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SYDNEY MARKET FAIR IS BETTER THAN EXPECTED

Yesterday we held our very first newsXpress market fair at Castle Hill RSL in Sydney’s North/Western suburbs. It would be fair to say we did not know what to expect.

We invited 25 supply partners and service providers in line with newsXpress‘ long term goal of streamlining its supply chain to drive increased margins and eliminate unnecessary costs for its members and supply partners. What was planned to be a low key affair turned into something special with a wide cross section of national brand suppliers and service providers being involved.

newsXpress wanted it to be a low cost event so that suppliers could concentrate on delivering for the members. A number of suppliers commented on how inexpensive this fair was to attend in comparison to others. By developing long term supply partnerships everyone benefits.

Next week we do it all again in Melbourne & Brisbane and then the following week in Perth as we want to make sure every store in our network can benefit.

Proud: newsXpress Castle Towers proprietor Geoff Hilder and newsXpress Chairman Graham Randall

Networking: newsXpress CEO Mark Nagy, Nici Wceszniak & Shirley from newsXpress Castle Towers

Purchase Opportunity: Vinay Soni, proprietor of newsXpress Roselands buying books from Ross Morris of Australian Book Wholesalers (ABW)
Pens, Glorious Pens: Terry & Rosalie from newsXpress Northgate perusing the Pentel exhibit
Say it with a card: Maureen & Paul Blunden, newsXpress Orange talking Christmas Card orders with Lynn Mason from Cardpac

Art made easy: newsXpress Wagga Wagga proprietors, Dean Sutherland (left) & Troy Sutherland (far right) with Ashley Horne from Canson

Ecstatic: A very happy Phil Banks from newsXpress Glendale mills around the 3M display

Intimate: A wide shot of the interaction between suppliers and members at Castle Hill RSL for the Sydney Market Fair

Atmosphere: With over 25 suppliers and 40 newsXpress representatives in attendance the fair was a hive of activity for the four hour duration.

Hallmark Alliance: Nici, Geoff, Shirley (newsXpress Castle Towers), Graeme Baker (newsXpress McArthur), with Julie-Anne and Christine from Hallmark

Smile for the camera: Vinay (newsXpress Roselands) & Hallmark ladies Julie-Anne & Christine

Bright, bold, beautiful: Karen Sutton & the crew from newsXpress Singleton Heights listening to a presentation from hiPP

Gifts for everyone: newsXpressers Ben Kay & Lesley Bortfield enjoying the fair alongside Scott & Steven Brooker from Care and Share

Work & Play: Anthony & Nicky McCormack of newsXpress Woden with their Pentel representative

Rollerboy: Sandy Burke of newsXpress Wauchope, with a senior team member discussing stationery requirements with Pentel’s Rob Henderson

All the fun of the fair: Paul Waite & Karen Sutton

Going well: Graham Randall & Ben Kay

Catch Up: Roger & Lesley Bortfield, newsXpress NSW/ACT/NT Business Development Managers spending some time with their QLD/WA counterpart Karen Sutton

Worth the wait: Maureen Blunden from newsXpress Orange & Karen Sutton

newsXpress National Conference

newsXpress has announced it will be holding its inaugural national conference at Conrad’s Jupiter’s on the Gold Coast starting on the 17th September.

The proprietors have been asking for a couple of years now, so in keeping with only having the best people possible working with newsXpress, Paul Waite has agreed to join the newsXpress team to look after the conference. Paul is well known in the industry as a former CEO of the ANF and NANA and has exceptional skills in event management.

Paul’s brief is to put together something different drawing on his experience and using his knowledge to build not only an event that is relevant, but to focus on the development of newsagents to retailers. Paul can be contacted at paulw@newsxpress.com.au

Doing it the newsXpress way

One from the archives – newsXpress Albany opened in Western Australia in December 2006, building their ‘Gala Event’ from the newsXpress store opening template.

A simple but very effective store opening was organised by the team at newsXpress Albany…Hamish arranged to have an Outside broadcast with the local Radio West station and effective advertising in the local Newspaper…

The first 500 customers all received a newsXpress Red environmental bag filled with goodies from industry suppliers…and free balloons were also handed out to all, while the Hallmark Forever Friends Bear was also a great crowd puller as always!!!!

SYMPLY TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE

Annette & Bill Sym from ‘Symply Too Good To Be True‘ have always been great supporters of newsXpress, and the newsXpress network continues to sell a huge amount of the ‘Symply Too Good To Be True’ range as a result.

CONNECTING WITH YOUR LOCAL COMMUNITY

The team at newsXpress Glendale have chosen to connect with the local community by sponsoring a local sporting team, it shows that the store is putting back into the community that supports the store.

NEWSPAPERS HAVE A NEW PLACE IN newsXpress STORES

In evolving the newsXpress offer, the team at newsXpress Jamison in the ACT have chosen to provide space for newspapers in a part of the store that is not a traditional spot for newspapers.

Tradition is good but selling space is configured to what drives profit, in this case newspapers have made way for new money revenue drivers and have been located in sub prime space, not at the front of the store as in traditional shop fits.

EXPLORE DORA TO MAKE THE PART WORK!

It’s the simple things that sells product. A DVD/TV showing the product. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to be a great retailer. newsXpress Browns Plains sell a mountain of Dora DVD’s.

CREATING SALES WITH NEW MONEY

The Canson partnership is working a treat. No matter the type of store, the demographic or the proprietor, the Canson product with it’s great quality, price and brand is selling like crazy.

Consistency through the newsXpress network and great supplier support is ensuring Canson and newsXpress are reaping the rewards.

