I have been involved discussions this week with magazine distribution stakeholders in two overseas countries about magazine supply and related IT standards. The discussions are providing an excellent insight into how others operate in this space which is complex and frustrating for newsagents here. In one case they are showing what is possible and in another they are showing what to avoid.
I am surprised at the lack of cross border dialogue between newsagent representatives on these topics. With newsagent associations working on a code of conduct at the present with magazine distributors, I would have thought that cross border research would be on the agenda.
There is no outcome yet, just good shared information which is helping to guide strategies in a couple of areas.
Hi Mark
Don’t you think that the main reason for this isolation is that:
Publishers like to keep retailers and distributors ‘in their own little boxes’.
Trade associations are run by people who are only worried about their immedate fee base and they see little need to look outside their own market place for best practice elsewhere in the world.
From my 20 months in the blogosphere it is abundantly clear that there are more great ideas outside the UK revealed daily than within.
Keep at it.
Steve