Awhile ago, I made an appeal to the ANF to look into the issue of newsagents suppliers having fractions of cents in their price. As far as I know nothing happened as if this problem is going to disappear because no-one is going to look into it.
This is a recent problem as over seventeen years ago old-timers here like me can remember a massive effort in the Newsagency industry to make all prices in five (5) cent lots. It made sense. As people do not pay in fractions of cents, if they pay with EFTpos it is in whole cents and if the pay in cash it is in five (5) cent amounts. As a result retail is geared to whole cents. Since most people in our industry pay cash, five (5) cents still makes sense.
What is happening now are suppliers are doing a price increase with say 7.5% increase across-the-board so say an eight (8) cents a day delivery fee is now 8.6 cents a day. Retail customers want to see on their bill whole cents a day for example eight (8) cents or nine (9) cents. This is helping to create an unnecessary argument and/or bad will with the customers.
In different states there are different requirements and some papers that are Australian wide like the Australian probably need to be handled differently to the local state papers.
I think as an immediate measure the ANF should look into this issue and issue some broadsheet stating what newsagents are suppose to do with these fractions of cents. At the least it would be used by the newsagent when he is trying to justify his bill why he has done what he has done.
As a medium to long-term measure the ANF must talk to the newsagents’ suppliers and explain to them that these types of increases 7.5% should be structured to overcome this problem.
