I have been asked by several people if the newsagent supplier forums I am hosting are in response to the ANF suppliers conference. The answer is no. I was not aware of this ANF suppliers conference until yesterday. I received from the ANF to newsXpress last year about an event it was planning but that event seemed to be more about propping up Newspower and I wrote to the ANF about it at that time. Tower Systems received no invitation. The forums I have planned are attracting a wider base of present day and future suppliers to the channel.
Just reading the article in the new Newsagent magazine on the ANF supplier meeting (Industry summit), interesting looking at the suppliers that attended this conference. newspapers ,magazines, lotto, greeting cards & stationery.No toy, gift suppliers? No newsXpress ,Nextra or Tower ?I would love to know if magazine oversupply was raised especially as they had Network, Gotch, IPS, Pacific, Bauer & XIT heads all in the room. Has to be one of the most important issues moving forward
Adrian, Tower was not invited. newsXpress was approached last year and explained the conflict with the ANF and GNS as owners of Newspower. My understanding is that the core issue of magazine supply was not discussed. If you don’t fix this you can’t fix anything.
I have just finished reading an article in the National Newsagent magazine re “Industry Summit”. It has left me flatly disappointed, frustrated and bewildered as to the future direction newsagents are heading in.
Firstly, the suppliers invited seem to be sponsors of the ANF awards night, and nothing more. There was no sign of the two largest marketing groups newsXpress or Nextra. There war no signs of the other card companies which represent a wider range of newsagents such as Henderson Greetings, Simson or For Arts Sake. There were no signs of any gift, plush or toy suppliers. No stationery suppliers. Nobody from the National Retail Association, nothing to with leases, no authorised representatives to talk about OH&S issues.
There was nobody NEW! How can there be new ideas?
Furthermore, those suppliers in attendance represented the suppliers who are actively working against newsagents, rather than working together. Suppliers who have greedily taken more and more from the channel. Why some of the suppliers were invited begs belief???
* Network Services, G&G – massive contributors to over-supply and heavily impacting on newsagent cash-flow. Both attempting to push through new unfair trading terms onto newsagents with the MPA.
* Pacific Magazines – actively promote to consumers heavily discounted magazines via subscription with discounts of up to 54% through their own website. Provide favourable promotional activity to newsagent competitors Woolworths and Coles.
* Fairfax Media – actively impose unfair trading terms on distribution agencies. Unwilling to change a contract which is twenty years old. Constantly decreasing the commission levels of both distribution and retail agents. Regularly publish unethical and unfair articles aimed at degrading the newsagency industry. Furthermore, they refuse to address OH&S issues relating to the distribution of their products.
* Wayne Cousins (Fairfax Media) – supports the relationship with Coles and Woolworths over the Newsagency channel. Has actively made comments to support this and has been known to force distribution agents to supply Coles Express stores previously with debt recovery disputes. This bloke should never have been in that room.
* News Corp – have actively over the past ten years diminished the commission earnt by distribution agents. Are fully aware of their OH&S obligations to the distribution of newspapers but actively disregard them.
* Tatts – are actively seeking to expand its retail footprint in NSW without giving current licences any guarantees on their own area and will force upgrades onto those agents without any guarantee of security for that outlay.
* NANA – with all due respect, consecutive NANA boards have shown they have little understanding of the newsagency industry, and the future it needs to head into, or the past it needs to leave behind. There are no quality newsagents on the NANA board.
Fairfax and News Corp will feature little in our future unless they re-think the terms of trade they currently force onto newsagents at present.
All magazine publishers and distributors need to realise that if that commission level is not raised to over 30%really quickly, then more and more newsagents will remove more and more magazine space.
ANF / NANA – if you do not start considering REAL outcomes for a greater percentage of the newsagency community, you will soon cease to exist.
This industry summit should have been about the present and the future. Not the past. Newsagents want better terms of trade and commissions with magazine and newspaper publishers. Newsagents want gift suppliers to utilise XchangeIT. Newsagents want exclusive to newsagency deals struck with so called industry partners.
Otherwise, Newsagents want the ANF to disappear so a new voice can represent them.
Amanda I think the ANF is a waste of time and money and has been now for years. Newsagents would be better off not investing in it and, instead, spending that money on their businesses. This summit was conflicted from the start because of how the ANF put it together.
While I do not have current data, I estimate hat the associations have a combined budget of around $3 million. Purely as a business investment, there is little to show for the last four’s spend of $12 million on behalf of newsagents.