I served a customer on Saturday who wanted to pay an Optus bill. On advising her that we no longer processing bill payment because of the collapse of Bill Express and that she could pay the bill at Australia Post opposite us, she folded the bill, put it in her bag and said she hated Australia Post. Time spent in the queue at Australia Post can do that to you.
If the executives behind Bill Express had not botched the business, bill payment could have been viable for newsagents.
Mark,
We have a similar issue, however we are in an area which has the oldest median age in Aust (commonly known as Gods Waiting Room).
The nearest Post Office is 3-4kms away and many of our customers simply cannot get in there.
We have to go there around 3 times a week.
We have considered various ways to assist, such as accpeting payments by cheque or setting up a seperate account and using BPay (and charging a fee per payment either way).
We estimate there would be around 100 – 200 per week we could process enabling any bill with a BPay code to be processed…
I dont know what the legalities are, but would be worth opening a debate on the merits or otherwise.
Also, given the technology today how hard is it to develop the software to read any barcode and therefore process any payment through for a fee??? I beleive people would be more than happy to pay for convenience
Cheers
Peter
Peter, I understand your situation and hope that you can do something about it, but I also like sending people back to Australia Post so people can compare the service, which as Mark pointed out above, most people hate the long queue. People like newsagents more I think.
Hi Michael,
Agree and yes they do like the newagent better… In fact I would go so far to say that the ‘local’ newagent has replaced the ‘old’ Bank Manager as the trusted advisor. Obviously a different relationship in the larger shopping centres.
However, we can keep sending them to Aust Post and yes they hate it… However, if we can generate a revenue stream and stop them going to Aust Post then we should capitalise on this.
At our shop we are a Post Point Agent, are getting Western Union in and about to install Post Boxes so essentually they only gap in the ‘core’ offering is bill payment.
We can keep sending them to Aust Post for this so they can experience the service difference, however everyone knows the service is poor so if we can fill the gap and generate a passive revenue stream is this not a win – win…
Cheers
Peter
I agree, but I’d like to make as much on stamps as they do seeing they are now stocking more stationery and other lines that they have “pinched” of us.
The selling of stamps though creates the problem of people flocking to us for the service and convenience but not all newsagents have post points so customers will exept all newsagents to have stamps once they have bought them from an agent.
This will also confuse our indentity in some ways I believe.
I have watched the snail paced queues in post offices and obviously participated in this taxpayer funded debacle but one thing that really became obvious – a clear majority of this captured audience did not bother to browse or select any of the taxpayer funded, heavily discounted stationery items. It is clear that the mindset of auspost customers is to get in and get out – customer service at newsagencies by tradition are people focussed and stand head and shoulders over the indifference of most auspost outlets.
the arrogance of aus post to not even provide 1% commission on the sale of stamps to newsagents reinforces our stand to carry minimal stamps and direct customers to the post office and queue like everyone else
Jack,
Aus post sells stamps with a resellers dscount (albeit a very small one) – 6% I believe.
Is that enough for waiting in the queue?
A resellers licence costs $330.00 pa.
Thats a lot of .55c stamps @6%
10,000 of the top of my head. If they were fair with us and gave us maybe 15% we could lesson the load for them and provide another service?
The 6% won’t cover the cost of selling the stamps (and other postal products), but you should be able to turn over more than enough to cover the $330.
Im not defending Aus Post, but what we forget is that there is little profit in the stamps for them. From memory federal legislation requires them to keep postage as low as is economically possible. If they start pawning off stamps to other retailers at higher margins then the cost of postage could go up.
Jarryd, there is also time waiting in line, driving down there if you have to, disgruntled customers because you do know how much a 300g parcel costs to send to Vladavostock etc.
I know your not defending them but maybe postage has to go up??? Petrol prices have skyrocketed but the stamps have stayed the same.
We have a LPO in our Newsagency and I can honestly say I get a better mark up from stationary from GNS than Aussie Post.
