OPINION: Bank Holiday Justice

An RN campaign to get wholesalers to improve allocation has been victorious, but will they deliver on their promise?

The matter of receiving the correct newspaper supplies on bank holidays has been an ongoing problem for independent retailers for years, but a campaign kicked off by Retail Newsagent at the start of the year, addressing the issue, has already made progress.

Wholesalers and publishers have promised to review newspaper allocations and distribution arrangements for the forthcoming bank holidays. The Press Distribution Forum – a self-regulatory body set up for the industry last year – said the review of the system was in response to retailer feedback. A panel of proactive retailers, set up by the RN Bank Holiday Justice campaign, will follow wholesaler guidelines, monitor their supplies and report back on their wholesaler’s performance. It will, hopefully, remedy over and under-allocation problems for the stores taking part.

We’ll have to wait until the end of April to find out just how successful the trial is has been, but the fact that wholesalers and publishers have sat up and taken notice of at least one of the constant challenges the independent sector faces is encouraging and could result in a significant improvement to the service retailers receive.