When it comes to finding the perfect Christmas card, support your local newsagent, a local mbusiness that supports the local community.
Here’s why you should choose your local newsagent:
Aussie made. Many local newsagencies sell Australian made cards. Buying Australian made cards puts more Aussies in work: card designers, card writers, local printers, local card finishers. These are all local jobs that benefit our wonderful country.
A Local Touch: Your local newsagent is a part of your community. When you shop there, you’re helping to keep local jobs and supporting other local businesses.
Giving Back: Many newsagents offer a range of charity cards, supporting organisations like the McGrath Foundation, Make-A-Wish, Beyond Blue, and the RSPCA. By choosing a charity card, you’re not only sending warm wishes but also making a positive impact.
Endless Choices: Newsagents have an incredible selection of Christmas cards. From funny to heartfelt, there’s something for everyone. You’ll find a wider variety of designs and messages than at big-box stores.
The Perfect Pair: Many newsagents also offer gifts across a range of price points.
Easy Shopping: Newsagents are known for their convenience. You can quickly grab your cards and gifts without the hassle of big crowds.
By choosing your local newsagent, you’re not just buying a card; you’re supporting your community. So, this Christmas, let’s spread some cheer and shop local.
Remember: When you shop local, you’re making a difference, because we’re making a difference.
Shopping local stimulates the local economy by keeping money within the community, supporting local jobs, and fostering a vibrant business environment. When you choose to shop at local businesses, you’re contributing to the unique character of your neighbourhood and helping to preserve its cultural heritage. Additionally, local businesses often have a strong commitment to sustainability and ethical practices, offering products that are environmentally friendly and socially responsible. By supporting local businesses, you’re making a positive impact on your community and the planet.
Your local newsagency is a vital local business. They choice you make to shop there is one for which everyone who relies on the business is grateful.
Run a comparison report comparing performance in your business from November 1, 2024 to December 9 2024 compared to the same dates in 2024. If your business is like I have seen from plenty of other businesses today you should be seeing:
Card sales up 9%.
Gift sales up 21%.
Plush sales up 16%.
Toy sales up 15%.
Book sales up 12%.
Stationery sales up 4%
Magazine sales down 11%.
Newspaper sales down 12%.
These are the average results from 20+ different businesses. All high street though, no shopping centre businesses. Mor regional and rural than in the city. The best news is in the top five numbers.
In each of the businesses from which I have drawn data, they have made a conscious decision to pursue growth in one or more parts of the business while, at the same time, at least maintaining decaying product categories (i.e. not actively harming them).
What is most interesting in the data is that in more than half the businesses the growth was achieved off a flat transaction count. These businesses are getting existing customers spending more.
My point is that there are newsagents growing their businesses, achieving results of which they can be proud, results that deliver a healthier P&L.
Data like this is easy to access. if you have the industry standard Tower newsagency software, use the Monthly Sales Comparison Report. It’s the benchmark report for this type of analysis. I love this report. In seconds you can have your results and compare where your business is at. It’s the report I use.
I know of newsagents who wait for their accountant to produce a report on business performance. I think that takes too long and is too expensive. You can run this report today and have in no time at all valuable information to guide more moves you can make in your shop. Waiting for a non-retailer to tell you how you’re doing is old-school and, usually, unhelpful.
Take a look at your numbers. If they differ considerably from what I have noted here, reach out. I’d be happy to take a look for you. I am keen to help newsagents run healthy and profitable retail businesses.
Our channel has come i9n for some negative reporting in the media this year. The best response we can have is to grow our businesses and, with this, flip the bird at ignorant reporters and media outlets.
A few months ago, I embarked on a small experiment: building a website for a local suburban Melbourne shop, my newsXpress Mount Waverley shop, on a tight budget and following the advice I give to other retailers.
The goal was to test the waters: to see what could be achieved with minimal investment, to see if the advice provided, when followed, is financially valuable.
Starting with a modest product range, the website quickly began generating sales. As I discuss in this video, which was shot late last week, in the seven weeks to filming, this simple online store has raked in over $18,000 without any additional marketing spend or inventory investment.
In the last week sales have surged further, the website has delivered over $5,000 in revenue in seven days. Not one sale has been to an existing customer. On top of this, the website has driven excellent growth in in-store shopper visitors: they find the product on line, find out where we are, and they shop in-store.
This video takes you behind the scenes on what we have been able to do through the Hugs and Love website integration with our Tower Systems newsagency POS software into the Shopify website.
The Hugs and Love website (www.hugsandlove.com.au) is a prime example of how seamlessly integrating Tower Systems POS software with Shopify can streamline online sales and fulfilment processes for local businesses. This powerful combination allows businesses to efficiently manage their inventory, process orders, and fulfil purchases both in-store and online. By leveraging the strength of these two platforms, local shops can:
Expand their reach: Attract new customers and increase sales beyond their physical storefront.
Simplify operations: Streamline inventory management and order processing, saving time and reducing errors.
Enhance customer experience: Offer a convenient and efficient online shopping experience.
