B&T is reporting this afternoon that Australia Post is standing firm on its price increase (3.6% for magazines) despite publisher and printer representations yesterday. magazine publishers ought to engage with newsagents on a hybrid model which does not use Australia Post. Make newsagencies the collection point. The consumer saves on the cover price and we benefit from the traffic. While this will not suit every subscriber, it would be worth running a pilot.
While I mentioned this a couple of days ago, here is more information on how this could work:
- Publishers send newsagents subscription copies of magazines for collection by customers. These are sent with existing magazine deliveries.
- Subscription copies are labelled with customer details and placed securely with other putaways.
- The customer is advised by text message that the subscription is ready to be collected once it arrives in-store.
- When a customer collects their subscription, this is scanned and the publisher advised that collection has been successful.
- At any point in time the publisher or the newsagent could see what is yet to be collected.
- Newsagents offer to extend the subsccription as it nears its end, take payment and provide details to the publisher – to their standards.
- Newsagents offer to sell subscriptions to new customers for this service for an agreed fee of the annual subscription.
I’d see a collect subscription costing more because of the additional services provided.
Australia Post has a monopoly. 3.6% this year, who knows what next year. Publishers and newsagents working together could come up with a solution which benefits both sides. However, for it to work, there needs to be no middleman between publishers and newsagents taking a clip.