OPINION: All change for newsagents?

What is your plan to replace products that technology leaves behind?

The website More About Advertising recently posted about the possible demise of the paper based Guardian with the title going online only.  This raises a challenge for newspaper retailers as it indicates the likely direction for the industry.

This week Smiths News announced their year end results, but more importantly they announced plans to deliver half of the profit away from newspaper and magazine distribution by 2016.  With newspapers showing a like for like sales decline of 2.1% and magazines LFL decline of 6.6% in the last year Smiths News are reacting to a potential future where these parts of their business will be the minority.

The question of newspaper and magazine retailers is the same, how will you develop your business profitability in areas not dependent on the print media?

I think the first task is to look at the business you have, your strengths and weakness as well as those of your competitors. Kate Daw has written an interesting article about how a Kent retailer uses his business plan . If you don’t already have a business plan now could just be the time to start putting one together.