The experience with this website has been valuable in helping us see what is possible in the shop.
I am always telling retailers who are creating their first website to launch early and launch often. Where we started with Hugs and Love in terms of products is different to where we are at today. We quickly discovered opportunities, and we leaned (hard) into them. This has been a key factor in making money. It has also provided a runway into 2025.
I see newsagents, and other retailers, make mistakes with their websites, big mistakes, expensive mistakes. Keeping it simple and developing on a frugal budget is best. Having as much control yourself as possible is key too.
The most important advice that the Hugs and Love experience has reinforced is that a good website is a good plan B. It provides you opportunities outside of the shop you know, in case you want an option away from the shop.
Now, here’s the pitch: what I’ve done with www.hugsandlove.com.au is bring together the newsXpress retail experience and the Tower Systems newsagency software experience to create a solution that could work in any newsagency regardless of location or size. As I said, it’s a pitch. It’s also an explanation of how you can make money: take the Tower tech, the newsXpress expertise, a frugal budget and some of your time and you can achieve a return on investment that is likely to be better than the return you are getting from your shop today.
When we consider the newsagency of the future, one option is that it is this, it is playing away from the boundaries of your four walls and the expectations and restrictions of the newsagency shingle. It is about harvesting shoppers far away from your business, learning form the data they share and turbocharging your business growth with almost no additional capex, labour investment or space investment – delivering bonus net profit to your bottom line.
I’d be happy to talk one on one with any newsagent on this 0418 321 338 or mark@towersystems.com.au) , to take you further behind the scenes or to verify any of the information I have provided here.
Since Tower Systems launched discount vouchers in its newsagency software in February 2013, they have lead in the loyalty stakes, helping to drive terrific sales for newsagents.
I hear stories regularly of how shoppers have behaved on receiving a voucher, often looking around the shop for something else to purchase. The bigger the discount offered the more engaged them become in my experience.
The $11.18 discount offered on the voucher above will typically have no real cost to the business since the business has settings options with which to encourage shoppers to spend more than they might have usually spent. This is what a good loyalty program is about – encouraging shoppers to be more loyal than traditionally.
Discount vouchers are perfect for the times in which we find ourselves today: offering a cash discount off their next purchase captures the mind of and budget-conscious shopper.
Another thing to love about discount vouchers is that they are owned and run by the store, thereby helping to drive overall store performance. This is better for the local business than a specific supplier funded loyalty program that only seeks to drive sales of products from that supplier. That type of loyalty tends to be of lesser value to the local store.
The best loyalty program is one that lifts the overall business performance, rather than merely shifting sales between suppliers.
Points based loyalty programs have been ruined by supermarket behaviour. Most customers would not know the dollar value of a point if asked I suspect. My thinking is the value of points is the inverse of the money spent by a retailer promoting their points. Noisy points program marketing = lesser value for consumers.
Looking at shopper basket data from plenty of newsagencies where discount vouchers from the Tower Systems newsagency software has been used I can see that magazines continue to benefit – the magazine department accrues the least value in voucher dollars yet it benefits the most from purchases made with a voucher as part payment. There are some departments, however, where vouchers accrued and redeemed tend to match, demonstrating terrific efficiency.
If you are one of the 1800+ newsagents with the Tower Systems newsagency software and you’re not using discount vouchers, check them out, they could deliver a terrific bottom line performance boost.
newsXpress has launched the Christmas in-store prize for its Seasonal Edge program – a program giving newsXpress members free prizes valued at between $350.00 and $500.00 to give away to a lucky winner in each newsXpress store.
newsXpress head office is funding the promotion. With membership growth, the investment is over $400,000 being spent to drive sales for newsXpress members.
newsXpress members have been provided digital collateral as well as professionally printed large-format posters for in-store display.
The promotion runs from now to the close of business December 24, 2024. Each card purchase is an opportunity for a customer to enter. Members get to manage this how you see fit. They can give an entry for each card in a purchase, or one entry per purchase.
The sole goal of this promotion is to help newsagents win more card sales.
It’s not supplier specific or card caption specific. This way customers aren encouraged to consider all cards and thereby, hopefully, shop the card department deeper than may usually be the case.
The first Seasonal Edge promotion was Father’s Day this year. Card sales in the month leading up to Father’s Day spiked, delivering industry leading same-store card sales growth in participating stores. This is what Seasonal Edge is all about.
newsXpress members don’t pay extra for it, it’s a bonus of being in the group.
Over the years I have seen too many supplier funded promotions that seek to drive sales for one supplier. In creating Seasonal Edge it was important to me that it served the needs of the retailer ahead of any single supplier. This is at the heart of the make up of this campaign. As we saw with Father’s Day, it works. The business is a winner, along with the lucky customer who wins the prize.
I know retailers love the promotion. I see it in their engagement in-store as well as on social media. The truly smart retailers use this on social media to drive shopper traffic, enhancing the win they achieve from the promotion.
While there is plenty of marketing noise leading up to Christmas, this campaign gives newsXpress members something different through which to pitch their businesses.
