newsXpress Blog

Duo join newsXpress do you need to be a newsagent? No. All retailers are welcome.

We are keen to partner with business owners who want to run a more successful and enjoyable business, and who are open to change.

• Your location is no barrier.
• The size of your business is no barrier.
• Being an Australia Post LPO is no barrier.
• Your card supplier preference is no barrier.
• Your financial situation is no barrier.
• Having lotto, or not, is no barrier.
• Your age, gender, and ethnicity are no barrier.

What matters most is what you want for your business, and for yourself from your business.

If, for example, you think your future relies on newspaper home delivery, lotteries, parcel collection, betting account top-up, and similar agency business, newsXpress will not be a good fit for you.

If what you want is a more successful, valuable, and enjoyable business, we may be the right fit for you.

Successfully being part of newsXpress flows from your energy, and engagement.

The relationship is a partnership, one we both need to ensure is right.

Now, here’s what happens when yo join newsXpress.

First up, we want to know what is important to you.

Next, with your permission and if you want, we look at your data.

Then, we work on a plan with you to make things happen.

The details are different for every member.

If you want to sell online though a website specific to your business, we will introduce you to the team that can deliver this at half the usual cost as a newsXpress exclusive opportunity.

You get to choose what you buy, when you buy, how you display and how you promote. We will offer advice, and suggestions. Action is up to you.

How does newsXpress compare to other marketing groups?

We don’t know the details of what other groups offer today or what they do or do not do for their members today, just as they cannot know this about newsXpress.

What we do know is what people who have switched to newsXpress tell us they like about our group.

• They like how active we are, how engaged we are with members at a group level as well as at the individual business level.
• New suppliers. They like that we have plenty of suppliers they have not had access to before.
• They like that we have good value deals that help them make more money.
• Fresh ideas. They like the fresh ideas we pitch that help their business.
• They like how fast we are on trends, that we help them get into a craze early, and get out before the craze has faded.
• They like the advice we provide on turning locations in-store into hotspots.
• They like that our advice is evidence based and not pandering to suppliers.

We think the newsXpress offer is unique in terms of what we do, how we do it, and the extent to which we help our members.

Enjoying your business helps you make better decisions. It also helps those with you in the business make better business decisions.

Through our newsXpress community you have friends you can have a laugh with, and folks you can trust to decompress with.

In our Zoom meetings and other contact points we, together, have a laugh.

We nurture your resilience and, sometimes, help you find enjoyment when it may not have been obvious.

It really comes back to why you are in business. The answer to this varies. Understanding it is key to the enjoyment you feel and achieve.

The business itself becomes enjoyable when speed bumps are overcome and stormy weather guided away. Having access to your own business mentor can help achieve these things.

Success is enjoyable. We encourage and help to find success so you can feel the happiness it brings.

What newsXpress offers local newsagents is unique.

newsXpress is genuinely unique in the newsagency marketing group mix.

We own, and run our own shops, as playing fields where we experiment for our members with their full knowledge, and guidance.

We own and run successful websites. Our two biggest consumer-facing websites each did half a million dollars last year.

We were first with a consumer-facing online offer at the group level, and at an individual store level.

We have an active new shopper strategy, focussed through several suppliers that do not partner with any other marketing group.

We will disagree with you sometimes. If you ask our opinion, our feedback will be honest, and backed by evidence. We owe you the truth.

We leverage the Tower Systems retail experience. Tower serves 3,500+ independent retailers across 16 retail channels. Data insights from these channels provide early insights that we leverage for newsXpress members.

The value of this dataset is extraordinary.

Through this we can speak to key metrics such as return on floor space, return on labour, and return on investment, and through these help you cultivate more value from your business.

If you want to run an enjoyable and rewarding local newsagency business it starts with you not thinking about the business within the framework of being a newsagency. Don’t let your business plans be bound by tradition.

newsXpress is an Australian owned marketing group serving close to 200 independently owned member businesses.

We nurture value for member businesses through sharing business insights, strategic advice, store level data supported advice and optimism for a bright future.

Our members pay us a modest monthly membership fee. There is no fee on turnover. Most of our revenue comes from rebates from our partner suppliers.

Not a newsagency.

While newsXpress stores operate within the newsagency channel, they are not typical newsagencies. Gifts, homewares, nesting, personal care, collectibles, toys, games … are all important categories to us.

Not a franchise.

newsXpress is not a franchise.

What we look for in preferred supplier partners.

The ideal preferred supplier offers products through which our member retailers can attract new shoppers.

We love Australian designed and made.

We love introducing product categories to our member businesses.

Retail price is of little concern.

Our retailers want to be able to tell a story. They also love a category or range than evolves over time.

What we are not interested in products you may consider to be perfect for newsagents as such products are usually not embraced by our members.

How we help our preferred suppliers

When we bring on a preferred supplier, we introduce them to our members, explaining the products and where we see them as fitting within a newsXpress business. We explain the target customer and discuss how to reach them.

We email our members 2 or 3 time a week. We include in these emails offers and other collateral provided by suppliers.

We post a products promotional envelope with flyers from preferred suppliers to our members at least every second month.

We host at least 2 member meetings via Zoom each month and offer supplier access to introduce products and engage in a Q&A.

We produce a supplier specific Zoom session, live a virtual trade show for any supplier introducing new products, a showroom walkthrough or more. These can be with our head office team only or with members invited for Q&A.

All Zoom sessions are recorded and links to the videos shared with members.

These is no additional cost for any of these activities.

If you find yourself blaming others or external factors for situations you could have influenced, you may have a victim mentality.

It’s easy to blame others and forgive ourselves. However, this doesn’t benefit you or your business.

Blaming others for situations you could have controlled holds you back. It prevents you from learning and improving.

Wallowing in self-pity can be harmful. It can lead to a desire for the comfort of failure and the right to blame anyone but yourself.

We’ve encountered many small business owners with a victim mentality. They miss out on opportunities by spending their time blaming others.

If you notice yourself blaming others for business situations, consider seeking professional help. While you can break the cycle yourself, a professional can help you understand why and provide strategies to identify and address it.

If professional help isn’t appealing, meditation can help you find calm and stillness, reducing the influence of negative victimhood thoughts.

We are not not a psychologists or therapists. We recommend starting with a professional. However, here are some things we’ve done to focus on our role and the positive:

• Display reminders of success: Keep photos and other reminders of your successes on a noticeboard, at your desk, or somewhere in your business. Look at them regularly.
• Celebrate failures: Own your failures, such as a failed product, ineffective ad, or unprofitable business initiative. Learn from them.
• Exert control: If you see something negatively impacting your business, take ownership and address it early.
• Trust your intuition: If you sense something is wrong, address it immediately instead of waiting for it to become a problem.
• Say no: If you don’t want to do something, politely decline.
• Make informed decisions: Research, learn, and strive to be smarter in your decision-making.
• Expand your perspective: Victims may perceive limited control over their world. Look beyond your immediate circumstances and find ways to expand your influence.
• Foster accountability: Create a workplace culture where mistakes and poor decisions are acknowledged and learned from.

Blaming others for situations within your control doesn’t help you or your business. It may provide temporary relief but ultimately achieves nothing.