Category: newsXpress difference

Retail transformation: newsXpress Mount Waverley

newsXpress Mount Waverley is a corporate store, it’s one of our own shops where we experiment with tech and retail. It’s a shop we run on a tight budget.

In this video, Anthony from our newsXpress head office and Mark Fletcher our CEO discuss the transformation of the Mount Waverley business from 2018 to today. We also cover how this business spawned a second business, and online business, that outgrew the shop, and how it’s just launched its second online business – www.hugsandlove.com.au.

While the business identifies as a newsagency, it’s far removed from what Aussies consider to be a newsagency. It’s a gift shop, a haven for collectors and a place to shop for young kids.

This video shows how to go about changing a local high street shop on a small budget and the importance of being flexible to pivot when the world presents opportunities.

We are grateful for the opportunity to take you behind the scenes of one of our corporate stores, to show the value we harvest from being a POS software company that owns and runs retail businesses.

Australian newsagents have a bright future thanks to newsXpress

newsXpress helps newsagents transition their businesses to be relevant, appealing and sought out.

Our in-store and online strategies help newsagents run businesses that appeal across age groups and different special interests.

We help newsagents move from the old newsagent model to something enjoyable for the retailer and appealing for local shoppers and findable by shoppers elsewhere.

What we do for each newsXpress member depends on their situation and what they want from us. 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.

newsXpress is not a franchise. We have a simple low monthly fee. We make it easy for members to engage with what they want and when they want. From the personal through to the group-wide, newsXpress is here to help its member businesses thrive in a changing economy, to be relevant locally and outside the local area.

We are grateful to the many newsagents who have trusted us to work with them and their businesses.

At newsXpress, we believe small business retailers can make their own success

We started selling mint coins six years ago in our shops. Sales have been excellent. The coins have attracted many new and loyal shoppers.

A challenge has been getting enough stock.

A few months ago we committed to having an exclusive coin made for us. Fact or Fiction: Patchwork Platypus 2024 Niue $5 2oz Silver Proof Coin has been a hit.

The $259.00 price point has not been an issue.

A key driver of success for this coin has been the low mintage of 300. We have sole plenty in Australia as well as overseas.

It’s not easy getting a coin designed, approved by an issuing country and made.

Minted from two ounce of 99.9% pure silver, this cool collectable features the Platypus reimagined just as the original British scientists thought it – a sewn together patchwork of a creature, as if created by some Aussie Bush Frankenstein in a castle atop a cliff.

By making this made for us, we have the product exclusively, we control the price and therefore control our margin.

We have a few shops in the group, enough for this limited quantity coin to be a success.

What’s especially interesting about this coin is that while it appeals to coin collectors, it also appeals as a gift in plenty of situations.

We’re now onto our next coin and thinking ahead to more.

We’re selling our platypus coin. in-store as well as online: https://mintcoinshop.com.au/products/2024-niue-5-fact-or-fiction-patchwork-platypus-2oz-silver-proof-coin

I think we will see more of this I engages small business retail – having products made, bypassing traditional wholesale. Heck, product manufacturers have gone direct to consumer so why not us.

newsXpress offers half-price POS software connected Shopify websites to newsagents

Online is the biggest opportunity of 2024 without a doubt. The latest benchmark for Aussie retail reports online as 10% of total business revenue.

In the Aussie newsagency channel, the average figure for those with a website is under 5%.

If you don’t have a website, what would a 5% bump in revenue feel like?

We have businesses we have helped achieve a 20% bump in revenue in a year from online.

We leverage our Tower Systems experience and our newsXpress experience exclusively to help you be open 24/7, serve new shoppers and add valuable net profit in using existing overheads. Our skillset is unique, our experience backed by plenty of success.

newsXpress exclusive. We offer access to a half price, fixed price, beautiful Shopify website connected to your Tower POS software. We back this with advice and mentorship to help you find a profitable niche you like.

If you can’t increase local physical shopper traffic, online is a smart move to improve business reach and profitability.

One newsXpress member launched a website with us last year and added $50,000 in good margin revenue in six months.

Another newsXpress member used their website to pitch an entirely new product category and found a profitable second business as a result, using existing labour and facilities in the shop.

We showed another newsXpress member how to expand the reach of their website and within two months they achieved thousands in additional good margin revenue.

It’s easy to say no to a website if you don’t have one because you don’t know what you don’t know. It’s also easy if you had one in the past and it failed.

