Medium has published Death to the Mass, an essay by respected media observer, commentator and journalism school professor Jeff Jarvis. The essay touches on points some newsagents will find interesting as it explores the future of business that for more than 100 years was the reason our newsagency channel existed.
We all know the fate of Gutenberg’s invention. I have nothing against print, just as I have nothing against horses as a means of transportation or telephones as a means of talking, but we cannot hold onto an unsustainable technological artifact out of romanticism. I have been among those who argue that news must become digital first. To the companies I work with I offer a simple definition of that buzzphrase: A legacy news company must become a fully sustainable (read: profitable) digital enterprise before the date at which print becomes unsustainable. And that date is…? Sooner than we wish to think.
Jarvis eloquently explores the future of journalism, separating the profession from the dying distribution business.
When we read the article, we newsagents can think beyond journalism and newspapers and think about our model, across a range of challenged product categories, and explore our future.
Reading the essay in bed before breakfast says it all. I would once have read similar in a big fat weekend paper, having walked to a local newsagent. Now the article finds me. I don’t need the newspaper ….. nor the paperboy, newstand or local papershop.
Do you remember candle stick makers, cobblers, tobacconists, video hire……newsagents ?
The demise of Kodak shows us how quickly things can change because of technology.
The print media will disappear just as quick, and probably much quicker so if newsagents have a reliance on newspapers and magazines the end will be very swift.
I saw Kodak at CES in Las Vegas in January – now into all manner of technologies.
Kodak survived (just), 3 years of chapter 11 bankruptcy and had to sell all their best patents to Apple, Google, Samsung and the rest of their new competitors.
In the end a shell of the company they once were. Brands are important though, Kodak photo paper sells better than others because of the name.
The Kodak situation repeated in Aus newsagents would see all but a few shops wiped out within a year. Not likely.
But look at McColls, a UK chain that had 1250 outlets at its peak. Formerly private but recently floated, the Company has been converting all stores into convenience shops and added post offices into a third. McColls have accepted that some stores have no future at all and over 100 will be disposed of with no goodwill value. Meanwhile WHSmith which is over 50% of UK market is making record profits but being lambasted for its complete absence of investment in high street stores, expect big announcement on their fate in very near future.
None of these situations applies to fragmented Aus market, but same economics applies. Those of us who have not found new revenue streams will disappear. Those that have will not want to be referred to as Newsagents.
Plenty of stores out there calling themselves “Tobacconists”. Chains like Tobacco Station, Smokemart, Cignall and others. They may sell a bunch of things beyond tobacco and tobacco related products (lighters, ash-trays, hooka pipes etc) but they clearly promote tobacco as a big part of their business.