Click here to listen to the edition of You and Yours, a program on BBC Radio 4, which covered the challenges facing newsagents in the UK – where ten stores reportedly close each week.

While the plight of UK newsagents makes for sobering listening, it left me wondering how much you can blame external factors on your current situation.  If we look at some of the external issues raised: new tobacco sales laws will not go away – all retailers are affected, supermarkets and other retailers will continue to change shopper habits and lure people from local shops and print media competition will reduce rather than increase – this helps competitors of newsagents.

The National Federation of Retail Newsagents covers their perspective of the program on their website.

We will not find a strong future through regulatory changes.  Governments do not have the appetite for this, despite their professed support for small businesses.

No amount of local connection will not save many small CTNs, as they call them in the UK.  Shoppers have shown that they want a more compelling reason to visit a small local shop other than that it is local.  This is the world in which we exist.

UK newsagents which survive and grow will do so because of the what they do inside their businesses and not because of a right.  What they do in the form of diversification, customer service and marketing is what will draw customers to their business.  To try and save the channel by reversing regulatory changes  will not work.  Newsagents need to fix themselves first.

And before anyone questions what I have written here compared to my views on Australia Post …  My issue with Australia Post is with the 865 government owned Post Shops which have diversified away from being post offices and converted into quasi-newsagencies over the last ten years.  The government has no business taking card, book, stationery and other sales from independent newsagents.

ABOUT THE PHOTO: I took this in Birmingham a in 2006.  Sandhu News is what we would call here in Australia a convenience store.  Magazines, newspapers, food and cheap greeting cards.  It is not what we would call a newsagency.  However, my understanding is that this type of business accounts are the bulk of UK newsagencies.  It was a good business, clean.  It had, to my eye, mixed messages for the consumer and the feeling of cheap product.

I happened to stumble on trade display connected with a national video/dvd chain yesterday and discovered that one of their most popular product categories is mobile phone recharge.  They earn premium commission from the recharge sale by selling handsets – telcos reward retailers for this as it grows their customer base.

The next most popular after dvd rental and mobile phone recharge is confectionery.

Talking to a couple of attendees, I was impressed with the clarity and consistency of their pitch about turning the dvd rental into a considerably more valuable sale.  While some of us do this, too many newsagents take the newspaper sale and complain about the size of the transaction instead of making it count for more.

If we don;t watch out, these smart video library operators will show us what they can really do.