newsXpress difference | newsXpress Blog

ATM at newsXpress Ascot Vale in Union Road

newsXpress Ascot Vale is the latest newsXpress location to install an ATM for shopper use in-store as part of a national trial between newsXpress and our preferred ATM supplier.

Providing an excellent and safe customer service, the ATM offer enhances the newsXpress shopper experience. At newsXpress Ascot Vale the ATM is especially useful for Union Road shoppers who prefer to withdraw cash from the bank in a safe indoors environment.

newsXpress has preferred terms around the supply of these ATMs, making the installation in our stores hassle free and quite beneficial.

Terrific Gift Sales at Klemms Mildura

newsXpress Mildura is enjoying terrific gift sales and a healthy margin thanks to newsXpress preferred supplier deals.

The range of gifts (many not shown in the photo) is extensive, giving newsXpress Mildura excellent gift business in Mildura.

With more than seventy newsXpress preferred suppliers offering gifts, newsXpress members have access to an excellent range at highly competitive prices. This is one reason why newsXpress locations are outperforming average newsagencies in the gift department. it all starts with good buying – on range and price.

newsXpress Strategies Drive Success For The Sticker Family Product

Shoppers are drawn to the pull up banner promoting the My Family Stickers from The Sticker Family like bees to a honey pot. This is the best analogy ever … the pull up banner really is a honey pot.

One newsXpress member watched interaction over a one hour period last Sunday and in that time eight groups of people approached the display and three of these purchased stickers immediately. Two others asked questions and said they would be back after talking to other family members. All eight groups were walking through the shopping mall through the hour long observation and approached the newsXpress outlet because of the tactically placed pull up banner. The engagement tactics used by the newsXpress member were what helped drive immediate and future sales.

We know that purchasing these stickers is often a shared, family, experience. This is why helping family members make the choice is an important and valuable part of the process. newsXpress has recommended to members a suite of tools and tactics with which to drive family involvement and ensure excellent sales as a result.

The exceptional sales being driven in newsXpress stores with the My Family Stickers range is proof of the newsXpress difference in action and working to the commercial benefit not only of newsXpress members but also for our partner supplier – The Sticker Family. We appreciate their help and support and the assistance they have given to enable newsXpress stores to lead the channel in sales of this product.

What a tremendous success story!

The newsXpress approach to and success with The Sticker Family is an excellent case study for newsagents who are comparing newsagency marketing groups. The newsXpress success shows off a commercially astute and valuable point of difference. It shows that newsXpress actions speak louder than the words of others. Yes, we are very proud of what we have achieved and continued to achieve with this excellent product.

Great Ink deals at newsXpress Maffra

Maffra (in Victoria) shoppers are being treated to excellent deals on ink thanks to the new newsXpress Maffra business launching HOT ink! last month.

With a bigger range of brand name ink and toner now available in Maffra at competitive prices, newsXpress Maffra is enjoying excellent results and the kudos of many in-town who are now saving serious money on their ink purchases.

Well done to the newsXpress Maffra team on embracing HOT ink! and banking excellent results from your efforts.

My Family stickers from The Sticker Family a hit at newsXpress Sanctuary Lakes

newsXpress Sanctuary Lakes is enjoying success with the My Family Stickers from The Sticker Family … as are so many newsXpress members around Australia.

With the pull-up banner located at the front of the newsagency drawing traffic and the order form located nearby, selecting the My Family stickers to purchase is easy. newsXpress has provided a range of shopper-friendly advice to help members achieve the best possible return from The Sticker Family opportunity.

We are grateful to our friends at The Sticker Family for their advice, support and assistance in helping our retail channel enjoy tremendous success with their products.

This product range is another example of newsXpress and the supplier working together to leverage knowledge and good buying into a wonderful and mutual success story.

newsXpress Launceston … Bold and Noticeable

newsXpress Launceston has making an impact in town with this bold newsXpress signage on the front of their newsagency.

The newsagency business underneath the signage is an equally strong promotion of all that newsXpress stands for: great service, excellent product knowledge, local engagement and good shopping deals.

newsXpress is thrilled to have the newsXpress Launceston team on the newsXpress team.

