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Meeting on Gold Coast to plan 2009

Some of our team met on the Gold Coast yesterday to discuss 2008 and continue our planning discussions for 2009. Group planning and reviews such as this are crucial to developing the strategy which is proving so successful for newsXpress members. Around the table in the photo is Jeff Walsh from our merchandise team, Karen Sutton our National Sales Manager, Lesley Bortfield one of NSW Business Development Managers, Ben Kay our National Merchandise Manager, Mark Fletcher newsXpress Director, Sonia Ruhland our Group Administration Co-Ordinator, Graham Randall newsXpress Director., Roger Bortfield another of our NSW Business Development Managers and Belinda Adshead our Queensland Business Development Manager.

newsXpress has a strong professional team including several not in the photo. This team is key to the strength of our group and the success being achieved by our members.

Three new stationery offers for newsagents

newsXpress will be introducing three new stationery seasons for newsXpress newsagents next year. These details of these secret campaigns will be announced confidentially to members closer to action time. Our research has identified three lucrative opportunities which will give our members exclusive and valuable revenue opportunities.

Merchandise team meets with members

The newsXpress national merchandise team has been on the road for almost two weeks meeting with members in three states who specialise in product categories we see as growth opportunities in 2009. Meeting with newsXpress members in their stores has provided our back office team with store level insights which will be reflected in merchandise plans for 2009.

newsXpress appreciates the time given and valuable insights shared by our members in the meetings. It is through co-operation such as this that we are able to better serve our members and help other members new to growth categories.

Something extra for customers

The newsXpress Things To Do Today pads developed by newsXpress for members to giveaway tto customers are proving to be a hit. These pads are personalised to each newsXpress business including full contact details. Members are reporting wonderful customer feedback when they provide the pad as a gift. We have some members posting these with their end of year accounts and others handing them to customers over the counter.

The pads are a low cost high reward mechanism for showing appreciation for custom through the year. They are exclusive to newsXpress – we designed and executed this project in-house. The pad project is another way newsXpress helps member newsagents show apprecaition of customers and thereby take another step to building a stronger business.

newsXpress is a big picture newsagency marketing group with plenty of micro focus in execution. While the pads in themselves are not big picture marketing, they represent a small and vital step in a big picture approach to exceptional customer service and apprecaition.

Success with face to face visits

Two of our team last Saturday completed a grueling seven day trip from cairns down, visiting with newsXpress members in scheduled sessions on strategies for building the business and presenting a better retail story. This face to face contact, even for remote newsagents, is a key point of difference delivered by newsXpress to its members.

Newsagents can almost bank the results of these practical visits through increased sales, better processes and more a more motivated team. from Visual merchandising advice to better buying to handling staff issues, our members have access to professional advice in-store to help build a healthier business.

In addition to the benefits delivered through training and practical in-store work, there is a tremendous benefit from sharing stories from other newsagencies along the way. The sharing of these stories is an important function of our on the road team – connecting newsagents who, usually for distance, are not able to get out of their businesses.

We think this contact and the sharing of business success stories is another reason newsXpress newsagents are more up-beat and proactive.

Gifts at newsXpress Watergardens

Our corporate newsXpress store at Watergardens in Victoria is kicking huge goals this Christmas. Cards, calendars, magazines, diaries, art and puzzles are all doing well. It is the gift department which is leading the pack. Christmas 2008 is proving a huge success for us in the gift department. We have an excellent range of gifts for all ages. Our specially developed gift tables are helping make this department a real winner for us.

Keys to success with gifts are buying, display and customer service. Thanks to an excellent team on the ground we are winning in each area.

Customers shopping with us often comment that they did not realise they are in a newsagency. We are thrilled with this compliment as one of the reasons we created Watergardens was to play with the boundaries of what a newsagency is.

Lessons from Watergardens are reflected in offers newsXpress puts to members and advice it provides in many areas.

Selling clocks for Christmas

Some of us were not sure about these clocks for our gift range this Christmas as they seemed removed traditional newsagency lines. However, given our commitment to continue to evolve the newsagency offer we added them to the Christmas mix. Members who took up the clocks offer report that they have been a good success. Since they are so different to the usual newsagency product mix they stand out and this is, in part, a reason for their success. Kids like the clocks because they make the sound of the animal on the face.

newsXpress is supporting the clocks with free A2 double-sided colour posters for members.

Gift displays at Salamander Bay

The team at newsXpress Salamander Bay knows the importance of changing gift displays regularly. Every couple of days, gifts are moved and new displays created to provide a fresh and excisting shopping experience for customers. This is a key factor in the success of the team at Salamander Bay with gifts and a key element in the newsXpress message around this important category for newsagents.

newsXpress helps members source gift product and develop merchandising skills to maximize the gift opportunity.

Great Christmas counter offer

newsXpress has provided members with marketing collateral to support the discount ABC Christmas CDs on offer. Providing this reflects the commitment of newsXpress to not only source excellent value (70% margin) product for members but to also provide the retail tools with which to leverage the opportunity to maximum value. This is what we are doing by providing professional newsXpress exclusive art to support the ABC CDs.

The A4 artwork works very well at the counter as some members are finding – customers often buy two or three CDs at once.

The bookseat a Christmas star

The Bookseat is proving to be a Great Christmas Idea in newsXpress newsagencies. It is selling out! Some newsXpress members have ordered twice and three times the initial order. We are thrilled with this success, as are our members.

While not a natural gift to be found in a newsagency, we have found a way to leverage this for tremendous commercail advantage. An unusual gift to display, the Bookseat draws good attention from shoppers looking for a unique gift.

newsXpress is supporting the Bookseat with in-store marketing collateral in the form of double sided A2 posters.

