Author: mark

I am a Director of newsXpress, a marketing group for newsagents keen for a bright future. You can reach me on +61 418 321 338 or mark[at]towersystems.com.au

Newsagency management advice: maximising the stationery opportunity

This week, we are focussing on fundamental aspects of newsagency businesses that can significantly impact both bottom line and customer satisfaction. By returning to these basics, we can differentiate ourselves from competitors and re-establish our dominance.

Today, we’ll examine stationery. Newsagencies were once the undisputed leaders in this category in Australia. While external factors played a role, it’s essential to acknowledge our own part in relinquishing some of that market share.

Given the current landscape, it’s time to look forward and explore opportunities for stationery growth. To achieve this,consider the following:

  • Unique Selling Proposition (USP): What sets your stationery offering apart? Clearly define your USP as it’s crucial for moving forward.
  • Range: Ensure your stationery selection aligns with your target market. Whether you focus on convenience or specialise in school supplies, tailor your range accordingly.
  • Pricing: Conduct a competitive analysis and adjust your prices accordingly. Many newsagents can command higher prices without negatively impacting sales.
  • Customer Reach: Stationery is often overlooked. Enhance its visibility through prominent displays, including in-store promotions and cross-merchandising with complementary products.
  • Expanded Offerings: Increase sales by offering catalogue orders and delivery services. Build relationships with local businesses to create a unique customer experience.
  • Exceptional Customer Service: Go the extra mile by assisting customers in finding products and demonstrating a willingness to help, even if you don’t have what they’re looking for.
  • Innovative Thinking: Expand your stationery selection beyond traditional items. Explore fashion-related stationery and promote it as a gift option.

By implementing these strategies and demonstrating strong leadership, newsagents can revitalise their stationery sections,boost sales, and increase customer engagement. This series from newsXpress aims to encourage a fresh perspective on often-overlooked areas of your business.

By offering this free advice, newsXpress is seeking to add value to the newsagency community more broadly, not just its 200 member stores. It’s part of a broader giving back approach to serving the Australian Newsagency community.

Key to success in stationery lies in understanding your customer – not only your local customer but anyone you can reach online. By considering their needs and preferences, you can refine your product range, pricing strategy, and marketing efforts accordingly. Continuous evaluation and adaptation are essential to staying ahead of the competition and ensuring the longevity of your stationery section.

Newsagency management advice: maximising card sales in your newsagency

Australian newsagents hold a significant position in the greeting card market, accounting for nearly 35% of all card sales nationally. As the largest retail channel for cards and with impressive gross profit margins of 50-70%, it’s clear that cards are a cornerstone of the newsagency business.

However, while cards are undeniably important, are we optimising their potential? Many newsagents delegate card management to staff without sufficient oversight. This is a missed opportunity.

To maximise card sales, consider the following strategies:

  • Take control of your card department. Avoid relying solely on merchandisers. Gain a deeper understanding of your product range to better assist customers. Empower all staff to engage with customers about cards.
  • Refresh your card selection regularly. Collaborate with your primary card supplier to update your range at least annually.
  • Prioritise seasonal cards without neglecting everyday options. Ensure seasonal cards are prominently displayed without compromising sales of popular everyday and lifestyle cards.
  • Leverage licensed characters. Cards featuring popular characters often sell well. Explore opportunities to stock these items.
  • Create a strong card and gift connection. Cards and gifts complement each other. Optimise product placement and promotions to encourage combined purchases.
  • Implement a loyalty program. Reward repeat customers to foster long-term loyalty.
  • Enhance card department visibility. Position your card department at the front of the store and ensure it is well-lit to attract attention.

By implementing these strategies, newsagents can significantly boost card sales and strengthen their overall business performance. Neglecting this crucial product category risks losing customers to competitors.

This advice is part of a series on basic Newsagency management advice rom newsXpress, a marketing group that helps newsagents run more valuable and enjoyable local retail businesses.

Beyond the core strategies we have shared above, several other factors can contribute to the success of your card department. Firstly, data analysis can provide valuable insights into customer preferences and purchasing behaviour. By tracking card sales, you can identify popular ranges, seasonal trends, and customer demographics. This information can be used to refine your product selection and marketing efforts.

