Thursday, September 20, 2007
Contactless payment, pointless tactic.
http://media.guardian.co.uk/presspublishing/story/0,,2172895,00.html
So Evening Standard readers will now be able to pay for their paper by waving a contactless payment card at their friendly local newsagent instead of going through all that troublesome and time-consuming stuff with cash.
How brilliant. Sales will no doubt recover massively. Especially as they realise how much they enjoy adding credit to their card at home in their own time rather than using grubby cash while their commuting – otherwise ‘dead’ time for them.
Ah yes, what a difference it will make to their lives. And so much easier than just accepting a paper handed to you, or buying one from a vendor on your way from the office to the commuter station.
Oh the wonders of technology. And the desperation of circulation managers given some technology to fixate on.
Forgive me the sarcasm, but this is as goofy a solution to decreasing circulation as the plethora of free CDs and DVDs are. They’re very short-time, tactical answers which don’t address the core sales challenges.
Not least of which is newspapers losing out in the attention economy to lots of other things. So how they think busy people, for whom a quick payment would be useful, will find the time to add credit, I just don’t know.
But good luck to them anyway. They may need it.
So Evening Standard readers will now be able to pay for their paper by waving a contactless payment card at their friendly local newsagent instead of going through all that troublesome and time-consuming stuff with cash.
How brilliant. Sales will no doubt recover massively. Especially as they realise how much they enjoy adding credit to their card at home in their own time rather than using grubby cash while their commuting – otherwise ‘dead’ time for them.
Ah yes, what a difference it will make to their lives. And so much easier than just accepting a paper handed to you, or buying one from a vendor on your way from the office to the commuter station.
Oh the wonders of technology. And the desperation of circulation managers given some technology to fixate on.
Forgive me the sarcasm, but this is as goofy a solution to decreasing circulation as the plethora of free CDs and DVDs are. They’re very short-time, tactical answers which don’t address the core sales challenges.
Not least of which is newspapers losing out in the attention economy to lots of other things. So how they think busy people, for whom a quick payment would be useful, will find the time to add credit, I just don’t know.
But good luck to them anyway. They may need it.
Labels: newspaper cash paying card
