newspaper distribution - would this work?

[skeeeeeen]

sorry if this is the wrong place to be posting this but i looked and couldn't find any better place than this:

I want to start a newspaper distribution service by purchasing newspapers from a wholesaler and then hiring someone to deliver them (or doing it myself). I'd probably start by posting leaflets giving people info on what newspapers they can order and stuff, and I don't care much about making money, it's mainly just for something to put on my CV and uni applications and stuff and the money I make will go to charity.

I wouldn't think this would work for a few reasons, mainly that newspaper wholesalers wouldn't take orders as small as i'd need but i got the idea from somebody else who has already done the same thing so it is apparently possible.

Does anyone know whether this would work or have any advice on how to do this?

 

[Ashley_Price]

Welcome to UKBF

To be honest I think you are unlikely to get very far with this; especially if it's going to be a short-term thing. It's going to need a major investment of time and money. You are going to need to cover a big area to get enough customers to pay for the papers you need to buy from the wholesaler.

First question, how would your service be different to a newsagent who has paper boys/girls delivering in the neighbourhood?

Second question, with all the inserts that papers have nowadays (especially at weekends) have you a vehicle to transport them round?

You say you're not worried about making money, so I assume you are reasonably well off, or can pay back the size of loan you would need to get from a bank to invest in purchasing the papers, paying someone else to deliver, insurance premiums (which is a legal requirement), bookkeeper/accountant for doing your Tax Return, etc.

Finally, if it's just something to put on your CV you'd need to explain how it is different to just being a paper boy/girl.

You say you got the idea from someone else, who has made it work, therefore it would be good to get in contact with them (unless they are a competitor - in which case how would you compete against an established business), to find out how they went about it.

 

[thebigIAM]

About 30 years ago, you had to buy an area and it was agreed only you could deliver newspapers in that area. That's how I understood it to work, anyhow. Not sure what they do now. Newspaper wholesalers such as Menzies or Smiths would soon tell you.

 

[jane p]

with re to the above its not like that now. Anyone can sell papers in one area.

 

[MASSEY]

If you could do it for less than the paper shops can then you would get the custom.

You could follow the paper lads round and drop a flyer in the door they deliver to.

Mainly old timers get them delivered, if they can save a few pence they get excited.

 

[Philip Hoyle]

Have you factored in the immense time costs of delivering newspapers? There's a reason why shops use school kids - they're cheap! How are you going to do it cheaper than a 16 year old who gets a tenner a week?

You also have a very short time period to deliver. Kids can't start until 7am and people want their papers by 8am to read with breakfast. Even at weekends, you get lots of complaints if the papers don't arrive by 9am. That means you need several people out delivering for just an hour each. Even if you do it yourself or get adults to deliver who can start earlier than 7am, you still have a finite time because you probably won't get the papers before 6am - maybe 5am if you go to the depot to pick them up yourself.

Unless you have a very compact round, say terraced housing or a block of flats or a sheltered housing complex, you'd end up with too much time being spent between drops. You need dense housing and I think you'll find that there'll already be a newsagent or two covering areas of highest density.

If you go rural or suburban, then you'll need transport - which means a car or van, and with that comes the costs of running it, business use insurance, and you will find it is still time consuming with constantly getting in & out of the car, walking back to the car, moving it down the street, etc.

The best option is a motorcycle, but then you have problems as you can't carry enough papers as they are very heavy, so you'd need to keep going back to pick up more.

If you don't have a shop, then customers can't come to you to pay, so you'll have to go out to collect their money once a week - that's a good few hours lost, especially when you have to keep going back to the people who aren't in when you first call.

All the above were problems 20-40 years ago as our family had a newsagents for 20 years with both dense housing around the shop, and also close to a leafy suburb. It was fine at the start when papers were generally small, as the kids could use a bike with papers in a bag over their shoulder. But as they started to get bigger, with more supplements, etc (have you weighed the Times on a sunday?), the kids needed trolleys instead to carry the weight, which meant bikes were useless, and we needed more kids, which meant more costs, and we ended up only just breaking even on the rounds. We regarded them as solely as a loss leader to get the customers into the shop once a week to pay the bill, where usually they'd buy other things.

