It’s expected by many that all newsagents sell lotto, or lottery products. The thing is, not all of us do. Indeed, not all newsagents do what many expect all newsagents do do.
Each newsagency in Australia is locally owned and run.
Sometimes, these local retailers make choices outside of what you may expect for a newsagency. There at also situations where a supplier, like a lottery business, may decide a local newsagent is not the right fit for them because they already have another business near by, or for some other reason.
What Australians expect from their local newsagency has changed, and continues to change, to evolve, as the world evolved.
In terms of lotteries being in every local newsagency, while many newsagents do sell lottery products, there are many who do not. It would be wrong to judge them for this situation.
There is no shortage of lottery outlets in Australia. Plus, there is online, where, for example, it is easy to buy syndicate shares for syndicates put together and managed by local lottery retailers, including newsagents. Just because you can’t find a local shop right now does not mean you can’t support a local shop right now.
I’ve posed the question Why don’t all newsagents sell lotto? because I can see people asking this online. I suspect there has been a surge in the question because of the $150M Powerball jackpot.
The answer to Why don’t all newsagents sell lotto? is because either they choose not to or the lottery licence holder chooses to not allow them to.
I’ve chose to not sell lottery products in my own newsagencies for the last 11 years. I used to sell lottery products, from 1996 to 2013. It was good money. But there were many rules, restrictive rules, rules that got in the way offing the best retailer we could be, rules that got in the way of customer service.
Lotteries was not a good fit for me and I was not a good fit for them. But, there are many retailers who are a good fit and kudos to them.
My point is that each newsagency in Australia is different and should be considered that way. There is no common set of products and services we sell, no expectation you should have regarding any newsagency business in Australia, no expectation that products, prices and / or service would be the same in each. The difference between newsagency businesses is something to celebrate, just as every locally owned and run retail business is something to celebrate in the local community.