I have just recorded a podcast interview with a business advisory group in which the future of Australian newsagency businesses was a key topic.
It started off with dealing with some of the assumptions held by people, bankers, landlords, suppliers and shoppers, about newsagency businesses, that our day has past, our shops are out of date, that our businesses are dying and that the future is bleak. I appreciate the opportunity to put some evidence in front of those assumptions, to explain that not every newsagency is the same, that ma ny businesses in our channel are thriving.
It was interesting hearing the questions about the history of our channel and how that plays a role in decisions being made in newsagency businesses and some newsagency supplier businesses.
There is a broad understanding out there that Covid has been good for our channel and that as a result we have opportunities now mid 2021 that we may not have otherwise had. Indeed, the Covid pivot embraced by plenty in our channel was another key topic that we covered.
It was encouraging that they moved on from talking about old retail that is out of date and often with lights off. Plenty of time was spent on new categories and new opportunities newsagents are embracing.
My takeaway from the discussion is that there are plenty on the periphery of our channel, landlords, would-be suppliers and others who are interested in the evolution occurring in retail newsagency businesses. To me, this encourages confidence for the channel in that if others out there observing us are confident then we have even more reasons ourselves to be confident.
The best indicator, though, is the number of people keen to buy newsagencies. In my experience it is more today than for years now. It’s a good time for newsagents keen to sell in most locations.
This was my third such long-form discussion about the channel with professionals looking at the channel. The interest in what we are doing has increased. I see this fro newsagency business sales, landlord approaches, new supplier interest and some interesting major suppliers keen to engage in a fresh way. The next few years look to be very interesting for newsagents and those associated with them.