The following photos are from newsXpress Westpoint one of over 70 stores who have already installed the exclusive Canson Creative Centre.

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

When you are at the top of your game, how do you keep getting better?

These three stores just get better and better – Amazing. In Japan the word Kaizen means continuous improvement. Well the team at newsXpress Indooroopilly show you how the Kaizen Blitz works and how to bring the extraordinary benefits of this approach to continually improve what already is a stunning operation.

VISIONARY RETAIL LEADERSHIP

The team at newsXpress Toowong has a great General by the name of Scott. He is a visionary as well as a completer-finisher. The store is perpetual motion allowing the owner Paul to work on the business not in it. The photos say it all.

State of origin is only but one of the promotions on at the moment, with HOT ink! 6 churning and burning and financial year diaries also in play, all parts of the store are working.

BRIDGING THE GAP – NO STRESS AT newsXpress

The team at newsXpress The Gap are quiet achievers, low maintenance and get the job done! Rob and Matt and the team work all parts of the store and are the model of consistency. Incremental growth always adding a new string to the bow and growing nicely as a result.

newsXpress Bairnsdale embraces HOT ink!

newsXpress Bairnsdale proprietors Dave and Gina have firmly embraced HOT ink! since joining our network. Prior to their introduction to newsXpress, they ran with another Ink group, enjoying reasonable success, but since introducing HOT ink! their results have been phenomenal.

They gleefully accepted advice to install their range in the front window and subsequently cleared the formerly cluttered windows to realy highlight the stock. There is still some work ot do but the transformation has been amazing. The display will be completed by the use of the square modules for additional promotional stock.

The highlight of their endeavors so far however is undoubtedly the massive window signage – boldly proclaiming HOT ink! The signs were created locally but are definitely the brainchild of Dave and Gina. The signs are made of the same material as ‘L’ and ‘P’ plates used in motor vehicles and was easily installed by Dave and Victorian State Business Manager, Ian Urquhart in under 10 minutes.

The effect of this commitment to their ink category has been felt almost immediately with several customers over heard musing they didn’t even know the store sold ink despite it being a permanent fixture for over two years. The new lease of life and especially the signage will ensure this mistake won’t be made again!

The newsXpress Bairnsdale window before HOT ink!

newsXpress Beechworth launches

newsXpress Beechworth was launched on Saturday and left the locals and tourists understanding that small business can make a difference.

Tracy and Ian McVea set up the promotional day with 2 goals:

1. Highlight the newsXpress magazine Loyalty Card offer and grow magazine sales, &

2. Being only 30 minutes drive to a major regional centre, highlight the local offer.

And what a success they made of it…

Magazine sales up over 120% on the day compared to last Saturday. Over 200 magazine Loyalty Cards distributed in a town of only 1840!

Strong acceptance of the HOT ink! offering with even city visitors asking why prices were so good.

Also in attendance on the day was ‘Sparky the Clown’ – what he can do with balloons is amazing! Sparky spent several hours entertaining the big kids with balloon shaping and the little ones with colouring competitions.

newsXpress Beechworth certainly made some noise in Victoria’s premier heritage town in the North East on Saturday.

HOT ink! 6 Flyers cover Eumundi

Manni Ribeiro at newsXpress Eumundi has taken his HOT ink! marketign to a new level with this novel idea.

Plastering his promotional areas with HOT ink! 6 flyers he is really drawing attention to the growing category and ensuring local customers easily connect the bright blue brochures in their letterbox to his store.

BLUES SINK MAROONS

Well it was the NSW Blues who sunk the Queensland Maroons at ANZ stadium last night, with Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy masterminding the victory.

One of our newsXpress retail outlets backed the winner! Guess who?

Here it is! State of Origin TONIGHT!

newsXpress Harbour Town on the Gold Coast have created a classic display highlighting both the Maroons and Cockroach merchandise in the battle for supremacy in the traditional Northern states game.

Regardless of the result in tonight’s massive Game 1 at ANZ Stadium the big winner is Victoria, who’s very own Melbourne Storm have a record 9 representatives.

Going, Going, Gone…

newsXpress The Pines celebrated their very first dress up day for the coming Game 1 in the State of Origin series.

They should have taken the photo in the morning as most of their merchandise was sold out by lunchtime. A great result all round and the team and customers loved the theme

newsXpress Kin Kora steam ahead while others rest

newsXpress Kin Kora are always at the forefront of promotional activity and post Mother’s Day is no exception.

The ‘Symply Too Good To Be True‘ display has been up for just over a week and has already generated great sales. With Annette Sym touring Gladstone this week we are hoping for another surge in sales. newsXpress has a fantastic two way relationship with Annette , which is certain to see her reward the store for promoting her title with her reciprocating this support when highlighting her products are available in store during her various speaking engagements.

While the rest of the country may never understand the allure, for dyed in the wool Queenslander’s and New South Welshmen nothing is bigger than State of Origin. With the big game 1 clash only a week away Kin Kora have a full range of merchandise and decoration on sale in a prominent location. Sarah mentioned that the jerseys are out and loyalty is stronger than ever, also if there wasn’t upcoming $20million Lotto draws the promo would consume more of the shop. Just wait until you see what they have planned for game 2 in the Sunshine state!

In what has been a busy promotional time they have also created some fantastic in-store posters thanks to their trusted Toshiba photocopier.

WHEN YOUR ON A GOOD THING YOU STICK TO IT!

The team at newsXpress Castle Towers have always known the benefits of out-posting. For Mothers Day they did it again. The store also looked tip top.

OUTPOST YOUR WAY TO HUGE SALES

newsXpress Roselands cleaned up with their Mother’s Day campaign. Have a look at how they did it.