About six months ago someone here suggested bookmarking the payment webpages of the major billers, and paying Mavis’s bill with your own credit card to collect rewards points. In God’s Waiting Room this might be good for a return flight to Hawaii each year. Anyone have experience actually doing this? (Can’t be less rewarding than Bill Express.)
It is satisfying as a newsagent to help the older customers. They can be more loyal than regular customers, and more appreciative.
I love the fact that AP have no customer service. It feeds into my business beautifully and I capitalise on it every way I can.
This afternoon I sold a $250 mobile phone to a very satisfied customer who simply wanted to speak to someone about the product and be heard about what he was after. After doing so for just five minutes he bought the phone and could not have been happier. Whilst processing the payment he told me how he had been to our local post office, waited in line for five minutes only to be told they were too busy and would try to find someone “out the back” to come and see if they could help. He saw the staff out the back suddenly scuttle off when the clerk said this and so he just assumed they didn’t really want his business. He came to our shop and was totally satisfied with the chat and the service and thanked me profusely. If I can do it anyone can and whilst it doesn’t always result in a sale in most cases it does or may lead to one further down the track.
I am very grateful AP suck at customer service as they are doing me a huge favour and I am confident that they will keep up the good work!
Intereseting how it is both difficult and expensive to become a Post Point when there is a Post Office near someone that wants to sell stamps yet they have no qualms about selling a raft of items (stationery, books, gifts etc) that are completely outside their charter and fundamental purpose of providing a postal service with sub zero regard for other small businesses.
FYI
Visited Officeworks in Melbourne (Preston) and they are now selling stamps.
The ladies behind the counter had bright red badges promoting it. I asked the lady why and she said that people just kept asking for them because when people did huge mailouts they purchased A4 paper, envelopes and now they closed the loop with also providing the stamps.
Pull your fingers out Newsagents, get with the program waiting for 40% plus commissions which are bullshit. You live in a deregulated market. Be a retailer not a money grabber and you may survive. We have too many newsagents wanting an income that they do not deserve. natural attrition will take care of this
Stamps are a dying area within retail. If you want to offer stamps as purely a customer service then you can justify the low profit, but as with Mobile recharge the profit is that low that you need to turn over huge amounts of stock to make any kind of money.
UNREAL,
You seem like an old school newsagent that puts customer service above all else including profits and good luck to you, I hope you have made your money in the past and can afford to battle on but the bottom line is if any newsagents go broke then no one else cares and don’t expect anyone else to bail you out like they do with the big boys. Newsagents are retail shops and as such need to be profit focused first and last and this means cutting low profit lines and focusing in stock that will increase profits. In the age of internet and Mobile text, letters and stamps are and will continue to decrease, so why flog a dead horse. We offer individual stamps to customers that purchase a greeting card or other stock but not as a stand alone purchase
With bulk stamps you can buy a franking machine online for next to nothing and you get a discount per letter sent, so why would you continue to stamp large volumes.
Just thought I would have a ringaround to various friends, all female, all in their late 30’s early 40’s, my age with a question, when was the last time you went to a post office? Interestingly, mine was last Christmas for Christmas stamps, so for me almost 12 months, I pay all my bills on the internet, I even pay my childrens pocket money into their accounts on the internet the Australia Post business model is dead and buried. Snail mail has been replaced by the internet.
I have looked at the comments above and have experienced the same…Bill Payment.
Like most I have seen customers come and go because we did not offer bill payment.
So we designed a page on our web site to do just that “Bill Paying”
We have a lot of improving to do but, customers now come in and pay their bills and tell their friends & family…in 2 weeks or so we have processed over 40 bills at the cost to us of paying these bills like I pay all our bills…on-line.
We will over come the expence, I have approached our bank and with data they will assess our bank fees for on-line payments, also we have put together an e-mail to all local businesses where 1 day this may generate income by advertising their particular customer product,,,they will have to offer a discount to the customer.
How many PO closed recently….147 or more
Kim.