Secondly, staff training is essential for maximising card sales. Ensure your team understands the importance of the card department and can effectively engage with customers. Providing product knowledge and sales techniques can significantly impact customer satisfaction and purchase decisions. By investing in your staff, you’ll create a more knowledgeable and confident salesforce.

Newsagency management advice: how to do a magazine relay in your newsagency

A well-executed magazine relay can significantly boost sales in a relatively short timeframe.

In our experience, the return on investment for a few hours of dedicated effort is substantial and typically realised within a month. So, why is a magazine relay so effective? Fundamentally, it drives increased sales.

The Mechanics of a Magazine Relay

A typical relay two or less hours.

While it’s possible to delegate this task, taking ownership of the process is highly recommended. A hands-on approach reinforces your leadership and allows for a more streamlined operation without the complexities of team management. It’s essential to remember that a magazine relay is an ongoing process, not a one-off event. Regular adjustments to the magazine layout are crucial for maintaining sales momentum.

Optimising Magazine Placement

Ideally, magazines should be displayed on a dedicated wall space rather than occupying valuable centre fixture real estate typically reserved for higher-margin products.

The visual impact of magazine covers can be diluted by excessive clutter. To maximise their appeal, avoid using product headers.

Full facing, where 100% of the magazine cover is visible, generally delivers optimal results. This is particularly effective for smaller assortments of under 500 titles. For larger assortments, consider tiered fixtures with one title per pocket.However, in some cases, accommodating two or three low-volume, specialised titles within a single pocket can be beneficial.

Leveraging Beacon Branding

Highlighting specific magazine categories through beacon branding can effectively attract customer attention. Dedicate the top two or three pockets to a single title to create a visual focal point.

The Relay Process

When undertaking a magazine relay, focus on creating an engaging and visually appealing display. Work systematically,removing and rebuilding sections of the fixture while maintaining clear spaces to avoid confusion. Continuously assess your progress and consider how each placement contributes to the overall narrative.

The Art of Adjacency

Experimentation is key to discovering the most effective product adjacencies. While there are general guidelines, the ideal arrangement can vary depending on customer behaviour and preferences. For example, consider whether grouping titles by brand or by interest category drives better sales.

Some potential adjacency combinations include: cricket, golf, and swimming; wrestling, boxing, and fitness; and creative arts (painting, writing, craft). However, it’s essential to avoid mixing unrelated titles such as soccer and rugby.

Customer Considerations

When designing the magazine display, prioritise customer ease and comfort. Avoid placing titles aimed at older customers in difficult-to-reach locations.

Post-Relay Actions

Once the relay is complete, share your vision with the team and encourage feedback. Monitor customer behaviour and sales performance closely. The insights gained from these observations can inform future adjustments to the magazine layout.

By following these guidelines and maintaining a focus on customer needs, you can significantly enhance your magazine sales through effective merchandising.

newsXpress helps newsagents run more valuable and enjoyable businesses.

newsXpress to host a national conference for newsagents

In the newsXpress member community, we see a powerful force: a community of passionate small business owners. We may run different shops, cater to different customers, but we share a common ground – the drive to succeed, to build, and to serve our communities.

The world throws challenges our way, from economic shifts to ever-changing consumer trends. But here’s the secret weapon of small businesses: we are not alone. This conference is about the power of “Together We Can.”

We can share best practices, learn from each other’s triumphs (and maybe even a few stumbles!), and build a network of support that strengthens us all.

So, let’s use this conference to connect, collaborate, and unlock the incredible potential we have together. Together, we can navigate any challenge, seize every opportunity, and create a thriving future for our businesses and our communities.

Monday September 9 is a full business day, focussed on sharing insights on newsagency retail transformation and how to execute this on a limited budget.

We will look to 2025 and beyond and consider ways we can make our businesses more resilient and valuable.

We’ll talk through how we can better support each other.

And, we will consider how to navigate challenges faced baby legacy products.

This is a conference for retail newsagents, designed to offer support and encouragement, to help us all find an enjoyable path to the future.

Thants to supplier support and support from newsXpress itself, participation is free.

If you are interested, please email help@newsxpress.com.au.

At the we conference, we anticipate we will launch an exclusive for newsXpress members range of limited-edition products with a significant partner already delivering terrific traffic and sales for newsXpress members.

