Here is information from one newsagent about their experiences with News Corp. delivery of magazines for Ovato:
- Thursday, July 2: We arrived at work 1 hour before we open as we do every magazine day to enable us to process the magazines and have them on the shelves before the customers arrive. No magazines. We eventually tracked them down to the News Limited depot, from where we picked them up ourselves.
- Monday, July 6: No magazines when we arrived at work. We eventually located them, they were on the supermarket run and thus did not get them until 2pm. Yes, 2pm.
- Thursday, July 9: The same as Monday we thought they had sorted the issue but not so.
- Monday, July 13: We received our key parcels – they were on the newsagency run but our bulks New Idea, Woman’s Day and TV week were on the supermarket run.
- Thursday, July 16 (mid morning): Have been informed they are again all on the supermarket run.
I have had several newsagents call upset at the situation, upset at the anger from customers, upset at now being able to run they business they want to run, upset at the lack of communication from News Corp and set at the disinterest from Ovato.
This is a mess made by Ovato and News Corp. They are killing interest in magazines through this change and no one seems to care.
If they have the excuse of teething problems, I would reject that. They had time to get this right.
If they have the excuse of others are not affected, I would reject that as it would be a stupid excuse.
If they have the excuse of we are sorting it out, I would reject that because this should never have happened.
The poor management of the change by Ovato and News Corp. is costing newsagents time and money, it is impacting their mental health. yet, neither Ovato nor News Corp. is offering any support or assistance to the newsagents affected.
The other question is where are the magazine publishers in this? It is their product that is not reaching newsagents on time. Maybe they don’t care as long as supermarkets get their stock on time.
This is an own goal by all involved. Newsagents and their customers are the victims.
Did I miss something?
How did newscorp manage to take over Ovato’s distribution.
Doesn’t this give newscorp an opportunity to screw newsagents as a monopoly supplier?
Really, they took over the distribution from failing Octavo to screw newsagents over.
As if they needed something new just for newsagents
who only get 12.5% profit margin as it is.
No, they did it to lessen the costs of their own failing distribution with the Gotch – Octavo add on.
The internet with on line and especially during COVID Lockdown has made the current distribution of reading material especially Daily -Weekly -Monthly publications etc prohibitive., ask Wrapaway tey even tried to match what News Corp achied 20 years ago. That is -a reduction in our profit marging instead of a cover price, an area where the public would punish them
Actually to add to this don’t be too suprised if some Country part publications say once or twice a week aren’t resheduled for release to fit in with cartage dates of magazines or vice – versa. It’s a changing World out there and we are a part of it.
Ovato and News entered into an agreement whereby News uses its delivery infrastructure to provide Ovato with a delivery service.
Yes Mark I stated this so there is no point in distributors getting the blame when the circumstances have changed in the actual distribution of News and print materiual in general as to compare with physical delivery-no compariaoon the i phone and Social media to boot has changed the information channel completely forever
I have noticed great change among the delivery folk mostly from Covid times but some also from a struggling economy prior to Covid. In this town I have seen depot consolidation with reductions in the number of depots, personal and Vehicles. Rupert’s change was more from a struggling business/model/economy than Covid . Covid does make a nice excuse though.
As I reported on this blog the first day by Rupert was a disaster as no mags to 1000 hours. Since then they have arrived before I open my business as they used to. My Mags are now well traveled as they go via Orange instead of direct to Cootamundra.
The delivery company is based in this town and discussion with the chaps revealed lines were drawn on a map however there instructions or planing on how to organize the process. To figure out how many bulks to deliver they had to look at each individual key parcel in 3 pallets of parcels. Extremely time wasteful and totally disorganised.
From what I see and hear all delivery companies in country NSW from Sydney now have re tender for their work. There is lot of pissed off/worried chaps.
Hear you Peter. bush is doing it tougher than most mainly due to ageing population, no work for the youth and drought -fires and floods – COVID is the big excuse the slide was/is still on. COVID diversion and in practice does accelerate the decline and increases the frustration.
Monday, July 20, 2020 @ 8:45am. No magazines yet in at least one ACT newsagency. This stuff up is yet to be fixed.
I own the newsagency in the ACT with my wife.
I contacted Octavo and News 10 days (and many times since) before news took over saying we have not heard from anyone about new deliveries.
Many people are going to get back to us including ANDREW MEREDITH from News surprise surprise no has bothered.
No one seems to able moved our newsagency from the supermarket run (which are delivered the next morning) to the newsagency run (which is delivered in the evening).
In the past whenever there have been changes to the transport contracts for newspapers and magazines the newsagent has barely known as the delivery subcontractors usually stayed on and continued their run under the new contract holders, with usually a seamless transfer. These guys loved the work, were heavily invested in their businesses, and usually took pride in the work they did, keeping to schedules and keeping newsagents happy.
They knew their runs, knew their operating costs and how much time it took and what was involved do it properly.
One must ask – with the current economic climate and uncertainty ,why did none of the magazine truck drivers move across to NDS when they were offered runs ?? The answer is pretty obvious!
I’m told there were over 140 complaints from the Sydney metro area on the Thursday and Friday after NDS started on the Wednesday, so the problems certainly aren’t insignificant!