A colleague told me a few days ago that they are giving up their newspaper home delivery business because of heavy newspapers. In this family run business the husband delivers the newspapers and has done for years.
OH&S standards require that they use two drivers to handle the run. Unfortunately, delivery fees – controlled by publishers – do not provide sufficient revenue to cover the cost of two drivers. The husband has injured his shoulder and cannot continue. No one wants to buy the run so they will give it up.
The question is what has caused this? Is it overweight newspapers – especially the weekend newspapers which often weight more than 1kg? Is it the economics of home delivery driving newsagents to overwork rather than take a bigger loss by employing more distribution staff? Are the many cheap subscription offers the cause – driving newsagent return down in some areas?
This is a serious problem for city based newsagents with fewer than 500 daily home deliveries for it is those under this number who appear to be most economically challenged by the current delivery fee structure. I say city based because in the country there are mechanisms which can lead to delivery pricing based on cost of service.
Mark,
Aren’t the mechanisms for the country only applicable for delivery to areas out of a town centre or a certain distance from the newsagent?
We have this in place for our ‘country mail run’. People who live out of the immediate surrounding areas have their newspapers delivered by contractors that work through Australia Post.
While this is available for these people i am not aware of it being available for those that are closer.
On the issue of overweight newspaper … one of the newspapers the other weekend actually broke the hot wire on the wrapping machine 3 times in the one morning because it was too big.
The issue of OH&S in relation to the delivery of overwieght newspapers should be a priority for our representative bodies. Publishers should not be able to print an issue over a certain weight if they intend it to be delivered.
Jarryd I have heard of a town based rural newsagent being approved to increase delivery fees as long as the customers agreed first. While the publisher may not want this known, they did agree.
While the issue of fat newspapers needs urgent attention from Fairfax and News, it is in their interests to ignore it as long as possible as the remedy will cost them money.