The discussion flowing from comments by the editor of Monocle about newsagencies in Australia got me thinking about how we are perceived in the marketplace.
By we I mean newsagencies. Whether we like it or not, our businesses are all bunched into one bucket. One crap = all crap.
Do Australians care about us? This is an important questions because some in our channel rely on Australians caring. I think this is part of what is emerged in shop local pitches. For people to want to shop local or support Aussie businesses like newsagencies they have to like you, they have to see value in your business for them.
Before we can answer the question about perceived value, we have to know what we stand for. From what I see, too many newsagents to do not stand for anything other than running a traditional newsagency. There is absolutely no future in this as such a business has no point of difference.
We have to ask ourselves:
- Is our business relevant?
- What is it we stand for and is this of value to those we serve?
- Are we competitive?
- If we closed tomorrow would we be really missed?
Underscoring all this is the question: is your business growing? If it is not, then you have your answer – you are losing relevance. You have competitors selling magazines, newspapers, cards and stationery that are growing. If they are growing and you are not your business is not as relevant to your shoppers as theirs.
I think there are some newsagents who act as if they are entitled, entitled to certain treatment by suppliers, entitled to support from the community, entitled to deals way beyond their trading circumstances.
All that matters is your own numbers compared against your history. Are you attracting more shoppers, increasing revenue and achieving a better trading gross profit?
It is easy to get angry at a magazine publisher who makes an ignorant comment. While it’s fair to complain, it is more important to take it as an opportunity to look seriously at your own business. Is it crap? Can you do better?
We have more competitors today than ever. Our only response to this is to be better at what we do than ever.
Publishers NEED Newsagencies. The sooner more publishers realise that and give more support to their #1 point of sale the better.
So can you shed any light on why you swapped from IPS to Network, Dave?
Network is one of the main oversupply offenders
Gday Subaru – I have been back with IPS for a while now. Lessons learnt the hard way with Network.
Dave has emailed me about this and I have his permission to publish it. I will put it up here in a post tomorrow morning.