I met with a group of newsagents in Sydney yesterday and the issue of who owns the home delivery customer came up. It’s a question newsagents have had since newspaper distribution was deregulated in 1999.
Newsagents believe that a customer they convince to take on home delivery is theirs. Publishers believe that anyone receiving home delivery of their product is theirs – regardless of how the customer was acquired.
A lawyer friend told me today that in his view, the 1999 contracts are vague on this point.
It’s an issue right now because publishers want newsagents to pass on more data about home delivery customers. They want customer name, address and the days on which the customer gets their particular newspaper. In many cases this is data about customers the publishers have never heard of before, customers won by the newsagent’s own efforts.
My lawyer friend tells me that privacy laws come into play on this issue and that newsagents need to be very careful about what information they provide to publishers. He even suggested that newsagents need to write to their customers seeking permission before passing on any home delivery customer information.
All the legal mumbo jumbo aside, where else can a business acquire customers at their cost and then be required to provide sufficient details to their supplier (for no compensation) to enable the supplier to undertake direct contact and fulfillment if they wish.
The newspaer companies own the runs and territories and the newsagents are simply their delivery boys. Don’t be fooled to think newsagents own anything because it can be taken away tomorrow with no compensation. The companies can actively invade any territory they wish and the newsagent has no input whatsoever. In my territory alone Fairfax, nationwide and APN have directly targeted my customers and converted them to subscriptions using things like 10 weeks for $4.95 p/w for a 6 day delivery. I still invoice them and deal with their problems and I still have to get out of bed at 3am to deliver 7 days a weekwhat I miss out on is the connection between newsagent( the bloke who gets out of bed and throws papers) and customer (the people who used to know the delivery driver by first name and wave every now and then). Agreements and contracts are all one sided towards the publishers so again we own nothing, so be careful if you want to buy a territory, what are you buying?
The newspaer companies own the runs and territories and the newsagents are simply their delivery boys. Don’t be fooled to think newsagents own anything because it can be taken away tomorrow with no compensation. The companies can actively invade any territory they wish and the newsagent has no input whatsoever. In my territory alone Fairfax, nationwide and APN have directly targeted my customers and converted them to subscriptions using things like 10 weeks for $4.95 p/w for a 6 day delivery. I still invoice them and deal with their problems and I still have to get out of bed at 3am to deliver 7 days a weekwhat I miss out on is the connection between newsagent( the bloke who gets out of bed and throws papers) and customer (the people who used to know the delivery driver by first name and wave every now and then). Agreements and contracts are all one sided towards the publishers so again we own nothing, so be careful if you want to buy a territory, what are you buying?
Not only do we get invaded in “our” teritories by Nationwide, Fairfax et al and get to pick up the billing responsibility we also inherit customers previously placed on stop as non-payers. “No worries” says the area manager, “you won’t miss out as you still get paid by us” as he conveniently forgets about the component paid direct to us by the customer (in some cases 100%). I have to say that calls to customer service to decline a start (or restart) for such customers usually end in agreement but why do we have to go through the hassle and be made out to look like the bad guys. I lose money now on deliveries with little hope of ever breaking even so why do the newspaper companies make things worse with such actions. Surely a phone call to check the credentials of a potential customer wouldn’t be too much to ask.