Time Inc., the top U.S. magazine publisher, will cut 289 jobs from its estimated 11,300 workforce to slash costs as it invests more heavily in Internet properties. See Reuters for the whole story.
Time is not retreating from print. Rather, they are shifting resources to account for the greater contribution of their Internet businesses. Newsagents are not making similar business adjustments. While it is challenging to move a newsagency online, it <>em>is possible to refocus capital so that the business is not as reliant on sales of products which are moving online.
We need to question the amount of real-estate in our shops given to magazines, the location of the newspaper stand, the mix of stationery and how we package our services. As I mentioned in a post over the weekend, we are well served by habit based products. We are equally well served by products which enable us to add value in store such as copying, laminating, invitations and the like.
These considerations are opportunities for us to reinvent ourselves for these new times, just as Time is in the process of doing.