I like the signage promoting the half-price newspaper offer in Coles. Placed directly above newspapers and magazines on the stand usually at the entrance to the supermarket, there is no missing this offer.
I feel for newsagents located close to Coles as it would be easy for people to spend $30 in Coles to qualify for the half-price newspaper. If they do this enough times it can change their habit of purchasing the newspaper from the newsagency to purchasing from the supermarket. And once that switch occurs, the supermarket can satisfy with magazines, greeting cards, stationery and, maybe soon, lotteries.
Shame on any supplier doing a deal with a supermarket to discount fixed price products like newspapers and many other everyday items we sell.
News Corp. has form on this – remember their Inside Out deal with Coles – $2.00 less than our price.
If News Corp. wants small business newsagents to close they should keep doing deals like this one with Coles.
So while doing a deal for half price newspapers @ Coles, News puts up the price of the Saturday Telegraph from the 23rd July by 20c. Half price papers is like cheap subscriptions, devaluing their product.
The newspapers are dieing faster than they are admitting. I was having a discussion with a manager level friend for one of the major paper publishers on Thursday and he commented that there are major mainstream papers that are alot closer to closing down than people think. The print costs have continued to rise and revenue has continued to fall. The investment in new printing presses hasn’t been for the benefit of the mainstream paper printing processes but to improve the contract printing services they offer outside of their historically main line of business.
Mark, I’ve been reading such submissions with interest in recent weeks and it seems they aren’t always reflecting the unilateral position that Coles are taking regarding price promotions. I am completely unaware of the involvement that ‘News’ may or may not have in half price magazines, however I am very aware of Coles acting in a similar way to win versus their competition; without any support from the suppliers. Coles are without doubt investing back in price, most recently seen this week with 000’s of sku’s permanently reduced by 20%+. This comment from Coles CEO John Durkan, recently published in a news.com.au article by Frank Chung is revealing….
…On the competition, Mr Durkan said Coles “would do whatever it takes to suck oxygen from Woolworths, even if that means getting involved in a damaging price war”.
Mark I believe you are spot on when you advocate Newsagents and small store format retailers standing for something very different than price as it is increasingly difficult to compete on price. Newsagents and small format retailers can create an intimacy with their shoppers that just can’t be replicated by the larger format retailers – no matter what price lever they pull.
The advent of Aldi, Costco and emergence of Lidl and on-line has created a seismic shift in how Australians shop, and it appears we are replicating the UK model of commoditising many categories; which will continue to have the support of legislators as lower prices for Australian shoppers are seen as positive.
This is a really good discussion for industry leaders and retailers to collaborate, and Mark you provide a great platform for a conversation here – thank you.
Paul,
Pity the investment in printing cannot enable timely reporting. All week the AFR has been commenting on world events inaccurately because events have moved on.
The papers need to get up to speed and learn from UK. Today the early edition of FT has Turkey attempted on front page just hours after event.
Fairfax is apparently going to lose more journalism staff so what hope have they got if they can’t keep up with events in a timely manner now ?
Thanks Shane. It worries me that at some time in the not too distant future some of us will look back and wonder when it happened. Of course, there is no it, only many small steps encouraging shoppers away from the habit shop at the newsagents, the action on which our channel was founded and on which we have relied for more than 100 years.
News Corp will say I am wrong and there is no goal or desire to move shoppers away from newsagents. I’d rather them explore the consequences of their actions as, from where I sit, the key consequence is to break the habit visit to the newsagency … and then other suppliers and newsagents suffer.