Here what to expect at the conference:

  • Networking. You’ll get to meet fellow newsXpress members. This is thebiggest value members tell us about conferences. Catching up with others in a relaxed environment. Sharing, learning, nurturing.
  • It’s a no pressure event.
  • You can provide feedback we use to shape what the group does and offers.
  • You will be presented actionable opportunities.
  • Have a laugh.
  • Challenged. Not openly, not in public. Listening to the sessions though some of what you currently do may be challenges, and that’s good because change is vital.
  • Energised. We’re sure you will come away with an action plan.

If you’re an introvert and are concerned that you’ll find it uncomfortable. Hang out with me, we can talk one on one, privately. There will be plenty of us introverts at theconference.

How does the newsXpress newsagency marketing group help newsagents?

newsXpress is an Australian owned marketing group that serves Australian newsagents.

newsXpress is not a franchise or anything like a franchise, it does not fall under the franchise code of conduct.

newsXpress is a marketing group created to help local independent retail newsagents run more enjoyable and profitable businesses. For a modest monthly fee, newsXpress helps newsagents in many different ways.

Here is how newsXpress helps Australian newsagents:

  1. It leverages the common ownership of Tower Systems (the most widely used software in the newsagency channel) and newsXpress for evidence based guidance to more profitable business decisions. Through this, it also offers half price websites.
  2. It offers innovative pricing for EFTPOS, lower cost than least cost routing.
  3. newsXpress offers bias-free data-based card performance analysis that typically results in an increase in card sales of 15% or more.
  4. Member businesses benefit from an exclusive $1,000+ a year per store in-store marketing campaign – provided at no cost to the members.
  5. newsXpress runs a national in person conference with free accommodation for 2 nights and all meals covered.
  6. newsXpress helps newsagents with practical business advice, in-store support, awesome supplier deals and plenty of new traffic generating exclusive products.
  7. newsXpress directly owns and runs shops as testing grounds for innovation, sharing results with members.
  8. newsXpress direct imports good margin products.
  9. newsXpress is the only group to have authorised account access to four different Mints for access to new coin releases.
  10. newsXpress has suppliers who otherwise will not supply newsagents.
  11. newsXpress provides in-store visits from a business development manager.
  12. newsXpress provides visual merchandising materials including posters and on-location call-outs for all major seasons.
  13. newsXpress have access to a member only portal with a fully populated knowledge base and extensive business development resources.
  14. newsXpress members have access to a digital collateral library and cloud based resources for easy store level customisation.
  15. newsXpress members have access to a full video library of social media collateral and easy access to store level customisation.
  16. newsXpress offers signage and graphic design services at no cost.
  17. Rather than access to an Are Media account manager we provide a whole of magazine category problem resolution service. For free.
  18. Rather than a free postage for Christmas cards offer we provide free exclusive high-quality cards for Christmas for captions not covered by card companies.
  19. Each member has access to a dedicated and retail experienced business development manager.
  20. newsXpress helps with Google Business, Bing, and various maps profile setup and maintenance.

What newsXpress does for each member depends on their situation and what they want from from their engagement with newsXpress. Every business is different. Every business owner has different needs.

While all newsXpress members have access to our preferred suppliers, network wide connected websites, seasonal collateral, digital assets and networking opportunities, it is in our personal, business-specific, help where value can be found for plenty of newsXpress members.

We assess your business data as we prefer to offer advice based on evidence. Often when we do this we discover opportunities missed, low hanging fruit to be picked.

The approach is whole of business, considering location, product mix, financial resources, people resources and what you want and need from the business.

While we have members who prefer to do this work for themselves, we have others who appreciate a more engaged approach.

How much or little newsXpress members and our head office team members work together is entirely under control of each newsXpress member.

Nothing is required or mandatory.

When it comes to in-store retail though, we help you with the everyday:

  • Buy price. We help you buy better.
  • Stock turn. We help you sell products sooner.
  • We help you reduce the cost of theft.
  • We help you cast your business differently, to help improve shopper stickiness.
  • New traffic. We help you attract people not shopping with you today.
  • We help you tame them.

We help you make things happen by being actively engaged.

So what does newsXpress do for newsagents? It does all of this and much more, and it’s been doing it since 2001.