For more than a decade we have worked one-on-one with independent retailers, helping them run tighter, more profitable and more valuable businesses. Most of them were newsagents. Many of them are not any more, by their own choice, and they are trading better for it.
Today we are opening that work to three channels that need it: independent garden centres, gift shops and homewares stores. We are calling it Stride Retail.
What it is
Stride Retail is a retail accelerator. Not a buying group, not an association, not a franchise. Members keep their name, their identity and their independence. What they get is the infrastructure a national chain has and an independent usually does not.
- One supplier statement. Buy from our preferred suppliers and pay once a month, on extended terms. One payment instead of forty.
- One-on-one coaching. Someone who reads your numbers with you and tells you the truth about them, calmly, and helps you act on it.
- A whole-of-business review. Your data, your location, your floor space, your category risks and your plan B, worked into a written strategic plan. Consultants charge $10,000 or more for this. It is included.
- A 24/7 AI chatbot trained on the Retail Award, HR, pay rates, shop floor management and visual merchandising, built from our knowledge base of more than 300 articles and years of hands-on experience.
- Seasonal campaigns we pay for. Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Christmas, spring and autumn. Creative, in-store material, social content and prizes.
- Cash-flow support. A budget, then regular check-ins on the goals you set. This has saved businesses.
- More shoppers. Strategies and tactics that bring people through the door, with our Seasonal Edge campaigns at the centre, plus step-by-step Google Business Profile support so you are found locally and an honest review of your social media and other marketing.
- Benchmarking and exit support. See how your store compares with similar Stride members. And when you decide to sell, free exit support that starts about a year out: lifting profit and efficiency, making the business appealing to a buyer, and getting you ready for handover.
What it costs
$295 including GST a month for your first store, and up to two more stores you own at no charge. No joining fee. No lock-in. Month to month, 30 days’ notice. The first three months are free. We publish our pricing because you should know what something costs before you pick up the phone. No other group in these channels does.
Why us
The company behind Stride Retail has run central billing since 2012 and has never missed a supplier payment. It processes more than $10 million a year for around 130 preferred suppliers. It has coached around 200 independent retailers through the hardest decade their channel has ever had. And it has just changed its own name, from newsXpress Pty Ltd to Stride Retail Pty Ltd, because a business that tells retailers to move should be prepared to move itself.
Something to do this week: pull your last twelve months of sales by category and write down the three categories that made the most gross profit, not the most sales. If the two lists are different, you have found where to start. That is the first question we ask every new member.
Local. Going Places. That is the whole idea in three words, and it is why the name is Stride.
We are taking foundation members now, ahead of a public launch in February.
