News Corp. is taking over delivery of newspapers for Ovato, starting from tomorrow. As of right now arrangements have not been put in place by Ovato, leaving newsagents up in the air as to arrangements.
One newsagent I have spoken with has staffing arrangements to organise. Another I spoke with has keys to hand over for secure delivery of magazines.
Here we are, hours away from the change and nothing is organised. Someone is responsible for this, responsible for the stress being felt by newsagents, responsible for what tomorrow might look like if the current lack of arrangements plays out.
The decision by Ovato was announced weeks ago. The have had time to get this done right. Even if they call newsagents this afternoon, it is too late, rosters were set last week.
What a mess.
Footnote: as I noted a while back, I think there will be consequences for newsagents from the decision by Ovato to use News Corp.
Newscorp have handed it over to Fnet/NDS. Ovato are unable to advise agents as nobody yet knows how it will work.
Fnet/NDS still aren’t sure how they are going to do it. They have cut the price for delivery drivers significantly, and have no idea of how the distribution task has previously been done. They have offered work to the former drivers, however the drivers know the costs, and what is involved, and have declared the rates to be not viable at all!
So the hunt is on for new drivers. There was also talk of telling Newsagents to provide secure drop boxes to for the drivers to leave magazines in (at agents expense), rather than utilising previous key arrangements for the revolving door of new drivers.
As of today still no drivers allocated to do the runs. Double check your allocations (when/if you receive them), as there is a good chance they will be messed up!
We took a phone call a week ago from the new courier company. She told me they received very little information from Gotch, acct numbers and names and thats about it… We still had an old business name and address listed with gotch.
Monday one spare key was left in our magazine delivery as return. The other i guess was used to lock the cage, how it will be returned i dont know.
Tuesday afternoon this week the drivers came in store and got shown where to drop off, how to access our lockup and given keys. Thus far, oddly enough everything looks ready for changeover on our side of things after dreading the worst.
I was told the other day by a chap in the know that at Cootamundra our mags would go in bulk pack to Orange then be split up for onward distribution to plenty good places including me at Cootamundra. I look with great interest to see what time they will arrive.
0823 Hours still no sign of mags via Orange here at Cootamundra. Normally here by 0400 hours. My Interest is growing to alarm at the way we are been treated.
0851 hours the Good Lord Rupert has smiled and I have my magazines (still be checked off). I was assured next time they will arrive and be left in my cage by 0400 hours as used to be the case.
Yes the communication process here was very confusing. After being told that we would need to provide keys to our new delivery contractor we attempted to obtain contact details for this contractor from both Ovato and Newscorp. Ovato advised that we would need to obtain from Newscorp. Our Newscorp BDM seemed to know little of the changes but in any case stated he would be unable to provide any contact details for a Newscorp contractor. Our existing contractor was luckily able to confirm that for us there was to be no change. Yes our magazines turned up at the usual time last night. Newspapers delivered separately as usual.
Not sure what is going on here but I feel for other country newsagents like Peter. Makes me wonder if we we about to hear a bigger announcement relating to these changes?
First communication we received about this was yesterday telling us mags will now be delivered by News Corp and the new guy should have already been in touch with us regarding arrangements. He hasn’t. Old contractor still has keys to our secure storage. New contractor left mags on footpath. At least we received them I guess.
Where are you based Steve ?
News and Ovato dumb shits.
That’s right Shayne, Fnet/NDS are telling potential drivers for Sydney metro that it is fine to just leave the mags out the front on the footpath, they can’t see there being any problems with this?? All part of the new contract pricing apparently..
Peter we are on the South Coast. Obviously a lot luckier this week than you guys.