I am seeing excellent newsagency charity boxed Christmas card sales already this year with sales significantly up on 2023.
For one of my newsagency businesses they are up 20%, off a strong number from 2023.
This growth has been driven, I think, by a few factors:
An expansion of range. We have 50% more designs than last year. We source our cards from five different suppliers.
The ability to capture sales online – 90% of online sales are to people nowhere near the business.
A focus on charities first. Customers can buy by charity and many are. Boxed Christmas cards used to be arranged by design theme: religious, Australian, humour etc. Our charities first approach is paying off. Smart card publishers provide details on card packaging and the cards about the charity being supported, offering another engagement point for customers.
A secondary focus on Australian designs. Smart card publishers promote the Australian artist connection on their external product packaging.
Going out early. The money we have stock it is out and being pitched.
Marketing to previous customers. We know who they are and reach out to them to let them know what’s new and in.
Tactical in-store placement so that every shopper passes the cards as they enter and leave the shop.
Charity boxed Christmas cards are a good fit for any newsagency business as the charities are local and this fits with the localness of the typical newsagency business.
On the topic of online sales, on Melbourne Cup day one of my shops that was closed for the whole day did over $500 in sales of charity boxed Christmas cards. That’s a good result given nothing was spent on marketing to achieve this. The key to the online success is the SEO work I have done to drive ranking for this website.
Charity boxed Christmas cards are an excellent opportunity for our channel. I think anyone not embracing them should consider doing so. They are an easy win, and they are a terrific opportunity to do good, I especially like this connection.
For a financial reference, for many years in my various newsagencies, sales of charity boxed Christmas cards have been 3 and, often, more times the dollar value of sales of single Christmas cards.
…
My newsXpress newsagency marketing group has, for many years, provided guidance and help to its members to maximise the charity boxed Christmas cards opportunity. Some of what I have covered above is based on that advice.
Newsagencies in decline as demand for online content outstrips print media.
It’s a headline from an ABC news story a few months ago, a story published online, on radio and on TV. I wrote about it here at the time.
The story, reporting on the closure of Mansfield Newsagency in Victoria, failed to adequately report on the state of Australian newsagencies. So called experts failed to present accurate current information about the health of local newsagency businesses.
While there have been newsagency closures, the numbers are not huge, not as big as we see in retail channels.
The ABC News story is another in a series of reports by the ABC and other mainstream media outlets in Australia to properly report on the state of Australian newsagencies. While there are businesses struggling, there are more thriving, growing.
Let’s all work at pushing back on the cliché narrative about our channel.
Rather than complain about the failures of news media and some others to adequately represent our channel, here are steps I think we can all take in our newsagency businesses.
On social media, engage with content that is different to what people expect from a newsagency. That means posting less about magazines and lottery products and more about unique gifts, clothing, books and toys you may sell.
In your social media posts, talk about what you love, and why. Write your gratefulness for local Aussie products you have been able to find for your business. Appreciate local community groups you can support thanks to the support of your customers.
In your front window pitch products people do not expect to see in their local newsagency. Your front window display has one job: to get people to notice it. Hopefully, they stop and look, and then step inside. Your window display must crash assumptions. It must be bold.
At your counter pitch products people do not associate with a newsagency counter. This means no chewing gum, everyday candy or similar. Have products people don’t associate with you. However, the need to be products easily purchased on impulse.
From the front door and for the first 3 metres inside the shop pitch products people do not expect to see in a newsagency. And, change how it is displayed weekly. You want people saying things like this is nothing like a newsagency or every time I come here it’s changed. These types of comments tell you that you are getting things right.
The key to each of these steps is you offering in your newsagency business products people do not usually associate with a newsagency. That means buying from suppliers who do not traditionally supply newsagencies or go to the trade shows you might typically attend.
Playing outside what is expected for your type of business is key to you pushing back against the narrative of mainstream media that: Newsagencies in decline as demand for online content outstrips print media.
The decline in print media, which is between 10% and 12% a year currently, has nothing to do with newsagency closures in my opinion.
Some newsagency shops close because the lease is at an end and the owner has plans for elsewhere. Most close, however, because the newsagency is not relevant to today, which brings us back to product. The products you offer in your shop are the best way you can state your purpose, show your difference, ensure your relevance locally, and online.
It’s hard work, every day. As retailers who own and run our own businesses, we choose this. Our future is ours to make, and in doing so we need to take every opportunity to push back against the ill-informed narrative about our channel put about by mainstream media.
Here are 6 things to do to rank higher with Google and other search engines:
Include brand in product names as that’s what people tend to search for.
Arrange products by brand, with the brand name in the collection URL.
Use blog posts to promote brands and branded products. Write these yourself. Try and not use AI generated content – search engines preference human created content.
Use keywords relevant to your business in the content on your website, keywords people are searching for.
Ask your suppliers to link to your website.
Optimise meta title and meta descriptions to accurately describe content.
Here’s how you can optimise meta titles and descriptions in Shopify:
Go to the product you want to edit in your Shopify admin.
Click “Edit” to open the product editor.
