Circulation departments at Fairfax are confused about the company’s plans for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age over Christmas / New Year. People from Tower Systems have made eight calls to Fairfax in pursuit of consistent advice on their plans. The original advice supplied to newsagents indicated that there were several bumper editions for the SMH and The Age. Several Fairfaax circulation people we spoke with did not know anything about the plans.
The Tower Systems research has uncovered that there are no bumper editions – in the sense of what bumper editions have come to mean in Australia. The only change is a temporary price increase to the price of the Friday paper, to the Saturday paper price. This will lead to anger from both home delivery customer and full freight home delivery customer who will be forced to pay the higher price on the Friday.
Fairfax will complain about this blog post saying here I am criticising them unfairly again. The reality is that Fairfax had it is its capacity to resolve these issues through consistent professional advice provided weeks in advance of any change.
Here’s a brainwave for Fairfax… how about just publishing the normal newspapers on the normal days.. Friday’s paper on Friday, Saturday’s on Saturday.. problem solved??
Seems to work for the News Ltd papers
Mark…what do you consider to be “bumper editions” as we have come to know them? The Age’s correspondence clearly stipulates they are putting out two bumper editions over two consecutive weekends. It doesn’t marry up with your Tower Systems research. I’m confused with what they are telling us and what you are telling us.
Ted, This is where it gets messy. What they have published and what they have advised on the phone appears to be different. The Tower advice will be modified if necessary. Mark
Hi Ted,
The Original advice we received 11th of December indicated a Bumper Edition.
Bumper Editions in the past have been where you deliver both parts of the paper (eg A1 & A2) to customers on Friday then deliver an just the updated main section on Saturday to the customers who received it on Friday.
The Saturday only customers then have to be delivered both sections.
However this year it’s different. The customer will receive the paper on both days and the only difference is that they will be charged the Saturday price on Friday. The advice Tower issued yesterday reflects this.
Our issue is that this was not clearly communicated by Fairfax to either Tower or Newsagents.
I am not going to complain there being just one section of paper for the bumper editions this Christmas.
Makes it easier to handle for delivery of just one section anyway.
My only issue with holiday bumpers is the price increase for Friday’s edition, having to cope with customer abuse year after year about the price.
Also having to be vigilant about people just dropping their money and heading off quickly, without you having time to count the change.
We simply cannot afford the $1 mistake.
So I make a huge sign about the price but still people are store-blind.
I’ve found the only way to prevent loss is to place the sign on top of the paper stack, so punter has to physicallylift the sign to get a paper.
Hi newsagents, I’m pretty experienced at watching press with 2 years form at Media Monitors years back now, and 5 years distribution for suburban freebies (Hub, News, Bondi View). Even paper boy days is real experience (30 years back now).
The normal papers on the day reads good to me. I read today’s bumper Friday edition and glad I got it free at the local library – because I just ‘know’ it will be very similar to Saturday here in Sydney with front section a little adjusted for news content but same Good Weekend and classified.
My working theory is that paper and printing is a lower order cost input compared to say journalists etc. Do they really make more money from an essentially same print run both days? Do they want to catch holiday leavers? There is something essentially lazy going on here and my guess it cuts costs (but not for newsagents given the bulk on both days, no doubt).
Tom you are right to call thiss lazy. These bumper editions treat customers like fools and show little care for the reputation of the product.
mark
Dictionary definition of “bumper” – extraordinarily large.
So how come The Age is smaller on these days? I see News Limited doesn’t do so-called Bumper editions, there should be a lesson there for Fairfax!
The only ones going to make more money out of the farcical ‘bumper edition’ are Fairfax. Smaller newspaper, less bundles, increased price, less overheads. How can you justify charging $2.40 on Friday for a normal Age?
We are still the bunnies as we still only make 25%. I would jump through hoops if Fairfax decided to increase the commission rate to 35% for these rip off editions.
hmmmm, we can only dream.
Vaughan smaller papers less bundles increased price seem good to me more net profit and thats what i am here for. I think any daily paper should be a minimum of $2.00 as i dont think paers are a price sensitive as some people believe. cheers andy
Andy,
The trends in retation to newspaper price increases and subsequent drop in sales are have been shown many times. I believe some of the American examples are the best.
Even when our local newspaper increased the cover price by only 10c we saw a drop in sales.
In an age where the concept of free information is clearly becoming the benchmark, newspapers are boud to be more price sensitive than ever.