COMMENT Virtually every sector in retail has gone through some sort of revolution that has improved the service experience for customers and brands alike - so why not the good old newsagent?
On a recent flight from London to New York I played a little game to kill off those last tedious hours that drag out over the southern shores of Greenland. Putting pen to sick bag, I decided to face up to my sole addiction and attempted to calculate the total amount I'd spent on my habit over the course of three decades. Estimating an average spend of €180 a month for the past 33 years, I came up with the not insubstantial sum of €59,400. For some that could have been a handsome down-payment on a flat in a bourgeois suburb of Hamburg. It could have put a sporty little Audi in someone's garage. It could have paid for an MBA. Or, as in my case, it helped pay the people who harvest the trees, the men who roll the papers and the boys and girls who beckon you back for more. Many people boast about being magazine junkies but real addicts are not just consumers - they're dealers, pushers, pimps and growers. I'm all of these and then some.
