I have a fax from The Age advising of a trial whereby they are promoting The Age to cafe owners for reading copies of the newspaper for their patrons. I have a couple of problems with this: it will convert some existing full price newsagent customers into discount customers (with newsagents making 33% less on the transaction); and, it will lose some sales since customers purchase a newspaper to browse in a cafe.
I appreciate that Fairfax needs to experiment in an effort to boost readership but to do so without consultation with its distribution partners (newsagents) and to the detriment of its existing retail partners is, in my view , poor form.
Fairfax continues to ignore excellent opportunities for increasing sales in newsagencies. Better posters; traffic area product displays; reward for sales growth and removing retail newsagent rules would each do more for sales and readership than this cafe campaign.