Newsagents have been struggling in partnership with Network Services for two years in the development of a magazine subscription distribution service.
Poor IT links between Network and Newsagents is costing newsagencies like mine more than $800 a month in product sorting costs, thereby eliminating profit from the venture.
Newsagents have been a late entry into this space, Australia Post having dominated magazine subscription delivery for decades. The Australia Post advantage is control of the network from warehouse to letterbox which in turn allows it to impose more discipline on publishers.
Newsagents, at the end of the food chain in their fledgling partnership with Network Services are making too little from a technically and (currently) organisationally challenged service.
Newsagents want the distribution program to work since it connects well with their magazine retail business and keeps them in the supply chain loop so to speak.
My sense is that unless there are major infrastructure improvements from the network end in the next three months the service will fail and subscription deliveries will be lost to newsagents.