Suppliers and others involved with Australian newsagents are calling for greater compliance in terms of shop presentation, services, operational standards etc. They see the lack of compliance as a key problem for the channel and talk as if fixing this will deliver a bright future for Australia’s 4,600 newsagents.
I am not sure if I agree with this. First up newsagents need to want to be compliant. This will only happen if they see a benefit. This will only happen if they (all) are businesslike in running their business. Also, newsagents need to have something to be compliant about.
From a supplier perspective compliance is more about carrying a certain range and displaying their product in a consistent way. Shackling all newsagents in this way will hold some back. It does not make sense, for example, for newsagents to spend $4,000 on a newspaper display stand for one part of their shop when their current (non compliant) retail strategy is delivering double digit growth.
Before we consider compliance I think our efforts would be better spent on understanding what consumers think about newsagencies today and researching what products we will have to offer in our stores in five and ten years time.
Right now our core traffic generator products in order of traffic volume are newspapers, lotteries, magazines, greeting cards and stationery. (For some cigarettes will be in there too.) What changes will occur with newspapers, lotteries and magazines in the next five and ten years which we need to consider in developing our retail story from today on? This is the question we should be drawing attention to.
Creating a model newsagency now, while interesting, will only be of value if it reflects current consumer research and considered predictions about what our retail network needs to look like in five and ten years. And then such a model newsagency needs to be underscored by a supply paradigm and operational model which is economically sustainable and which is attractive to newsagents.
Our businesses are shackled with too many pre deregulation rules and it is only once these are released that more newsagents will become businesslike.