According to the NFRN: Nearly three quarters of independent newsagents (74 per cent) said there was a negative impact on their sales when papers were late into wholesale to enable coverage of sports events, or more recently, the results of the US presidential elections.
Twelve per cent said they did not believe their sales to be affected and 14 per cent said they did not know if there was an impact on their business, according to the poll on the NFRN website.
Responding, National President Alan Smith (pictured) said: “It couldn’t be clearer – extending cut off times into wholesale does have a negative impact on the shops who offer HND or those who enjoy a good early morning trade.
“While our members want to see newspaper sales increase just as publishers and wholesalers do, we have to make them aware that by arriving later into wholesale to enable a big news story to be covered and to gain maybe a few extra sales here and there, they are shooting themselves in the foot by upsetting their loyal readers.
“By sharing our findings with the NPA, we hope that publishers will sit up and listen. Extending arrival times into wholesaler for football results or big news stories is not good for early morning newspaper sales and must be avoided going forward.”