Extraordinary Growth in Gift Sales in newsXpress Stores

newsXpress members are reporting extraordinary growth in gift sales in the second quarter of 2011.

The average growth in the gift department is 20% and this is usually off an already high base for each newsXpress location.

This good news of sales growth is all the better when you see that much of the growth is coming from newsXpress marketing initiatives and newsXpress preferred suppliers. So, not only are newsXpress members enjoying sales growth in gifts, they are enjoying a better margin from many of these sales.

While many newsagencies are reporting challenging sales experiences, newsXpress members are reporting growth in gifts and other key departments thanks to newsXpress marketing and business growth strategies.

There is a tremendous difference between newsXpress and other newsagency marketing groups. The latest sales figures are revealing just how much of a difference there is.

newsXpress helps members develop their gift range, merchandise in store, determine pricing policies and measure and manage results. This whole of business approach helps the group help newsXpress members deliver the sort of results we are seeing.

Newsagents keen to grow their businesses should talk with newsXpress General Manager Ben Kay on 0418 678 754.

Hallmark Recordable Storybook for the New Cars Movie Franchise

newsXpress Knox at Knox City Shopping Centre in Victoria is promoting the latest recordable storybook from Hallmark. This Cars licenced product is timely given the latest movie.

The Knox team is also promoting other Cars licenced product on this easily accessed display.

The Hallmark recordable story book not only timely but also helping to pitch newsXpress stores as offering innovative product and proving that we are not just an average newsagency.

newsXpress is provided advance notice and access to innovative product from Hallmark. This is in addition to wonderful marketing collateral and other benefits with which we are able to leverage new traffic and better margin for newsXpress members.

Mid Year Stationery Sale at newsXpress

newsXpress stores embracing the GNS $uper Stationery Sale are enjoying access to newsXpress branded collateral for the seasonal stationery sale. Offering a range of branded stationery items at competitive prices, participating newsXpress members are using the sale to drive new customer traffic. Deals like Reflex paper for $4.75, and four Faber Castell highlighters for $2.49 are seen by shoppers as excellent deals.

The 16 page $uper Stationery Sale catalogue is all about combating the consumer view that newsagencies are expensive. It is proving to be an excellent opportunity for newsXpress members to promote their price offer and through this attract new shoppers.

newsXpress appreciates the opportunity of working with GNS on the promotion.

JM Eyewear Offers Valuable Basket Building Range

newsXpress members are reporting good sales from the various eye wear products on offer from newsXpress preferred supplier JM Eyewear. From prescription products through to sunglasses, the JM Eyewear range has products for a variety of situations.

Given that shoppers often visit newsXpress stores to read, the reading experience is top of mind. This is why selling eyewear products fits. The folks at JM Eyewear have a range of categories of products from which newsXpress stores can choose. They are presented professionally and priced keenly … with a good margin for our members.

We have just put a selection of JM Eyewear products into our Knox City corporate store.

Free Marketing Collateral Helps Drive Ink Sales

newsXpress sent double sided A1 posters to all newsXpress stores participating in our latest HOT ink! campaign – at no cost. The professional (and free) posters connect with the national brands which feature in the HOT ink! campaign and help the stores dress appropriately to reflect the value of the HOT in! offer. Using this newsXpress exclusive collateral along with the colour personalised brochures, our in-store offers newsletter and our How to save Money on Your Print Costs advice sheet combine to give newsXpress stores exclusive and valuable leverage in the valuable and growing ink space.

Did we say that newsXpress provided this additional marketing collateral for FREE? Yes. newsXpress often delivers bonus benefits to members and it does this without a marketing levy or additional charge. Like the national TV campaign – this too is being run without members funding the campaign.

As the article in the Australian Financial Review showed earlier this week, ink is a strong and growing category for newsXpress stores. It drives excellent traffic and delivers a valuable margin dollars bounce to sales. newsXpress helps members make the most of the opportunity by providing bonus collateral and tactics with which our members can engage.

My Family stickers by The Sticker Family selling well at Castle Towers Shopping Centre

newsXpress Castle Towers is having a terrific time with the My Family stickers from The Sticker Family.

