While newspaper publishers increase their focus online, as seen in acquisitions and at industry conferences, most Australian newsagents remain oblivious to this. Relatively strong newspaper, lottery and magazine sales shield newsagents from a global trend which will impact their businesses. Newsagents continue to focus on macro issues and ignore the global challenge of online.
Ideally, I’d like to see newspaper and magazine publishers brief newsagents about their online strategy. I am not talking about revealing secret plans, but more of a briefing on trends – so that newsagents are encouraged to evolve their businesses. Such a briefing from a publisher is more likely to gain newsagent attention. However, I doubt any publisher would want to provide such a briefing as they would fear an outcome of newsagents diluting attention to their product.
In my own shops we remain aggressive in pursuing newspaper and magazine sales. We are also developing additional revenue generators so that we will be less affected by a drop in one or more product categories. We are also embracing trends as they affect us. For example, with computer magazine sales collapsing, we are halving the space we provide for this category of magazines.
The challenge of online is the only issue newsagents should be discussing at their conferences this year and it would be helpful is publishers would drop their guard enough to encourage a look at the horizon by newsagents.