Jumbo Corporation and Yahoo!7 have announced an alliance to bring lottery products to the Yahoo platform. Yahoo!7 Lotto, as it is called, is a very interesting move – especially in the light of the report two weeks ago that the Yahoo!7 partnership is planning to get into the free classifieds space.
Lottery products are important traffic generators for newsagents. Our bricks and mortar network has no connect with the expanding online offerings – except in Queensland where the agents association negotiated a small trail commission for online customers who purchase their card in a retail outlet.
Newsagents need to watch for a migration of lottery sales online and make capital investment decisions accordingly.
Lotteries is one of the few categories I don’t believe will transition online on a significant scale.
Of the countries that offer the online sale of lotteries I believe the highest is a European country (i apposogise i can’t remember which) that has extremely cold weather and snow for a significant portion of the year … people heve less of a tendancy to go outside. Even the online share of lottery there is not massive.
There are still a lot of barriers for online lottery products, some of which are going to take a very long time to overcome, if they are overcome at all.
Mark & all other newsagents who read this board, I’ve said this before but, when the people that staff lotto counters in newsagencies, they must not ! give funny looks/frowns or make remarks on a punters betting scheme. I’ve stopped buying in person because of this & now purchase online. It was getting just too much when betting with large system entries.
John;
I would welcome your business to Beechworth. We treat our customers with the utmost respect, regardless of how much they wish to spend. I would hope all outlets do the same.
Vaughan Lawrence
Beechworth Newsagency