Most websites don’t work. Smart people use a failure to do better next time.

Core to website success is filling needs and wants. While needs and wants are quite different, they compel good online business.

Here are the top reasons why we think every retail business needs a website:

  1. Capture sales when you are closed. Typically, more than 50% of online purchases are then the brick and mortar business is closed.
  2. Engage when you are closed. Use chat to answer questions from anywhere, or you geek-out and have an AI chatbot do this.
  3. Reach people not currently shopping with you. Typically, 75% of sales are from people located nowhere near your shop.
  4. Have a second outlet for quitting stock.
  5. Have a place where you can experiment.
  6. Playing with a plan Bin case your shop finds itself in choppy waters.
  7. To learn. A website, especially your first website, teaches you so much: What people want. What they could pay. Haw awful some people are.
  8. To get you out of a rut. If you’ve been in your shop for ages and are mailing it in each day, a website could put a spring in your step.
  9. To make your shop more valuable. Having a website can make your shop more appealing when you decide to sell.
  10. To find a secondary brand. Could be the first step in a shop rebrand.
  11. To drive traffic to the shop. People will find products on your website and visit as a result, for sure.
  12. To give you another source of revenue that is completely unrelated to anything you do in your shop.
  13. To harvest email addresses. Email marketing from Shopify is a breeze.

Having a website gives people a landing page from your Facebook, Instagram and TikTok posts. This is important.

MAKING THINGS HAPPEN

Hello …

Our theme for 2024 is MAKING THINGS HAPPEN.

It’s about action, growth, success and enjoyment for newsXpress members.

We see opportunity for attracting new shoppers, helping existing shoppers spending more and increasing the overall GP% of newsXpress member businesses.

This is what MAKING THINGS HAPPEN is about.

In December 2023, participating newsXpress members each made, on average, $3,500 gross profit from a product opportunity we accessed without any downside risk. Plenty made twice this.

In 2023 we helped a member deal with challenging cashflow, another with employee theft, another with an exit strategy and another with a complex competitor situation.

We also helped a retailer cut their rent by a third.

Nothing we pitch is mandatory.

We’d love to help if you are keen for it.

How do I find a newsagent near me?

If you are searching newsagent near me you’re like to get some odd responses because what a newsagent is today is different to what it was two years ago, five years ago, ten years ago and more.

The Aussie newsagency today is very different and so searching for a newsagency near me may give you a response that is unhelpful.

Instead to typing newsagent near me into your search engine, type specifically what you are looking for. The product, the brand or the service. Be specific and the search engine will list businesses near you that have the product or service.

If you are looking to buy a birthday card, search for that. If you are looking for back to school supplies, type that into your search engine.

Assuming that all newsagencies have the same products is a mistake in 2024. We are not the same.

Newsagent near me searching is general, broad, and, ultimately unhelpful.

Take a look at the different brands of newsagent ties. newsXpress is very different to what you would find in an extra shop, a Newspower shop or a Lucky Charm shop. Hugely different. So much so that you cannot consider these to be the same businesses.

Your newsXpress shop will be locally owned and run, community connected, offering a terrific range of gifts, playing way outside what has been traditional for a newsagency business and always changing. We can speak to that as we are newsXpress. The others will need to speak to how they see themselves.

If you think you want to find a newsagent near me, consider what ti is you want to buy and search for that. We can assure you that the response from the search engine will be more helpful.

newsXpress is all about helping its members find and cultivate opportunity as this drives business value.

Business value is what the business provides you and those who rely on the business with today. It is also about what the business provides when you come to sell.

How newsXpress helps each member with this is 100% up to each member.

Nothing is mandatory.

We present insights, opportunities and commercial context.

newsXpress is a privately owned company. We have been in business since 2001. We are a marketing group.

We’re not a franchise. Nothing we pitch is mandatory. We do not charge a fee based on your turnover.

newsXpress nurtures local newsagents on a path or happiness and success in their local businesses

We nurture your success through opportunities you can leverage, often needing little or no capital investment. We share these in one of our regular (at least twice a week) member emails, or our regular member Zoom meetings.

Opportunities can be new suppliers, new products, in-store tactical changes, out of store marketing ideas. Often, they are early adopter opportunities that can help our members win before other retailers know about the opportunity.

We lay out for your consideration a pathway to a success.

Opportunities can be sales to people who will never visit your shop through any of several national #1 ranked consumer facing websites, and / or your own exclusive website, under a brand you choose.