The NFRN said (on 29th July): “At the stroke of a pen, without a “by your leave” and no consultation, Sussex Newspapers has today issued a trade notice saying that in three days time – Monday August 1 - retail terms across its portfolio of titles will be slashed from 25% to 23% when the publisher grabs 100% of its new cover price increases.
In a bewildering and callous assault on the small shopkeepers who interface with their readers, Sussex Newspapers is displaying unbelievable ignorance of the plight of retailers who are already reeling under the onslaught of reduced trading terms from the national newspapers as well as from monopoly wholesalers, who extract an ever-increasing delivery charge from them, ostensibly to pay for delivering supplies to their shop.
NFRN National President Kieran McDonnell (pictured) said: “Publishers are playing a very dangerous game with printed cover prices and abuse of retailer margins. Perhaps they should read again the Office of Fair Trading’s reports from September 2009 when the OFT pointedly said that the printed cover price is only a Recommended Retail Price and retailers are free to set whatever ultimate selling price they want.”
“The OFT also confirmed that fixed pricing on newspapers and magazines was contrary to the Competition Act 1998 and was one of the three areas of its investigation that warranted a referral to the Competition Commission for a full market investigation”.
Mr McDonnell added: “If publishers continue to attack our margins I can only see two ways this can end. Either retailers will disregard the printed price and charge whatever price they need in order to survive, or there will be an unstoppable tidal-wave of support to have the cover price removed completely. This is no idle threat!”
