Bill Express

I love winning business from Australia Post, nationally and in my own shop. My newsagency is directly opposite a government owned Post Office as regular readers here would know.

Optus have been making a bit of noise recently that customers who pay their Optus bill at Australia Post will have to pay an Australia Post imposed fee. If you pay your Optus bill at any of the 2,600 newsagents with Bill Express there is NO ADDITIONAL FEE.

In our case the promotion by Optus has seen a ten fold increase in Optus bill payment. It’s great receiving their support and it’s great being able to help customers avoid the long conga line in Australia Post. The more bill payment business we can take off the government the better.

Optus are doing more for competition through their promotion than they could imagine. Yes! As their advertising campaign says.

Australia Post should stick to postage and leave business up to independent small businesses like newsagents. Or the Federal Government ought to sell off the Australia Post retail network and break up the unfair advantage their retail outlets have against stores like mine.

Welcome to a new retail model for newsagents for the new age. At this store you can:

You can do this 24/7 (even when we are closed) if you have an account with us and are wireless enabled.

This new retail model is all about providing the gateway regardless of the medium. It’s not long term though as a bricks and mortar presence will not be part of the model for the content providors.

Until now newsagents have been medium specific – print. This new model says the future is about access, the gateway, and that the medium is less relevant. With music tracks available for 99 cents the next step will be lifetime limited downloads which will make items available with a limited life. This will push transactional volume up.

Through the Bill Express network 2,600 newsagents already have the beginnings of such a network. The challenge is for newsagents, Bill Express and content providers to appropriately, viably and quickly leverage the opportunity for us in the space.

While much of what is proposed could be done from home, a national network of stores providing such access can help fuel the mobile paradigm shift.

RECIPROCAL ARRANGEMENTS

Australia Post, because of its government ownership and exclusivity is HUGE and its size and exclusive mail distribution, has several significant reciprocal corporate arrangements with which newsagents cannot compete. They provide economies of scale and provide an advantage with which newsagents cannot compete.

a. Coles Myer. Australia Post handles the logistics for Coles Online. Coles offers an in store bill payment service which competes with that offered in Australia Post. Newsagents offer a similar service using the same technology as used in Coles. Australia Post has complained about newsagents establishing bill payment but not Coles. Odd that.

b. Telstra. Up to September 2003 Australia Post had an exclusive contract for the provision of in person bill payment services to Telstra. Telstra seemed keen on appointing a second, non exclusive, in person bill payment network. The second largest in person bill payment network had been established by Bill Express Limited and was located in newsagencies. In August 2004 year on the same day that Telstra announced that it had given Australia Post a five year exclusive contract for in person bill payment services, Australia Post announced that it had given Telstra an exclusive $200 million IP telephone contract.

The Australian Government needs to deliver a level playing field to newsagencies like mine. It needs to divest itself of retail post offices and provide a similar free market system under which enwsagents are other retailers operate.