The Australian Media section ran a piece on Blueshyft, the over the counter agency offering pitched to newsagents.
The article says Blueshyft has turned newsagencies into digital shopfronts. I disagree. Sure, it gives participating newsagents agency revenue. It is not a digital shopfront. Newsagents have had that for years through other platforms and many have more recently through product selling e-commerce sites linked back to newsagencies.
The article refers to Blueshyft as a smart-tech platform. In my opinion it is not smart technology. Their data handling alone with newsagents is far from best practice. XchangeIT has let them get away with lazy tech, clogging systems with unnecessary data that a smart technology solution would not require.
My complaints aside, this is a nice enough promotional article and I am sure newsagents will be pleased to see the coverage.
In case you think this is sour grapes. It is not. I have no commercial relationship with Blueshyft and have not sought one. I don’t have it in my businesses as it is a service that is incompatible with my view of the future of retail businesses with which I am involved.
Why be negative anything that promotes newsagents to the broader public has to be a good thing
Paul there is minimal promotion. This leverages existing traffic primarily. Newsagents can judge it for themselves. Some will love it while others will not.