A key driver for their success is the pull up banner at the front of the shop. Their clipping of paper on which customers can note their orders is proving to be especially useful, helping browsers easily and comfortably convert into shoppers. It is simple and smart moves like this one at newsXpress Castle Towers which helps drive sales of The Sticker family stickers.

The newsXpress Castle Towers team moves the promotional collateral for The Sticker family around, to combat store blindness and to make the most of the opportunity of this popular product range.

newsXpress to Host Local Area Marketing Workshops

newsXpress is running Local Area Marketing Workshops for members in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane starting later this month.

These face to face workshops will share practical information and training on how to use the exclusive collateral created by newsXpress for use by newsXpress members and how to run a range of different local area marketing campaigns. They will also provide excellent opportunities for newsXpress members to workshop their own local area marketing ideas.

The workshops will challenge participants to step out of their comfort zone and reach beyond traditional newsagency marketing. They workshops are not for the feint hearted.

This training is another way newsXpress is helping members get more value from their newsXpress membership and showing that we go way beyond the traditional newsagency marketing group offering.

Each session is expected to run for three hours. Numbers will be limited to ensure that the maximum opportunity is available for personal and business specific engagement.

Each workshop will cover topics such as:

How to choose the right local area marketing campaign for your business
How to modify the newsXpress provided marketing collateral
How to engage your entire team
How to work with outside parties such as schools and community groups
How to measure results
How newsXpress can help

A good local area marketing campaign delivers a deeper connection. The new toolkit from newsXpress helps members more easily make this connection.

The details of the workshops will be announced to newsXpress members later this week.

newsXpress Gympie wins Hallmark Alliance Retailer of the Year Award

Congratulations to Warrick Hosking and the terrific team at newsXpress Gympie in Queensland for winning the inaugural Hallmark Alliance Retailer of the Year Award.

What a terrific win for this creative and energetic team!

newsXpress Gympie won from a field of ten finalists including seven newsagencies of which four were newsXpress stores. They won for their proactive, creative and commercial support of the Hallmark brand and products.

This is an excellent win for a newsagency in a town with seven newsagencies. talk about competition.

Well done to Warrick and the team. Well done to newsXpress Bairnsdale, newsXpress Glendale and newsXpress Sunbury Square for making the final ten in a tough commercial competition.

Hallmark is a newsXpress Strategic Partner. Through this relationship we leverage a range of benefits for newsXpress members including residual benefits from the inreased Hallmark national TV advertising and access to exclusive product opportunities.

This Christmas, newsXpress stores will carry an exclusive range of boxed Christmas cards sourced through Hallmark.

The Best Newsagency Marketing Kit Ever

Earlier this year, newsXpress launched the most comprehensive newsagency marketing kit ever. Covering a broad range of marketing options from community engagement to in-store offer promotion, the newsXpress Marketing Toolkit provides newsXpress members with professional posters and collateral which can be easily customised to local needs and situations.

Having had four months to engage with the newsXpress Newsagency Marketing Toolkit, newsXpress members are starting to offer feedback. The most common feedback from newsXpress members is brilliant! and thank you!

newsXpress wants the store level feedback to be in the form of money banked as a result of engaging in embracing opportunities in the Marketing Toolkit.

The Marketing Toolkit perfectly demonstrates the newsXpress difference. It is an excellent example of our commitment to helping newsXpress members drive traffic and increase the average spend of shoppers. It supports strategies and tactics for driving sales of excellent deals available from newsXpress preferred suppliers.

newsXpress has invested considerably in the creation of the collateral in the Marketing Toolkit for newsXpress members. We own all materials and this provides flexibility in how it can be used. It also gives us an excellent base off of which we can create more materials for other campaigns.

The newsXpress marketing team is not resting on its laurels. Since the Marketing toolkit was originally launched earlier this year, a further five marketing campaign opportunities have been released to newsXpress members.

In addition to providing professional and high quality marketing resources, newsXpress also provides advice and guidance on local execution and engagement.