The other thing is just how few people will want a paper delivered. We had streets of 10-20 houses where only 1 or 2 people wanted a delivery - and that was 20 years ago! Today things are worse. I live on an estate of about 50 houses, and the newsagent only delivers to 2 and that's after he leaflet-drops every couple of years.

 

[AndyBlue]

I think you need to clear about what you want to do - If you are looking to distribute to shops, then end the idea now it is all tied up and you will NOT break it. If you are looking to distribute to houses I have the following observations :

1. Lots of newsagents are closing or being turned into Tesco express's etc who don't do deliveries - Therefore this may present an opportunity.
2. Newspaper sales are dwindling rapidly and I heard yesterday on the radio that there is a view that they may not even exist in 5-10 years time - So is there much scope ?
3. There are lots of rules for people looking to start selling newspapers in shops, these may be slightly relaxed for a 'roundsman' as this is called but you need to check it out.

For reference I am an ex newsagent myself and both my father and his twin brother are both roundsmen with big rounds in the country and make them both decent incomes, both having retired from their shops.

Overall though unless you have a quite affluent area near you where you can charge a high delivery charge (circa £5 per week) I think you are probably in for a long hard slog with a minimal return.

 

[IE152]

Hello

I'm sorry, but I am going to have to join in the general tone of negativity about your idea. My parents ran a chain of newsagents shops, but closed the last one about 10 years ago, but even then they realised that it was a dying trade.

There are several problems that you are going to have to overcome. Firstly, as several have already outlined, you are going to have big problems making your deliveries. While being out and about nice and early on a warm summer's day may sound very attractive, 7am on a dark, cold, winters morning when it is raining is a different matter. Do you really want that?

Your delivery staff certainly wont. The biggest problem that my parents had was getting good quality, reliable, paper boys and girls. Compared to working in the warm of a supermarket, they found it very difficult to recruit and retain good quality people who would be willing to show up on those cold, wet, winter mornings, without paying a premium over the wages that Tesco would offer. They also found that paerents were increasingly reluctant to let their children do a newspaper round due to safety concerns.

This meant that my Dad was often out well into the late morning delivering papers, while my Mum would be back at the shop taking the irate calls from customers angry that their paper hadn't turned up.

Secondly, even ten years ago, the numbers of delivered papers was decreasing, and rounds were getting longer, as the distance between deliveries increased. If you only had a relatively small number of customers, it could be very difficult for you to establish a viable round. After all, this wouldn't be viable if you only had say 20 customers unless they were very close to each other.

And it probabaly wouldn't be worth your while doing it with only twenty customers only - there isn't much profit in a newspaper.

The other problem you are going to have is the wholesalers themselves. Assuming you can get a deal with them, you will be beholden to them delivering to you on time. If you are close to London, this may not be too much of a problem, but if you are further out, you could end up spending a lot of time waiting for your deliveries which arrive late, meaning that you have to deliver them all because your delivery staff now need to go to school.

By the end, my parents were not making any money on newspaper delivery. It was only worth them doing it because people would come into the shop to pay their bills and buy other stuff while they were doing so.

Their final shop had the biggest delivery business of the three newsagents in their town, and when they closed they sold the business to one of the other newsagents. My Dad mentioned ot me that he met him a little while ago, and although buying my Dad's rounds had seen this guy triple the size of his business, he is now delivering fewer papers than he was before he bought my old man's rounds, showing how the market has evaporated.

So you are right to be cautious - if I was you, I would look to get a job somewhere. Maybe not as exciting, but it will pay your bills,and for uni/later prospects, you will be able to get a good reference from it.

 

[vvaannmmaann]

http://www.mynewsagent.co.uk/

 

[roydmoorian]

Depends which newspaper - how about " The Big Issue "

 

[naema1230]

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