Media Report on ABC Radio National this afternoon looks at newsagencies, T2020, the disruption of digital to print product, the challenges of retail and other opportunities facing Australia’s small business newsagents.
I recorded an wide-ranging interview with Richard Aedy, host of Media Report, for the program last week.
You can catch this on Radio National, online and via podcast.
Interesting interview. Actually from a retail perspective I don’t believe that the concept of the newsagent is as much the problem as the hegemony of the 2 largest supermarket chains. And this is affecting all types of small retail businesses similarly. We need to to come up with a retail concept that simultaneously competes with supermarkets and also at the same time expands our demographic footprint. I like your idea of cross selling from magazines’ content. We’re going to have a real hard look at that.
It would have been nice to hear a discussion of T2020 in more depth. Buzz on the street is that the biggest challenge is getting the current soft ware to cope with the massive increase in data. It seems it still requires so much manual intervention that scale works against it.
Ricky, I’d like to see a more in depth discussion on T2020 and am looking at how that can be done.
On the software for T2020 businesses, there is no barrier or restriction. Indeed, there is a distribution business in Melbourne handing more than 30,000 papers a day with the Tower software. They’ve done consolidations etc.
Ricky , I’d hazzard to guess from current experience that there’s more of an issue with News LTDs software regarding T2020 than there is with the various tendering parties whether they use Tower or any of the others. I’ve just withdrawn from my run early and what I’ve seen so far is News struggle to use the data provided to ensure a timely and accurate continuation of delivery services in the area. I feel sorry for the poor buggers when entire T2020 zones are handing over at one time and the mess that’s probably going to create.
I agree with you Paul. I have always been absolutely amazed that the publishers who rely on home delivery for such a large % of their circulation have never invested a brass razoo in home delivery and customer account management software for distribution newsagents. It’s always been left to company’s like Tower to bear the responsibility. We are big fans of Tower and have used it for many years. Our terrritory is about 1800 households but we still need to do a lot of manual work to keep our service levels up. Plus some of our essential reports take a lot of time to run. An operation with over 30,000 households must have a lot of people of at the customer service desk to do this. So in terms of numbers of users and user licences I am wondering how scale helps defray costs
Ricky can i ask you if you only do distribution and if so which state are you in?
Hi Jenny
We also have retail outlets and we are in Victoria
Thanks Ricky. Do you find it difficult running both ie time given (and stress at busy times) in retail outlet to home delivery customers, or do you run them seperately?
Jenny It’s not just time (although thats an issue) . As retail develops in the direction its going it becomes less compatible as well. We are no longer just a paper shop. A retailer needs to be in a different headspace to a distributor. One’s about process, efficiency and cost control. The other is about creativity, sourcing and revenue generation. If we coud outsource our distribution and still keep our home delivery customers happy we could be focussed on retail in a far more effective way.
Ricky there are some in distribution who could arrange outsourcing for you.
There is no doubt that separating the two businesses is liberating for both. It also makes the operator of each more accountable – in a good way.
Thanks Ricky, I agree with you about the two aspects of the business. We currently run distribution from another premises and plan to take the administration of home delivery/subs out of shop to the other premises to run as two seperate businesses. Am looking for other newsagents who currently do this or distribution only to pick their brains.
Jenny , getting the operation out of the shop is the easy bit. We’ve done that part. Moving admin and customer service out of the shop is a real challenge. Paper customers are very change resistant. We’re toying with the idea of a separate kiosk within the shop.
Mark we are aware of the new consolidations going on. The kicker is if they are able to meet our customers’ expectations for the personalised service that they have become used to over the years
Believe me, for $1.27 per week, the admin and personalised customer service are being provided at the newsagents cost.
Ricky, I sold my run some years ago to a run consolidator and customer service did not decline. There is no doubt that in some cases it will, but in most I hear about it does not.
Slightly off topic but dont know where else to post this, perhaps Mark you can reposition my post.
Nice segment on Landline 12 noon today Sunday about the Yass Tribune newspaper covering print, online and facebook coverage during the district fires recently.
Quite inspiring.