While it was terrific to see The Age using Twitter to promote their Good Bar Guide, a disconnect in their distribution system saw not all newsagents with the title. Shoppers see newsagents as newsagents. They don’t know if they are retail only and relying on a commercial distribution newsagent to support their publisher supplier by placing a product in the newsagent outlets they supply.
I did not get the Good Bar Guid yet shoppers see my business as a newsagency.
I wish for a distribution system which enables me to access supply of newspaper related product from elsewhere. I have an account with IPS, why not use IPS for this type of title?
A distribution newsagent making petty decisions in an effort to block or harm my business also lets down their supplier and consumers. Dumb.
It’s not only distribution newsagents who are making petty decisions on lack of supply of this type of product – the moronic responses and excuses coming from The Age on this and similar issues defy logic.
Over half our Age sales on a Friday and the weekend come from tourists, all looking for the previously supplied Melbourne Magazine, Domain and the careers section which for some yet to be explained reason have been removed from country supplies.
No-one at The Age can offer a legit reason as to why this has happened but I suppose when you are captaining a sinking ship the last thing on your mind is the passengers!
We never received The Age Bar Guide either and as a Retail / Distribution Newsagency we received copies for Coles and all 7 Eleven Stores we service yet there were none for us.
Well said Jim, I am in complete agreement with what you have said, and in the same situation.
The Age has a very warped picture of Victoria in it’s head !!!
Printed matter is NOT dead, there is a HUGE opportunity out there for a savvy Melbourne/Victorian based newspaper to move onto the space, there are customers STARVING out here for a decent newspaper !!!