A straw poll by the Scottish president of the National Federation of Retail Newsagents suggests yesterday's launch issue of the 20p, 'bite-size' version of the Independent newspaper, i, was available only in certain shops in the country.
Says Abdul Qadar, who has three shops in Edinburgh, of the five newsagents who attended a meeting of the NFRN this morning, three – from Glasgow, Paisley and himself from Edinburgh – had received copies of the paper, but two – from Ayrshire and Perthshire – had not.
He told allmediascotland.com: “I looked around a few other outlets near where I am based and, while the Co-op had copies, other shops had not. I had seven copies in one of my shops and they all sold out. One customer thought the paper looked like a Sunday supplement and another said it looked like an upmarket version of the Metro. I am not sure that many people knew it was coming out.”
