Following my announcement here on Monday that Tatts has commenced a trial with Coles selling lottery tickets in petrol outlets, NANA, the NSA / ACT newsagents association has launched a fighting fund, asking newsagents for money. The fighting fund will be: tasked to combat the very real threat of unfair competition, arrest the rate of the loss of retail customers going on-line, block any misuse of market power, negotiate a new win-win business and contractual arrangement with Tatts Lotteries, as well as the future legislative framework of who can and cannot operate lottery terminals with the NSW State Parliament.
This is a national issue and should be tackled uniformly by the ANF and the lottery agents association working together. The last thing any association shold be asking for right now is more money from newsagents.
The associations should have seen this coming – ever since 7-Eleven put lotteries into petrol following their takeover of Mobil. Indeed, they should have started lobbying back then.
Newsagents facing lottery refits right now are the ones who should be most concerned as this Tatts move goes to the value they can derive from the capital investment Tatts is asking them to make.
no $$ from me sorry.
government at the moment is happy to get the best deal for the consumer only, with no regard to anyone else in the chain.
this is most evident in $1 milk… joe blogs the voter can save $$, his cost of living is reduced, so he will vote for me. I don’t think they forget about the farmer, its just that they don’t care.
If the consumer can get Lotto, newspapers, mags all in the one shop… they think they are making their life easier. and to a lesser extent, more revenue from tax on lottery sales, to hell with the small retail business.
coles and wollies are winning market share, and keep hunting for more.
good luck to the large legal firms who secure NANA and Tatts as their clients, it’s money for jam
I would be reviewing any future lease contract.With no exclusivity on permitted use i’d be wanting a get out clause if the supermarkets were to sell lottery products.
The best course of action for newsagents with lotteries is a complain to the ACCC, focusing on supermarket dominance – an issue of concern to the relatively new ACCC Chair.
If I were in a shopping centre I’d be investigating the possibility of getting an exclusivity clause, or some form of restriction on distance to the nearest agent, in my lease for lotteries.
And I agree Mark, the new chair of the ACCC has show great interest in pursuing Coles and Woolworths. Making the case the many small businesses would struggle without lotteries and that Coles and Woolworths being allowed to take on that service would result the closure of many newsagents or a significantly diminished capacity to compete in the market. Both outcomes would significantly lessen competition.
History may prove me wrong but I not sure if the big supermarkets are the real enemy here. As my Golden Casket territory manager once related, Tatts love the newsagency arrangement because they can control a group of small independent operators.
The real enemy lies within. If we have a look at who is the new CEO of Tatts and his past we may have a better understanding.
Robbie Cook has recently moved to Tatts as CEO. He originally came from Tatts and moved to WOTIF. Here he spent the last few years as CEO. Anyone who knows WOTIF will recognise this as an internet based booking system. Robbie has spent his time at WOTIF honing his skills in the digital world. In a article in the Fin Review last month it was suggested that Tatts could add between six and eight percent to their bottom line by moving online. This is significant for Tatts as they are struggling to find ways to grow their earnings.
My fear is that as Tatts develop their digital platform over the next few years we may see a quantum leap of people playing lotto via their mobile phones and ipads.
In a email from QNF on Friday they mentioned that a mobile APP has already been developed for lotto produces.
While we should put pressure on the ACCC to curb Woolies and Coles, our resources should also be directed politically to limit gambling online. This has seemed to have some success in the recent Robbie Waterhouse saga.
Not sure what angle we can use. I’ll throw that open to suggestions and debate if anyone is interested.
Gary, I mention the supermarkets and the ACCC as, today – right now, the ACCC is engaged against them. This gives us an open door through which to prosecute this issue. We have no similar avenue through which to pursue Tatts over their online push.
Today, Tatts is online direct and through Ozlotteries – and both are doing very well. I have been speaking about this with newsagents for the last four years and sharing news of their growth.
Online gambling via iPhones and similar devices in available overseas. The real game changer will come when instant scratch tickets are available. The technology exists today and I have shown off scratch games on my phone for a couple of years. Right now, they are not live with cash winnings. But that will change. Tatts needs to be a player here. They have no choice.
Online is where the real Tatts focus will be, as it should be. Their obligation is to their shareholders. They must move online. They must bring scratch ticket games to the iPhone. They must move away from the less efficient retail network. Okay, move may may not be the right phrase. They must chase the consumer and the consumer is already well and truly online, especially for entertainment products like lottery products.
The world has changed, how, when and where people shop has changed. The online play with and for gambling has changed.
While I don’t want to come off like this is an I told you so situation, these are scenarios I have been exploring at my Newsagency of the Future workshops since 2010. More than 1,000 newsagents (and association representatives) have heard me talk about this. We should not be surprised.
The move against Robbie Waterhouse was self-serving political stunt. Yes, they have curbed in-show promotion of live odds. Online gambling has not been curbed.
I agree fighting online could be interesting. However, it is not the long game. Plus, how do you control something that has no borders and low barriers? The long game for us has to be about finding products and services we control, through which we innovate for our success.
I don’t think our future is in being agents.
Not even as an agent of “Hallmark” or an agent of “Newspower”, Mark ?
h, Hallmark are a product supplier like any other and it is not an “agency” relationship. As for Newspower, they are a marketing group, again not a supplier at all let alone an agency relationship.
