Check out the report at Gigaom by Matthew Ingram on why the soon to be owner of the washington Post should cease the print product.
If I’m reading it correctly his central thesis is that print newspapers, emphasis on news, will die so why not act now and reduce the pain and force ourselves to pursue the alternative more vigorously.
This same thesis applies to newsagencies. We continue to offer products and services today that are in decline. We invest capital in supporting products and services that are migrating to non retail store platforms (lotteries for example).
We ought to more carefully think about our capital investment and consider the long-term returns we are likely to get should these migrating products and categories migrate as many expect.
As Ingram says about the Post, making a decision for yourself could be a better business move than to find yourself reacting – and playing catch up.
Our channel has spent too long being told what to do and too many expect to be led to their future. The future for each of us in our businesses – newsagents and newsagency spillers – is 100% up to us.
A good article in the Weekend Australian…business page 34, about Newspapers Vs online….it will be wrong of course, but interesting nevertheless.
I agree with your thesis Mark. Long term capital commitment to shopfits for Lotteries comes to mind. The current requirements are too capital intense for the expected longer term benefits.
With all the talk about governments throwing millions of dollars at a car industry to support jobs, would there be nyone out there to put a figure on total job losses from a total online from newspapers.
I think that the figure would be in the many many thousands.
Why are we so keen as newsagents to see the demise of the hard copy.
Or am I reading it all wrong
Probally because there is no money in papers . I will not be loosing any sleep the day they stop printing , in fact i will get more sleep
Greg You aren’t reading it wrong, I too feel some newsagents want an end to print sooner than later. I don’t know why, if you are making money out of print take it while you can, if not get out now.
Some subs might not make much money from newspapers but they want them in their shop because they bring the customers in.
And maybe it’s easier in the country than the city.
Greg, I think because Newsagents have been used and abused by the companies that make newspapers in Australia. If the majority of newsagents made money on newspapers, they would not be turning their back on them. But this is not the case.
Remuneration is pathetic, whilst the consumer is offered better deals than the person delivering and selling the product.
In our store we have removed from the shelves both The Australian and The Financial Review. We only carry the SMH and Daily Telegraph. We dumped our run over two years ago.
Newsagents do enough things for next to nothing without newspapers going down that path.
Amanda, do any customers ever ask you for the Financial Review or the Australian in hard copy?
Rarely… When they do we ask them to “try the library!! Otherwise get it online.”
Mind you, I still hold a grudge against the Fin Review for an article written on the back page about 7-8 years ago. The article was written by a journalist whinging about his local newsagent and the monopoly the newsagent had selling newspapers.