Merry Christmas and thanks Fairfax. More than 75% of calls at my software company this week have been from newsagents asking how to handle bumper editions for The Age, Sydney Morning Herald and Australian Financial Review. Fairfax didn’t tell us about the bumper editions – they rarely do. We found out from newsagents last week, did further research and published an advice sheet by mail, fax, email and on our website. Because of the time of the year and lack of forward advice from Fairfax, newsagents are calling us with many questions. It’s frustrating being hammered with hundreds of calls every day this week for something which has nothing to do with us. The software handles it beautifully if our simple point-form instructions.
Forget the bumber issue, thanks fairfax for causing newsagents grief as far as friday customers blowing up that they have to pay $2.20 for a normally $1.20 issue and then losing saturday sales because the issue contains 99% yesterday’s news. The extra staff hours it now takes to put 2 days of inserts in is also a headache newsagents don’t need over the silly season. I hope all at fairfax sleep well over the weekend and maybe wake up after christmas with santa delivering a bit of common sense to all .