Scroll down to the “SEO” section.
Replace the default title with a concise and informative title that includes your target keyword.
Write a compelling description that accurately summarises your product.
Click the “Save” button to apply your updates.
Additional tips:
Incorporate target keywords naturally into your meta title and description.
Aim for a meta title around 50-60 characters and a meta description of 150-160 characters.
Use strong action verbs and a clear call to action.
Each week add new blog posts. Each post should be about a single product or a single brand. Talk about what you love about it. Be personal. Use a friendly and engaging tone. Write more than 350 words, ideally above 500 words. Refer back to your physical shop in the post. Use the product name or keyword or phrase you are targeting at least five times in the post – use it naturally though.
If you are not sure what keywords to target, ask someone. I provide this advice, based on data evidence, free to Tower and newsXpress customers. The data I source is through a platform I pay US$300 a month to access. It’s up to date for Australian keyword searches.
Keyword targeting in your content is key to the content driving your website higher in search engine results.
Yes, this is all hard work. Do it if you want to rank higher. A website is a forever hungry beast.
Two significant coin releases yesterday from the Royal Australian Mint provided a terrific traffic boost for newsagents with stock. Both the silver proof and decorative Festive Florals coins sold quickly, and well.
What’s beneficial about coin shoppers is that they typically purchase other items during the visit – around 70% of the time they do from our data. This makes coins an efficient product for us to stock.
This second coin, the silver proof, is another example of price not being a barrier. It sold out first with little concern opver the 4135.00 price tag.
Key to leveraging the customer visit is related products that will appeal to this shopper, that the shopper can include a coin collector, a Christmas seasonal buyer, a general collector or anyone buying for any of these. Irt takes a it to understand the various shopper personas. Once you do understand, you can make good coin. (Sorry about that!).
Five years ago newsagents (except for Post Offices) would not have had access to mint coins. Now, four mints supply products to the channel, delivering millions of dollars in revenue and more than this in terms of value of new shopper traffic.
Coins are a valuable opportunity and that value will grow into 2025 and beyond.
Engaged retailers have their plans in motion for port Father’s Day activity on the shop floor. For some it will be a move into Halloween, for others it will be a Spring launch of new products, for some it may be a move into graduation and / or wedding season, while for others it will be clearance ahead of Christmas.
It’s important that there is a shop floor reset from today, a major reset, the kind of reset shoppers notice and comment on, something that gets people talking to others about.
Today is not too late to consider and act on a post Father’s Day reset.
Taking down Father’s Day and not making a change into something fresh is a mistake in my opinion. Certainly, newsagents years ago would do that, do nothing after Father’s Day for a while. Our in-store actions back then were guided by suppliers. The needs of suppliers don’t match the in store calendar needs of newsagents, or any retailers.
Focussing on a Spring launch would need you to have bought stock months ago to be ready for this. The same is true with Halloween. Graduation and Wedding are easier to lean into as there is plenty of product available and you could have it in-store within a few days.
If you have not planned for post-Father’s Day and want some tips for what you could pull together easily, here are my suggestions relying on products you are likely to have in0store right now:
Kids activities. This pitches stationery and toys. It appeals to a good cross section.
A post-Winter sale. It’s a good opportunity to quit what’s not working.
Graduation. People will buy early. You need to guide them through with product opportunities right in front of them.
Colour block. This is easy. Bring together in a font of store display everything you have that features the colour you choose. My advice is do this for a week and then change colour, and repeat this change for a month. It takes care of in-0store promotions for 4 weeks and that gives you time to plan. Here are some photos from one of my shops.
Colour blocking displays like these can be put together in an hour. They use existing stock. Customers always comment positively, and they find things they never knew you stocked. This is why a colour block display is my go-to if I am not sure what to do next. They are also differentiating since most retailers will not do a cross product category display like this. here in suburban Melbourne, these colour block displays work for us.
Back to post Father’s Day though – do something. Make a statement,. Get shoppers in-store noticing.
We along with plenty of newsXpress shops are grateful to be able to exclusively offer the 50c NAIDOC coin in change we give to customers from tomorrow. While there will be many visiting to buy the coin due to its rarity in circulation, it’s available for change only. By giving it only as change customers who purchase something, we help the celebratory coin reach more people.
It’s been wonderful working with the Royal Australian Mint on this project, moving sought-after this circulating currency around the country to shops so that Aussies can access the coin. It’s not been like moving regular product. There is the value consideration as well as weight.
The design symbolises the care, strength and rich culture of our many Indigenous communities. The strong ‘50’ at the centre of the coin highlights the strong history of the National NAIDOC Committee, while the gathering of the 10 individuals in blue at the bottom of the coin represents the coming together of the committee in collaboration.
Where can I find a newsagent near me? It is the most common search online with the term newsagent in the search. There are around 20,000 such searches a month in Australia. Once we add similar and related searches, the number hits 40,000 a month.