Great Christmas gift from Pentel

newsXpress has partnered with Pentel to create a great value Christmas gift package for our members. For $14.95 newsXpress customers can purcahse a pack of Pentel Fabric Pastel Dye Sticks and a T-Shirt. We selected this for our 2008 range of Christmas gifts because it supports a good brand in Pentel, is the kind of practical gift which we feel will appeal to traditional newsagency customers and it is priced as a good value stocking stuffer.

newsXpress has supported the offer by providing double sided colour A2 posters for in-store promotion at no cost to members. The posters tie in visually with our other Christmas gift posters.

Newsagents and long term franchise agreements

newsXpress does not lock members into long term franchise agreements. We prefer member newsagents to stay with us because they want to stay and not because of a legal threat. This is a hot issue among newsagents today. We find it being raised more and more by newsagents who enquire about joining newsXpress. Two other newsagent franchise groups lock newsagents into long agreements, usually five years.

We have had newsagents recently tell us they have heard of legal action against other newsagents to force them to stay with a group. Legal action is expensive, intimidating and takes you away from running your newsagency. If a relationship is not working, why litigate or threaten litigation to force the union to remain?

Our view here at newsXpress is that we prefer to be kept focused by the knowledge that our members stay because they like what we do. We also think it is fair to NOT lock the current newsagents and future prospective purchasers of the business into a long agreement.

Early back to school pitch

newsXpress has provided members wanting to make an early Back To School pitch with marketing collateral featuring excellent deals. The catalogues, delivered by Salmat, also feature our Nintendo Wii competition. While many newsagents prefer to focus on Christmas this time of the year, we recognise that Back To School specialists are busy promoting their offers to schools which like to get orders completed prior to the end of the current year.

newsXpress, through its Back To School campaign and support, has been able to get some members into the opportunity for the first time.

newsXpress website enhancements

newsXpress has released a series of enhancements to its new website over the last two weeks. These include additional store search facilities, an interface to Google maps and a job listing service allowing members to easily list vacancies at their businesses.

members are able to load photos, list services and control other details showing about their business. Searchable by search engines such as Google, the new newsXpress website is another service provided by the group to its member newsagents.

We are still in phase 1 of our roll-out. Keep an eye on the newsXpress website to see real online innovation for newsagents at work.

Nuts for Christmas

Following up the tremendous success with the newsXpress Morish Nuts offer for Father’s Day, last month we launched an exclusive Christmas pack for our members. We are supporting this initiative with free marketing collateral in store including double sided A2 posters. Poster packs were sent to all stores regardless of size. The posters follow the same visual theme of our other Christmas posters – creating a professional and consistent in-store story.

One of our goals is to deliver gift opportunities to our members around which they can promote easy gift giving to their customers. Easy decision making is crucial for gifts in a newsagency as they are often an add-on purchase. Hence the focus not only on excellent product but also professional collateral to position the gift.

Developing newsXpress in Darwin

Roger and Lesley Bortfield are in Darwin this week working with local newsXpress members – providing training and in-store support around newsXpress strategies.

The visits are provided as part of the newsXpress commitment to provide stock in-store support for our members and their employees. This in-store face to face contact is vital in reinforcing the newsXpress difference, a difference which we know results in good financial benefits for members.

Thanks to their years of experience owning and operating newsagencies, Roger and Lesley provide excellent practical assistance which enhances the newsXpress offer.

Christmas sale at newsXpress

The team at our newsXpress corporate store at Watergardens has created a bold Christmas sale display right at the front of the shop. The display featured items from several of the newsXpress Christmas offers including art, puzzle, gift and other categories. It includes several newsXpress exclusive lines. The display has been placed on the lease line facing directly into the mall and is drawing new visitors to our shop.

Our Watergardens store was opened mid 2007 and is used by newsXpress as a place where we experiment with new retail concepts and product categories. We work closely with suppliers in pursuit of new opportunities exclusively for newsXpress newsagents.

From time to time we arrange tours of the business. If you would like to go behind the scenes on newsXpress Watergardens please let us know.

newsXpress features in Bairnsdale street parade

newsXpress Bairnsdale demonstrated active community involvement at the weekend through their participation in the Annual Christmas Parade through the town. Taz and Gina (in the photo) and their team did the newsXpress brand proud. They also represented newsagents ore widely and newsagency suppliers both in the street parade and back in their shop.

newsXpress is thrilled to have Taz and Gina as part of our group. Their entrepreneurial drive, business acumen and community involvement embody what we look for in newsXpress members. It is no wonder they have been nominated for Newsagent of the Year.

Easy competition entry

newsXpress has launched an online only entry for its Back To School competition at its new website. In a move unique in newsagency marketing, newsXpress customers purchasing eligible product go to the newsXpress website to register as opposed to the old approach of filling in a paper entry form which is then sent to a central office for drawing. This smart approach by newsXpress is good for the customer, good for the environment and good for newsXpress members.

This is another way newsXpress is embracing technology for its members.

Having a creative Christmas

newsXpress has provided its members with another opportunity to drive special interest traffic with the launch of the Creative Christmas brochure last week. Featuring art supplies from Canson, this brochure is designed to drive excellent Christmas gift sales. I includes some excellent stocking stuffers for young and old.

We know from our shopping basket research that art supply customers are loyal once they find a brand of product they trust. Canson is a brand respected around the world. By building customer loyalty around art supplies over time through professional marketing and promotions, newsXpress members are well positioned to leverage that loyalty for the long term.

We also know that art customers are happy shopping in newsagencies and like to give art related product as gifts.

The Creative Christmas marketing is a nice fit with all the other marketing in newsXpress newsagencies around Christmas.