William and Cate Calendar Pre Sale Delivers Excellent Sales

The pre-sale order form for the William and Cate Royal Wedding calendar for 2012 has been a terrific success in some newsXpress stores. The simple placement of the flyer at the counter has generated sales with customers fully pre-paying to secure their copy of this calendar. The flyer shows newsXpress stores off as being innovative and offering a product which no other store was promoting at the time.

In many ways through the year newsXpress presents its members with innovative ways to pitch their newsagency businesses as different to other newsagencies and as offering products which are quite unique to the many newsagency products which are also sold at other retail locations.

Through newsXpress energy and creativity, we are able to show our retail channel as being competitive, value-based, exclusive and community connected … genuinely unique, newsXpress unique.

The Sticker Family Counter Mat Drives Sales

This counter mat promoting the My Family stickers from The Sticker Family is delivering excellent success in newsXpress locations in which it is used. There are many stories of customers presenting at the counter to purchase a card, magazine or lottery ticket who notice the counter mat and comment along the lines of oh, you sell these or ah I wondered what these were when I saw them on cars.

Marketing experts tells us that shoppers are more likely to respond if they see a single message repeated in their interaction with a retail store. This is where the counter mat works in that by the time a shopper gets to the counter they will have passed the pull up banner. They may also have seen and promotion elsewhere in the business for The Sticker Family range.

The counter mat is another valuable touch point in selling these stickers to new customers as well as those with stickers already. newsXpress highly recommends it to members.

Zodiac Smurf Figurines

The Smurfs are back! They are at newsXpress. Some newsXpress stores have taken the opportunity to offer Smurf zodiac figurines, giving shoppers an opportunity to connect with these wonderful characters from a couple of decades ago. With the new Smurf movie out this year, Smurfs are connecting with a new audience and reconnecting with an older audience. These precious characters sell well to a couple of generations. They connect well with any targeted retro offer.

newsXpress innovation is on show here … helping to bring to newsXpress locations products which you would not see in a traditional newsagency and thereby helping newsXpress members pitch their businesses as different, more relevant, more current and more connected with shopper interests.

Tinco Products a Hit For newsXpress Stores

The Tinco range of gift tins and mugs, bear themed and cat themed, are selling well in participating newsXpress stores. They are being used to create centre piece displays to attract shopper traffic and drive sales basket efficiency … as the photo shows.

Connecting primarily with older shoppers, the Tinco range is attracting people who tend to purchase more than one item in a newsagency – thus improving overall sales efficiency.

One of the biggest lessons for newsagents and any retailer is that they are not their customer. Many newsXpress members have experienced this first hand when they have at first declined to take on a product and then see it sell well when encouraged to take it on by the newsXpress merchandise team. The Tinco range was one such product in a newsXpress store recently. The newsXpress member almost sold out the entire shipment in less than a month, delivering a valuable return on investment to the business and attracting new customers who have returned to the business.

Part of the newsXpress role is to help newsXpress members to push the boundaries of what their businesses can sell and, through this, to explore attracting new shoppers to the business.

One of the reasons for growth in some newsXpress stores, growth which is considerably beyond the average for the newsagency channel, is the broadening of the appeal of the business through challenging product selection … as encouraged by the newsXpress merchandise team.

This is a newsXpress difference, going considerably beyond offering products. newsXpress not only negotiated good deals, it also helps members leverage those deals to their maximum advantage.

newsXpress Redcliffe Enjoys Great Gift Sales

newsXpress Redcliffe has been growing gift sales since the store oepened a year and a half ago. Today, the gift department makes an important and sizeable contribution to sales and GP for the business. Buying from newsXpress preferred suppliers and tapping into exclusive newsXpress offers, the Redcliffe team has built a solid gift offer based on the mix of cards selected by shoppers. Using card sales data to drive gift buying is paying off with excellent growth – way above industry average.

While many newsagents talk of tough trading conditions, newsXpress Redcliffe is enjoying success by embracing newsXpress opportunities. Their success shows the commercial value of embracing newsXpress preferred supplier opportunities.

newsXpress pioneered the use of detailed card sales data analysis to guide gift purchases. It has had exclusive access to caption sales data with which to guide product purchase choices by members.

Click on the image to see a small part of the Redcliffe gift selection.