The thing is, though, this search Where can I find a newsagent near me? is not the biggest search relating to our channel and what we sell. People don’t search for a retail shingle, they search for an outcome, a product, brand or category. Someone looking for a birthday card is many times more likely to search for birthday card than for a newsagent. Don’t take my word for it – the evidence is in current search data for Australian online searches.
It’s one reason you need the be thoughtful in what you call your products if they will ultimately me sold online. I saw a newsagent recently call a Jellycat Bashful plush toy and pink plush toy. People will for search online for a pink plush toy, they will search for a Jellycat plush toy with Jellycat being the most important word in the product description.
By all means try and index well for newsagent. My advice, for what it’s worth, is to invest time in indexing well for brands and product categories as that is where the real traffic is. This focus will also help as you transition from legacy newsagency products into better margin and traffic generating products for which our channel is not known.
If you have a website connected to your newsagency and you want to catch some easy traffic, write a blog post with the headline of Where can I find a newsagent near me? and write about your business, what you offer and why visiting your shop could be satisfying if you are asking Where can I find a newsagent near me?.
I trust you can see what I have done here. yes, I have done exactly what I suggest you do. Use the headline based on this most common of questions and answer it in in the context of your website. Search engines and AI LLMs will ultimately learn from this.
Social media continues to be a terrific tool attracting new shoppers to any retail business. The key is to be fully engaged with the opportunity.
You have to be visible. And, by you, I mean you as the owner or at the very least the personality of the business.
Too many newsagency businesses today have junk on their Facebook pages, bland posts, often done by others, filling space with boring content people scroll by quickly. This is wasted effort. These pages are likely seeing minimal engagement.
Here’s my advice for a more successful social media presence.
Write your own posts.
Reflect you in your posts.
Entertain. People come to social media to be entertained.
Educate. Become known for useful content.
Be grateful: for unique products and your customers.
Support the community – promote local groups.
Be authentic.
Be unique. Reflect how your business is different.
On this last point, while lottery businesses and magazine publishers like to see you pitching their products, posting about them does not differentiate your business. Those posts, I think are a reason to scroll by anything from you.
I know of local retail businesses that have 30,000+ followers on social media thanks engagement with content like that listed above.
A good starting point is to treat each post as if it’s the first contact someone will have with your business.
Take a look at your social media presence and assess whether it is how you want your business reflected. If it’s not, pivoting to posts that are more meaningful and engaging is easy.
The latest issue of Channel magazIne published by ALNA includes a four-page spread on Transforming Your Newsagency. I am grateful to ALNA for publishing my article. Click here for a copy of the article. I urge newsagents to read it as the article contains advice anyone can act on today without spending any money.
It’s a headline from ABC news today to get attention. The story fails to adequately report on the state of Australian newsagencies.
While there have been newsagency closures, the numbers are not huge, not as big as we have seen in some other retail channels.
The ABC News story fails to properly investigate why there have been closures. Instead, they publish the cliche of the decline in print media as the cause, which it is not.
The ABC News story quoted someone from IBISWorld and while he has some data that is interesting, numbers don’t tell the story. For example, he offered no number about newsagency businesses that have transitioned into other retail such that the newsagency part of the business is minor.
The ABC News story quoted Brendan Tohill, CEO of the National Lotteries Newsagents Association and Victorian Authorised Newsagents Association. I don’t consider Brendan to be in a position to offer insights – remember their News bar chocolate product launch last year that was going to bring people into shops?
Anyway, Brendan talked the channel down saying newsagencies are now a:
last-minute gift store underpinned by lotteries.
That’s what we are now. That’s what it is.
Shame on ABC News for running this quote. It plays into the narrative that our channel is not relevant and has not kept up. It’s an ignorant quote enemy opinion, something not supported by evidence from plenty of businesses in our channel.
I feel for the folks at Mansfield Newsagency. It was a nice shop in a beautiful country town with a population close to 5,000. The shop feels like it’s from the 1990s, not today.
As I have written here many times and in emails sent to all newsagents, I’ll help (for free) any newsagent keen to work on transitioning their business from relying on legacy product categories to attracting new shoppers through product categories not common to our channel and in pursuit of growing overall business grows profit and thereby offering insulation to the disruption of change.
I know of country town newsagencies near Mansfield and right around Australia that are thriving, growing. These businesses are not selling last-minute gifts. Some are selling fashion items for $300 apiece and more. Others are selling $500 homewares items. Some are doing $80,000 a year in the best coffee in town. Some are achieving 33% of revenue online selling to people interstate and overseas. Some are selling over $100,000 a year in collectibles.
I know of regional newsagencies doing $250,000 a year in gifts and more, achieving far more in gross profit each year than newspapers and magazines ever delivered combined.
A typical country town newsagency today should be making less than 10% of their turnover from print media products, 30% of revenue from lottery commission and 60% from gifts, homewares, books, toys and more. That is, 60% of revenue from items delivering 50% and more gross profit.
The difference between this type of transformed newsagency business and the traditional newsagency is decisions made by the business owners.
You can’t blame the decline in print for newsagencies closing. Newsagents make a paltry margin from print products. It’s disrespectful, and embarrassing how little we make. A business closing because of this is a business rooted in the past.