Newspapers and magazines are agency relationships and have uncertain futures.
h, by agent I mean taking products I have little control over for minimal margin – like lotteries, stamps, mobile recharge, transport tickets and the like. Maybe newspapers given the value of the traffic they brings. Magazines, today, offer good value traffic.
The associations have an abysmal record of having burgeoning bureaucracies rather
than using their monies (your fees) for fighting funds such as this current issue with Tatts.
I think it is disgraceful to ask newsagents to contribute to something that they (the associations) should have already envisaged and catered for.
Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got to stop dancing around the time bomb. It was refreshing to see “newsagents” and “fight” mentioned in the same sentence.
How do you think Woollies or Coles would react if there was an assault on one of their core products. They would come out swinging, biting and scratching with anything they could use. In an article in the Fin Review last week it was noted that the ACCC chairman was walking a tightrope in his recent issue with Coles over bakery products. While he has to deal with perceived breaches he can’t be seen to be “supermarket bashing”. How does this perception of “supermarket bashing” come about? If Woollies or Coles even think he has an issue with them they mobilize every resource (media, political, public sympathy) they can to neutralise the ACCC. What’s the public sentiment at the moment? Woollies and Coles are only trying to keep prices low for us.
On the other side of the coin, the response to the potential biggest assault on our core business (lotto) to date(the response came from the QNF five days after Mark released the news) was quote “the ANF will be monitoring this closely and is writing to Tatts about it, as well as keeping the ACCC briefed on our concerns”. The corporate battle field is littered with bodies of organisations that “monitored situations”. Queensland newsagents, I feel that we are being duded again.
If we want a future we will have to fight for it. To fight effectively we will need a war chest.
Guys,
Whilst I would never say don’t fight, the reality is as follows.
The assault on retail newsagencies has never been greater.
In SA we have a very large group of P&C’s, privately owned – they are a very big fish in a relatively small pond (SA about 8% of the Magazine market). Some stores within this group may have up to 250 magazine facings, plus a small supermarket, Brumbys Bakery, Subway, Hungry Jacks (newer larger stores) & SA Lotteries.
My question is if you’re a retail newsagent in SA and close to an OTR store what has happened to your lotto sales? Did the move by SA lotteries affect you? If so how? and what have you done to arrest the drift?
Why are we concerned with eastern seaboard newsagents only in this forum?
The practice is effectively already in place in SA. The ANF has been monitoring the situation in SA and guess what – I can’t recall any newsagent complaints that have made it to this forum!
June the ANF is the most efficient it has ever been – staff numbers are good – debt levels at all time low, great partnerships within the industry.
Compared to when Tom & Mark were on the Board (and me later) – and yes I know they were trying to stop the excess and threatened with legal action for doing so.
So Guys stop knocking the ANF, there’s only so much it can do.
Make you retail shop the destination for lotto sales not an after thought.
John
John, this forum is not only concerned with Eastern Seaboard newsagents.
The decision by Tatts to trial lottery sales in supermarket owned petrol outlets is bigger than what yu have seen in SA with On the Run and bigger than what others have seen with 7-Eleven. This gets lottery products into the playing field of the supermarket duopoly. Yes, a whole different ball game involving competitors who have been taking customers from newsagents for years now – aided and abetted by some of our suppliers.
The ACCC is concerned about the power of the duopoly. We need to engage with the ACCC on this – individually and collectively.
I am going to repeat an earlier comment as I feel it is relevant:
Right now, the ACCC is engaged against supermarkets. This gives us an open door, right now, through which to prosecute this issue. We have no similar avenue through which to pursue Tatts over their online push.
Today, Tatts is online direct and through Ozlotteries – and both are doing very well. I have been speaking about this with newsagents for the last four years and sharing news of their growth.
Online gambling via iPhones and similar devices in available overseas. The real game changer will come when instant scratch tickets are available. The technology exists today and I have shown off scratch games on my phone for a couple of years. Right now, they are not live with cash winnings. But that will change. Tatts needs to be a player here. They have no choice.
Online is where the real Tatts focus will be, as it should be. Their obligation is to their shareholders. They must move online. They must bring scratch ticket games to the iPhone. They must move away from the less efficient retail network. Okay, move may may not be the right phrase. They must chase the consumer and the consumer is already well and truly online, especially for entertainment products like lottery products.
The world has changed, how, when and where people shop has changed. The online play with and for gambling has changed.
While I don’t want to come off like this is an I told you so situation, these are scenarios I have been exploring at my Newsagency of the Future workshops since 2010, at the ANF conference on the Gold Coast in, I think 2008, and at a Connections workshop in, I think, 2009. More than 1,000 newsagents (and association representatives) have heard me talk about this. We should not be surprised.
The move against Robbie Waterhouse was self-serving political stunt. Yes, they have curbed in-show promotion of live odds. Online gambling has not been curbed.
I agree fighting online could be interesting. However, it is not the long game. Plus, how do you control something that has no borders and low barriers? The long game for us has to be about finding products and services we control, through which we innovate for our success.
I don’t think our future is in being agents.
John,
You need to have a good look at the past three years ANF financials before you make the statement of ‘debt levels at an all time low’. Even the auditors raise this point.
The ANF has done nothing of use for newsagents. The future lies in cementing your place in marketing groups that suit your business and direction
Woohoo the ANF has better financials. I judge them and NANA on what they have achieved. Zip. Nada. Nothing. They keep their employees and directors money.