Take a look here. This allows you to search blogs specifically in a move which will increase blog traffic.

Courtesy of Tim Porter: 10 reasons to read a newspaper; and, 10 reasons to read news online.

It bothers me that too many in the newspaper supply chain remain ignorant of such conversations and technology developments. The world outside the bucket of sand has changed dramatically.

From newsagents I have spoken with an the experience in my two retail outlets, sales of The Age in Melbourne yesterday will be excellent thanks to the free coasters given away with the newspaper. The give away creates some in store fun and that’s always welcome. A couple of customers commented on the number of giveaways with The Age recently and wondered why The Age was doing it. One even said “don’t they realise it’s a newspaper”. True story.

I look forward to the day newspaper publishers in Australia will actively and consistently advertise the quality and depth of news and analysis as a reason to purchase their product. I’ve seen The Australian do this recently but not enough in my view.

In the meantime how about a rest from the likes of drink coasters?

I was in Brisbane yesterday and saw this sign at the Newslink newsagency near gate 24 at Brisbane Airport. (Sorry for the poor photo quality.)

The sign advises that due to uneconomic arrangements they do not offer newspapers from Queensland Newspapers. It directs customers to the Newslink newsagency in the main shopping area of the terminal. The newspapers which this newsagency has chosen to not sell are: Courier-Mail (the major daily for Brisbane), Gold Coast Bulletin, Sunday Mail, The Australian, Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun (Australia’s largest selling daily).

Here is a high profile newsagent in an exclusive and prime position seemingly refusing to sell selected titles because of the economic terms they are offered.

As I boarded the flight, sans newspaper, I wondered what would happen if newsagents across Australia made such choices. What would we refuse to carry? How would publishers react? How would consumers react?

The decision by Newslink opens a conversation on the commercial viability of products newsagents carry. That they have chosen to do this with newspapers is a surprise however.

The Australian newsagent channel has evolved through mutual co-operation between suppliers. In the circulation categories of newspapers and magazines it is only the very top sellers which fully pay their way. However, combined, the categories work in most newsagencies because of the range and the mutual support for common resources such as labour and floor space. This is why I am critical of decisions by suppliers which harm the balance of mutual co-operation.

Newslink are, in my view, sending a wrong message to consumers. Especially when you consider that mum and dad newsagents don’t have the luxury of making the decision they have made.

News Corporation reports it has signed an agreement to purchase IGN Entertainment which includes the AskMen.com website. This is a very significant purchase for News and takes them considerably closer to a profitable and clear internet strategy.

“The Wikipedia, which has surged this year to become the most popular reference site on the Web, is fast overtaking several major news sites as the place where people swarm for context on breaking events.” Reuters.

SmartMoney has published a report on the performance of newspaper stocks. The report includes one particularly telling paragraph about Craigslist:

“The trouble for newspapers is clear. Classified ads account for about 40% of the average U.S. newspaper’s advertising revenue, according to Mort Goldstrom, vice president of advertising for the Newspaper Association of America. Craigslist is their kryptonite. It competes with newspapers essentially by not competing. Why would customers pay if they don’t have to?”

Further to my earlier post on shopping basket analysis in newsagencies, I have been breaking the basket data out by day of week and have found, among other things, that Sundays spike significantly in terms of basket penetration for newspapers.

I have seen newsagencies where Monday through Saturday the average basket penetration for newspapers is 35% where on a Sunday it spikes at 70%. Overall the Sunday spike averages at 70%. That is, newspapers make it into 70% more sales on a Sunday than any other day.

The kicker is that in 65% of newspaper sales on a Sunday they are sold alone. In the data I have seen so far, Sundays are the least efficient day for high street and shopping centre newsagencies.

Newsagents need to heed this data and work harder at achieving add on sales. Publishers could consider developing Sunday specific strategies which work in with their retail network since an inefficient network on a Sunday when labour rates are so high benefits no one.

This research project involves 8,000,000 shopping baskets of data from over 100 newsagencies spanning three years.

With the Government plans to sell its remaining shareholding in Telstra exploding on a variety of fronts this week (for example here and here and here, it was interesting to see Prime Minister Howard come out fighting on the 7:30 report on ABC TV tonight. In that stoush The Prime Minister said that the government had a “conflict of interest” owning the shares in Telstra and controlling the regulatory regime. This is the situation with Australia Post.

While the government hides behind the provision of postal services in its comments about why Australia Post cannot be privatised, it does not answer the charge of the conflict in controlling the regulatory regime which delivers exclusive and low cost consumer traffic to the Australia Post shops where the government also sells stationery, greeting cards and many other lines traditionally offered by independent newsagents.

The government is a very happy 100% shareholder of this retail driven business and seems to have no qualms that it is taking revenue from the struggling small business sector.

The government has double standards here. The argument it uses to support its sale of the remaining share of Telstra applies to the government owned Australia Post retail stores. The government has no business owning these and it ought to divest to individuals and small businesses as a matter of urgency.

I have no qualms with the Licenced Post Offices as they are owned and operated by small business people. My issue is with the government owned retail stores competing with newsagencies like mine and using their government ownership to provide an unfair advantage.

That’s a conflict of interest!

Rayma Creswell, CEO of the Australian Newsagents Federation was quoted in yesterday’s Australian Financial Review as saying “If you go into an Australia Post shop, you’ll see that the offerings they have are really computer consumables and telephony consumables, more than stationery, as we do.”

Ms Creswell is wrong in her assessment. In Government owned post offices around 40% of floor space is devoted to general stationery and another 20% devoted to greeting cards and related product. Less than 10% of floor space is given over to telephony product.

In three Post Offices I visited yesterday less than 5% of stationery lines were the computer consumables to which Ms Creswell refers.

It is disappointing that newsagents are so ignorantly represented on this matter. I am a member of the ANF and am frustrated at their lack of attention to the competition from Australia Post.

One only has to review the Australia Post annual report to understand the importance of the broad retail offering in Australia Post outlets.

Elsewhere in the article, Ms Creswell says the ANF represents 5,000 newsagents. The reality is that Australia has 4,600 newsagents (source: ANF Year Book) and of these around 1,000 are ANF members.

Australia Post is taking business from Australia’s independent newsagents by using the traffic generated by its stranglehold on postal items to sell traditional newsagent items such as pens, pencils, staples, paper, cards, paperclips and so on. This is our own government using the monopoly they control to take business from shops like mine. They have only been in this space for a short time compared to newsagents.

So much for their support for small business.