Smart newsagents started transforming their businesses 20 years ago. Moving into gifts, homewares, toys and more – attracting new shoppers and selling products at margins four and five times more than newspapers.
The easiest local newsagency to transform today is one in a small country town. This setting presents opportunity, and I am glad to say that many newsagents have embraced it.
This is the story ABC News should be covering, a story of a channel navigating extraordinary change with plenty of local retailers, local newsagents, evolving their businesses to be relevant, vibrate and valuable. It’s also a story that Brendan Tohill could have spoken to.
Here are three videos of discussions I have had in recent months with owners of newsagency businesses thriving:
Each of these business owners should feel proud of what they have done and are doing. Their playing outside the tradition of the Aussie newsagency is inspiring.
If the folks at ABC News did even basic research about the future of Australian newsagencies they could have provided more accurate reporting on the state of newsagency businesses in Australia.
Do better ABC News.
…
Footnote: If you see my earlier blog post from today about one of my own shops closing soon, the closure is because of my decision to focus on high street retail rather than shopping mall retail. My newsagency businesses are thriving outside the shopping mall setting and not renewing the lease allows us to lean further into that.
I am grateful to Shelley and Mark Petersen for the opportunity to discuss their journey from purchasing a traditional newsagency in Sarina, 25 minutes out of Mackay in Queensland and their transformation of the business into a loved gift and homewares destination.
This discussion is a deep dive into how to approach change and thrive in a local retail business in a channel that itself is experiencing considerable change.
Neither Mark or Shelley had experience in this type of business when they bought it in 2001. Today, they are experts because of the experiences they have embraced and continue to embrace.
Their pragmatic approach to business is inspiring. Their success is well deserved. Any retailer watching the video will discover how they can evolve their business in ways Shelley and Mark have.
newsXpress Sarina is seen by plenty as a newsagency and Post Office. While it is those things, it is primarily known in Sarina as the place to shop for gifts and things that will surprise. It’s a business of which Shelley and Mark can be proud.
For context, Sarina has a population of around 6,000. I mention this as there are newsagents I have spoken with in bigger towns who think they don’t have enough population.
Any newsagent can embrace the scope of change reflected in the video. It starts with that first step. If it works, do more of it. if it does to work, take a different step.
newsXpress stores had access to the Bluey coins the released yesterday morning at 8:30am. It was crazy in-store and online thanks to terrific news coverage leading up to the release.
The coins sold out in a minute and retailers spent the rest of the day fielding questions. Some had to take their phone off the hook.
While there for sure is frustration about selling out so fast and not having enough stock to satisfy demand, there is the upside of new shopper traffic in-store and online. Plenty of this traffic flowed into other purchases, even by those who missed out on the Bluey coins.
Some of the additional purchases were for new coins releases exclusive to newsXpress. These products help drive stickiness of coin shoppers. By that I mean they’re repeat purchases back at the same shop. Coin shoppers are like that and basket data indicate they purchase other items.
newsXpress stores are now authorised retailers for the Royal Australian Mint, Perth Mint, New Zealand Mint, New Zealand Post Office and a couple of others.
In a moment in time when net new shopper traffic is vital in retail and in our channel in particular, coin shoppers are most welcome, and appreciated.
The future of the Australian newsagency channel is in the hands of those who own and run the 2,800 or so retail businesses that make up the channel. The decisions they each make in each of their businesses determine the success, or otherwise, of those businesses, and of the channel.
The decisions that will matter most are those relating to theproductscarried in the business, thenarrativeof the business andhowyou sell.
Before I get to that, I can say the future of the Australian newsagency will not be found in newspapers, magazines, lotteries, convenience retail, tobacco, cheap gifts, cheap toys or a canyon of spinners of products with names on them. The future of the Australian newsagency will not be found in any type of business competing with discount variety.
Suppliers, too, will not play in the future of the Australian newsagency. Despite them creating our channel, print media businesses especially have no interest in our future.
We can already see from retailers, newsagents, in the space that across Australia there is value to harvest from playing in premium and unique spaces, worrying less about price point and being smart when it comes to deciding your margin. Equally, there is value in the adagefind a need and fill itin evolving our local businesses.
Byproducts, I am particularly interested in products not common to the newsagency channel. Products such as clothing, gifts at $300.00 and more in price, books but not remainder books, cookware, collectibles people will drive for. Most likely products suppliers would not have in our channel today.
Sure, everyday products such as stationery, greeting cards and other categories our channel is known for will play a role in the future. Their success will depend on how smart we are in what we carry and how we price the burden of carrying. For example, selling stationery to those who need it is easy, selling to those who love is a whole different opportunity – one that is worth more I think.
There are no borders, rules or boundaries. What you can sell is up to you and your imagination as to how it is pitch.
BynarrativeI mean the story of the business the why for someone considering the business. If you’re a shopkeeper, you put products on the shelves. If you are a retailer with a commitment to a narrative, customers will understand the business, love being in the business and want what you offer because the narrative will nurture trust.
