Newspaper publishers like their product to be displayed in the best way possible. While they allow supermarkets and petrol and convenience outlets to determine which this may mean, they ‘require’ newsagents to follow strict merchandising rules. For example, the new newspaper display module newsagents in Victoria are being ‘encouraged’ to consider have a price of between $2,500 and $3,500.
A better approach would be to focus on performance. Newsagents achieving above industry average sales growth ought to be left alone while those below average ought to be visited and their display evaluated.
The argument that the publishers want a common standard across the newsagent channel for the display of their product fail when you consider that they have pushed their product over recent years into all manner of retail outlets and thereby eliminating the common merchandising approach which existed until the 1990s.
If the push for the new display unit is successful it will be an example of unfair treatment of small business newsagents versus the might supermarkets and other national retail groups competing with newsagents for newspaper sales.