The newsagent channel must move beyond its self-destructive petty bickering and fear of governmental collusion roadblocks and adopt a program that reduces the display rack overcrowding conditions that are plaguing the newsagencies. Nothing less than the future of the newsagency channel is at stake. Newsagents: get off your collective duffs and start doing something.
These are not my words. They are from the closing paragraph of an article by Baird Davis which I have quoted here previously. I have substituted references to publishers and newsstands with newsagents – so it speaks to the Australian audience.
Davis’ emotive pitch to publishers in these words, as originally written, is as relevant to newsagents.
We MUST be able to collude to fairly represent our asset otherwise our individual ownership will work against us. We compete with national chains which can act as one and this is why they succeed in controlling the magazines they carry.
One alternative which could possibly get around collusion concerns is that newsagents sub-let the magazine space in our stores to a newsagent owned entity which then negotiates with magazine distributors and or publishers as appropriate. It would have commercial control over newsagent magazine real-estate and would be negotiating on its behalf. I’m sure lawyers would have issues with this but it’s worth investigating.
We have to do something if we are to fix the supply model. In Townsville yesterday as in Newcastle last week and Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney the week before that – newsagents are hurting financially as a result of oversupply, undersupply and poor management of the returns process.