You nurture your narrative through what products you carry, how you place them in store, how you pitch them on social media, on your website and how personal you yourself are in and with them.
The challenge with narrative is that it must evolve, with you, time and the community.
Byhow, I mean when you sell and where you sell … having an ability to sell online is the key here. If you’re not online, you will have no idea what you don’t know.
Now if this all feels a bit new age like, I don’t mean it to. Today, in May 2024, we are in the midst of a period of immersive retail, retail people feel and experience. This is where your narrative plays a difference. A writing pad in a basic newsagency is a writing pad. The same writing pad in a store with a strong narrative could sell more easily and for more.
The more your shop and your website help people to feel things, the greater the success you will have.
What I am getting at here is that the future of the Australian newsagency lies in us being smart, engaged and creative, each of us making our own shop the best it can be. It won’t look like a cohesive channel, and that does not matters. What matters is that you create a business that is mighty successful locally, and with online shoppers who find you.
To those who don’t act, who don’t embrace change, I say farewell. The days of the old school newsagency are over. Time will catch you. This will result in fewer rooftops in our channel. I’m not sure how many, but on the current trend it will be 150 – 200 in the next 12 months.
To those keen to act, there are plenty of us in the channel who will help where we can. Reach out. Together we can ensure the relevance and success of our vital local retail businesses no matter how diverse our product and service mix and no matter what we call ourselves.
Footnote: There will be some who say the shingle should change, that news is not relevant. While it’s not relevant, what you call the shop does not matter all that much. It’s kind of like a picture versus a thousand words. What a shop shows itself as being matters more than what a shop calls itself. That said, Aussie newsagencies, being quintessentially local businesses are, in my opinions best off being called a name that is locally relevant – rather than some national name that is not locally relevant.
Second footnote: Reading back what I have written I know I have not made a clear and solid prediction. That’s because I can’t. There is no channel, no way to determine what all businesses in the channel will do.
Talk about a win, win, win. This local retail business management tip helps you win new customers, your customers save money and a local community group raise funds. Engagement is measurable, so you can assess the return on your investment.
Find a locally loved and trusted community group in need of funds, a group that has a reasonable number of members who do not currently shop with you.
Offer the community group a percentage from each purchase made by members of the group and their family members.
Offer each member a discount for each purchase.
The amounts offered need to be considered in the context of your business, your margin and the value of the anticipated additional purchases.
Consider a timeframe for the offer. For example, it may be useful to trial the offer for a limited period so you can assess engagement and then adjust as appropriate. It may also be an offer only open to certain days of the week, your quietest days.
Consider the products to be included in the campaign. It may be appropriate to exclude products categories where your margin is not enough to justify inclusion.
To manage the offer, see if your Point-of-Sale software can help. I know the software from my own software company can manage this. You give each community group a member a card, which when scanned ensures they get the discounted price and the donation to the community group is tracked.
The card becomes valuable itself, something talked about, sought after.
The commercial goal of this campaign has to be net new shopper traffic for the business delivering revenue the business would otherwise not have achieved. If this is the case, a discount off the usual margin achieved is acceptable as it is effectively a cost of acquiring the additional business.
Key to the success of this campaign is the active engagement of the community group in rallying members to visit the shop, to encourage them to support you so that you support the group they love.
Make an event of handing over the donation to the community group. Get photos. Talk on social media about being grateful for the local support that has enabled you to make the donation.
Share stories on social media about the activities of the group as your support of them can encourage their support of you.
I love the campaign outlined here as it represents the circular nature of the local community: people living locally, shopping locally, enabling local shops to thrive locally and support loved local community groups.
Using POS software you can easily manage this, and adjust the offer based on the results.
…
I wrote this article for the latest issue of the Channel magazine published by ALNA.
Retail transformations are challenging in an ever changing retail landscape. The challenges are compounded when you’re in a small population regional town and in a retail channel that itself is undergoing extraordinary and rapid change.
Rather than following others, Kerrilyn and Schae at newsXpress Mount Morgan evolved their newsagency into something unique, wonderful and loved. They made their business a destination and refused to be limited by assumptions about what their type of business should be.
This video shares some of their journey and reflects on a business the people of Mount Morgan love. It also plays against assumptions about the local newsagency: what it is and what it can be.
I am grateful to be a small part of this inspiring story.
Yes, this is a marketing pitch from me about newsXpress, the newsagency marketing group I own.
newsXpress is unique, engaged, optimistic and helpful. The newsXpress community is made up of wonderful retailers who support each other and who appreciate the support from a crew of head office specialists in business data, retail business management, local engagement and more.
I am sharing this video to show rather than tell.
Our theme for 2024 is MAKING THINGS HAPPEN.
It’s about action, growth, success and enjoyment for newsXpress members.
We see opportunity for attracting new shoppers, helping existing shoppers spending more and increasing the overall GP% of newsXpress member businesses.
This is what MAKING THINGS HAPPEN is about.
In December 2023, participating newsXpress members each made, on average, $3,500 gross profit from a product opportunity we accessed without any downside risk. Plenty made twice this.
