It is frustrating hearing from a retail only newsagent who is not supplied promotional material and giveaways. This happend recently when a capital city daily had a free for all who purchased the paper yet the distribution agent, who also has a retail outlet, refused to supply the freebie to their competitor retail only sub agent. They had plenty of stock. The only problem was their inability to fulfil their obligation as a distribution agent. This is the attitude of a business person scared for their future.
This example points to a fundamental flaw in the current newspaper distribution model. Whilst there are many fantastic agents that can balance their work between distribution and retail, there are too many others out there that will short change sub-agents either because of their views of “competition”, or because of inadequate supplies from the publishers (not the case here) or due to inadequate practices around reviewing sub-agent supplies. Separation and specialisation must occur eventually.