The Convenience Stores and Newsagents Association has branded an ‘unsold collection charge’ of €2.60 per week, introduced by The Irish Times, as a ‘blatant attack on retailers’.
In its weekly newsletter, the CSNA said that the charge, which came about following the transfer of delivery obligations for the newspaper to Newspread, said that it had held meetings with both The Irish Times and Newspread to seek to ‘force a reversal’ of the charge.
In the newsletter, the CSNA said that ‘The Irish Times no longer have a transport division, will no longer have a Datascan contract for scanning their returns and no longer have a need to deal with their retail customers.
‘This €2.60 windfall equates to €135 per year per retailer, or over €3 million during the course of the new distribution contract. That is your money on top of Newspread carriage charges, which have an element of them to cover collection and returns processing.’
Newspread commenced distributing The Irish Times on 5 October.
© 2015 - Checkout Magazine by Stephen Wynne-Jones