In 2023 we helped a member deal with challenging cashflow, another with employee theft, another with an exit strategy and another with a complex competitor situation.
We also helped a retailer cut their rent by a third.
Nothing we pitch is mandatory.
Online is the biggest opportunity of 2024 without a doubt. The latest benchmark for Aussie retail reports online as 10% of total business revenue.
In the Aussie newsagency channel, the average figure for those with a website is under 5%.
If you don’t have a website, what would a 5% bump in revenue feel like?
We have businesses we have helped achieve a 20% bump in revenue in a year from online.
We leverage our Tower Systems experience and our newsXpress experience exclusively to help you be open 24/7, serve new shoppers and add valuable net profit in using existing overheads. Our skillset is unique, our experience backed by plenty of success.
newsXpress exclusive. We offer access to a half price, fixed price, beautiful Shopify website connected to your Tower POS software. We back this with advice and mentorship to help you find a profitable niche you like.
If you can’t increase local physical shopper traffic, online is a smart move to improve business reach and profitability.
One newsXpress member launched a website with us last year and added $50,000 in good margin revenue in six months.
Another newsXpress member used their website to pitch an entirely new product category and found a profitable second business as a result, using existing labour and facilities in the shop.
We showed another newsXpress member how to expand the reach of their website and within two months they achieved thousands in additional good margin revenue.
We’d love to connect you with some of these retailers so you can hear for yourself what is achievable.
I was in a regional town New Zealand over the weekend for a wedding and went to a local Paper Plus store to buy a wedding card. I didn’t like any of the wedding card designs they had, the range felt tired, like the shop.
It was my first time in a Paper Plus for five years and as such it’s what I’ll think of as the standard for Paper Plus until I see something different.
The shop fixtures were old school – traditional gondolas, high with products stacked. There was no flair or enticement to the retail displays, nothing to draw me into the shop. The light was bright fluro, which is now out of date for interesting local retail. There was no sense of being local.
Franchise businesses and businesses that trade under a common shingle are as strong as their weakest store.
This is one of the reason newsXpress years ago ditched requiring businesses to trade under the newsXpress shingle. It is also why the group restructured its contract and its offer to not fall under the franchise code of conduct.
Local retailers need the freedom to flourish is ways appropriate to their local setting. In a franchise this is challenging to do since the franchise approach is about a cookie-cutter approach, based on what some call a ‘system’. I can’t think of any ‘system’ or franchise model that is appropriate in the newsagency channel today. That’s my opinion at least, others will have theirs.
Our channel is going through rapid change, much of which is outside the lines of what has been traditional for newsagency businesses. What drew people to our businesses even five years ago has changed in 2024. Change is good as it opens opportunities.
So much of the growth I am seeing in newsagency businesses that are growing is outside of traditional and this is where a ‘system’ or a franchise model created decades ago will struggle to be relevant. Retail in 2024 is not relevant to what we did in 2000, 1990 or 1980. How, when and where people shop has changed. What people will buy from what was once a traditional newsagency has changed.
Local newsagents need the freed to be what they can be. This is why I moved from a franchise model years ago.
Back in the day, Paper Plus was a terrific business a model for consistency and growth. If what I saw on Saturday is any indication, it has some distance to go to be relevant to 2024 – if not the group then certainly the shop I visited.
I love owning and running my newsagency businesses today, for traditional products but more so for the opportunity to play outside the lines of tradition.
If you are looking for an Easter card, your local newsagent is the best place to shop and there’s why:
Your local newsagency is likely to have the best range of cards available.
Range matters when buying an Easter card or any card because range gives you choice. Whether is a religious Easter card, a funny Easter card or a money wallet for Easter or an easter card sharing love, your local newsagency has Easter cards for many situations.
Plenty of people use Easter as an opportunity to send a hug to someone they care about. Cards in your local newsagency provide options for this.
A bonus is that many newsagents stock Easter cards that are made in Australia. If supporting Australian jobs and Australian businesses matters to you, buying your Easter cards in your local Aussie newsagency supports this.
Now, if you are wondering why should I send an Easter card this year, here are some reasons:
For many, Easter is a time for joy, hope, and new beginnings. Sending a card is a way to share those feelings with others, even if you can’t celebrate together.
Respecting the season. Easter is an important time on the religious calendar. A card and let a loved-one know you respect that.
If you have friends or family some distance away, an Easter card is a thoughtful way to let someone know you’re thinking of them.
It’s a tradition: Exchanging Easter cards has been a tradition for many years. It can be a nice way to connect with that.
Easter cards aren’t just for religious folks. Many cards feature springtime imagery or secular greetings that anyone can appreciate.
Make someone smile: A handwritten note or a funny Easter card is a guaranteed pick-me-up for many people.
Remember, the Easter card you send will hole a memory they are likely to cherish for many years to come. Write something memorable, so these memories of you live on years later when they open the old shoebox and find this year’s easter card.
Footnote: I have written this post for Google as people go there to ask where to buy Easter cards.
