The Guardian newspaper in the UK yesterday published an editorial about the future of the local newsagent in the UK. Here’s the start:
How did you last buy a newspaper? Scanned through the self-checkout at the supermarket? Added to the £20 of unleaded from the local petrol station? Our own circulation research suggests that only about half of readers will have bought Saturday’s Guardian from a newsagent (it’s more Monday to Friday).
Be sure to read the rest.
Newspaper publishers here and in the UK have played a role in newspapers being accessed in all these other outlets. They preferred mass access because they did not think people would seek out their product. In my view, publishers did not trust their own product.
Next, they played with the product, made the purchase be about DVDs, collector cards and the like.
But they are not to blame for the demise of the local newsagent in high street Britain. No, each retailer is responsible. We are accountable for our own situation. We have seen change coming for years and we have talked about it. Too many have wanted others to fix it for them. Some have denied – like the climate change deniers.
Our future is up to us now more than ever before.
Read the editorial in The Guardian.
My Newsagency of the Future sessions earlier this year were about these topics. The new sessions I ran last week expanded on the theme.
We are in the fight of our life. Before us we have wonderful opportunities which could lead to wonderful growth of our businesses.
What a depressing read that was — the
comments (51) after the read were more
depressing but that is there and this is
here and we don’t sell groceries and
alcohol etc here in Oz (not newsagencies
anyway).
I think the UK stores are like our 7/11’s
and SS’s so I don’t enjoy the comparison.
However, the writing is on the wall and we
urgently require diversification.
I was appalled at some of the customer
comments about “newsagents” (sic) meaning “newsagencies”.
Not happy reading but it just has to spur
us all on.
Leases are dictating the amounts of diversification we can attain – e.g. my lease states that I can’t have more than 18% of gifts in my mix. Stationery and
gifts and cards are our best markups so
I am concentrating on cards at present and have put in a great new range of John Sands cards called Papyrus which are beautiful (and expensive) and they have
walked out the door. We need to share
this sort of stuff with each other.
I’m not saying Papyrus would work in all
demographics but it is a very “discriminating” buyer’s card.
Anyone got anything to share?
ur
I will never deal with john sands.