The inevitable has happened with the folks behind Melway, Sydway, Brisway street directories promoting their Satnav offer, predictably called Navway, in a flyer (see photo) inserted in their directories. This move coupled with the falling prices for Navman, Tom Tom and other Satnav devices means the old street directory is, well, old.
While some newsagents will be angry that they are being used to promote a product to be purchased elsewhere and even remove the Navway flyers in the street directories, it is more important we focus our attention on what we replace street directories with next Father’s Day and Christmas. Right now I cannot think of a killer single product. Instead, I’d look at creating a more complete male gift package – a bit like you see at Myer and David Jones around Father’s Day time. But something which can be prepackaged, brought in just for the season and works as an impulse purchase.
It is equally important we are careful with order quantities since it will take longer to sell stock and larger retailers are likely to discount more heavily.
Street Directories have been good to newsagents. The have provided a good male gift. Unless we get into the Satnav space, the directory business is downhill from here.
Isn’t one of the problems of satnav’s the same as street maps and road atlas, they go out of date. There is also the problem of accuracy as there is a road in my village that is one way and the satnav’s suggested routes send people up it the wrong way.
People like paper based maps, they can see a larger area than just the small screen so I don’t think that your street guide is dead yet, but clearly satnav’s have their place until the Americans turn off the satellites!
Steve,
Most satelite navigation systems can be easily updated over the net. With the accuracy problem, this is also the case with paper based maps. It will depend on the source of the mapping data that the system uses.
There is also the option of free internet map services such as Whereis or Google Maps (which was mentioned by Graeme in a previous post). These can be printed at an A4 page size and can even include a selected route.
While i agree that the street guide is not dead yet, i think we can say it has been diagnosed with a life threating disease … satnav syndrome.
I am not saying directories are dead, just rapidly fading. They will not be the killer sale they used to be. The post was more of a “heads up”. mark