it will work a treat
Fixed now.
I like the idea of a forum. This blog brings up good points and ideas, but there are also times I would like to start a discussion on a topic not raised here.
This is a good idea, long overdue. Congrats Mark.