Ash Long, Editor of Melbourne Observer, is an active supporter of newsagents in the pages of his newspaper. He also consults when making decisions, such as on cover price, that could impact us.
Earlier this week Ash shared a story with me about a potential Melbourne Observer advertiser and a newsagent that bears sharing. In Ash’s words…
I am a very careful reader of your blog, and take in every point that is made about how publishers need to support newsagents. Within our small business, we do the best we can, with newsagents listings in-paper and online, and “talking up” the newsagency channel as often as we can in the paper.
We had an occasion today where we had a potential advertiser wanted to see our newspaper first hand, which we encourage. We like our advertisers to make an informed decision. Our customer, at our invitation, went across the road from their shop to their local newsagent.
It disappoints me that our potential advertiser said that the newsagent “talked down” our product. Now, the newsagent is quite at liberty to make any comments on whatever subject they want. But do they realise they talked themselves out of a small regular sale, and lost us a sale too?
You often say that retail is theatre. I agree. Theatre involves delivering our “lines” to customers. These should always be positive lines to build sales. Casual, thoughtless commentary slowly kills the newsagent’s own business, paper by paper.
I am happy for you to relate this experience on the blog. You may use my name and that of the Melbourne Observer should you choose, but I would prefer that the newsagent not be identified.
My own experience is that the Melbourne Observer attracts loyal readers, readers who can be leveraged in to purchasing other products.
It would be interesting to know in what contect the newsagent talked down the product.
Was it in reference to the content? Was it in a comparative context to other publications? Was it in relation to sales performance?
If the newsagents was asked specific questions about the publication it would be unethical to lie.
A newspaper company lost a single sale because of a newsagent . WOW. And how many sales have been lost because newspaper company’s,take sales,away from newsagents from either direct supplies or going online …..