Steve is a village Sub Postmaster and with his wife runs a village shop and post office in Sussex, England. He blogs about this and the changing face of retail in the UK at his excellent blog, Village Counter Talk. This is a must read for newsagents.
It is wonderful to find a newspaper and magazine retailer across the other side of the world writing about many topics covered here. I am especially interested in his posts about the weight of newspapers. Australian distribution newsagents would do well to read his comments – especially the fee scale for inserts and how some publishers and advertisers stay inside the trigger point weight for inserts.
Steve posted some comments at my blog yesterday which will resonate with Australian newsagents:
I am a news & magazine retailer trading in West Sussex, England. You identify one of my great frustrations with our trade, that is the wholesalers and publishers hold the whip hand and given a chance stuff what ever they like out to us retailers.
Reading Steve’s blog, it soon become apparent that at our collective independent end of the newspaper and magazine supply chain we have common problems regardless of location. The solution lives on a strong collusive stance which puts our businesses first.