Despite the recent increases in newspaper home delivery fees, I have heard from newsagents contemplating giving up their newspaper distribution runs. In a couple of cases I have looked at this week, the new fees still do not get the run to a break-even point.
I have advised several newsagents recently consider not giving up their runs since in their particular circumstances they would most likely miss the customer traffic and revenue from their lucrative sub agent business.
While the home delivery side of a newspaper run may be loss-making, in-store traffic to pay accounts and otherwise engage in run related activity and or sub agent business can make the overall distribution business profitable or least break even.
The home delivery database can be used to drive traffic through email and print newsletters as some newsagents already do with tremendous success.
Five or six reasonable size sub agents, nurtured and cultivated, can provide an excellent return for the time invested.
It is important to carefully do the numbers before giving up the distribution business. Have them checked over to ensure that you have covered all bases in your analysis. It may be that keeping the run is better for the business. You’d want to find this out before you make the move.
I know I have written here before about the downside of newspaper home delivery. My point with this post is to reinforce that each newsagency is different and that care needs to be taken to assess all factors before you make the decision for your business. As one newsagent has found out recently, a year after giving up the run, poor research can lead to a decision which hurts the business.
About 8 months ago i took over a run from another newsagent which involved aboutr 8 subbys with it and a few extra home deliverys . the subbys where the key to me taking over this contract . we went from a run that just made ends meets to a run that actually makes money now , not so much from home delivery but the subbys are great to deal with and are slowly growing to a point where one of them is doing better sales in some magazines and papers than i do .
why is it that news limited put millions into the melbourne storm and cannot pay a real delivery fee? who are the biggest cheats?
And what professional circulation manager formally provides an unbiased and uncritical ‘analysis’ of a counter-study regarding newspaper delivery OHS issues without providing details, or better still, the ‘report’ proper? Good lord, even its title would be a baby step towards credibility, let alone making bona fide citations!
To state very clearly that this undoubtedly highly esteemed researcher could find no scientific basis for the report he was seeking to discredit (Nery) means nothing whatsoever if the manager himself is prepared to neither share the document, nor back up his statements with citations. If it were my intellectual property being abused in this way, I’d be really disappointed.
Copping personal pejorative comments from this manager over this issue in the recent past is one thing, but the way this announcement was made really takes the cake. At the very least attach the report. :-s
It’s a waste of our valuable time to be forced to request it. And learning that it won’t be available to us for a few days, apparently, says even less about where News is coming from in terms of its concern for its agents. I seriously doubt they’ve done themselves any PR favours here.
Wow. I’m gobsmacked. How stupid a bunch of sheeple are we deemed to be, to be treated with such contempt and utter disrespect? Wow.
Y & G
Presumably, you are referring to the report released by News Ltd today stating that papers up to 1.3kg are safe to deliver as long as its no more than 800 papers in 2.5 hours? and that if anyone does injure themselves delivering papers it is entirely the newsagent owners responsibility?
Unbelievable really.
This BS is the same as Gillard’s $15 million
rort for an ex banker to investigate the school building debacle. You know she will require him to provide a report that will make the Gvt look good. Same here….serious issue..planned outcome, glossing over the facts.
Shanyne, I think it would have been a bit less galling had the report been released to support the claims.
But no. We have no access to the report (can’t google what has no title,even), only extrapolated agenda-driven bites.
In other words, it’s a directive and no discussion will be entered into.
I have always found OHAS an unsolvable riddle as a gift to lawyers to interpret it any way they want, and that is precisely what News Ltd has dished up to us.
Dont you just love when these “IMPORTANT PLEASE READ” documents appear on Friday afternoons.
And, hey News how bout some extra cash to pay for extra drivers.