Category: newsXpress difference

From 8:30am this morning, this beautiful Change of Monarch set goes on sale in plenty of newsXpress stores.

Stock is limited. In-store only. 1 per person / family / address only. No phone or email orders. Thank you.

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.

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.

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.

Check our these beautiful copies that are set collectors heading to newsXpress stores toady:

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.

newsXpress is genuinely unique in the newsagency marketing group mix.

We leverage the Tower Systems retail experience. Tower serves 3,500+ independent retailers across 10 retail channels. Data insights from these channels provide early insights that we leverage for newsXpress members.

The value of this dataset is extraordinary.

The work by Tower Systems with toy shops, homewares businesses, and gift shops has been instrumental in newsXpress members broadening the appeal of their businesses.

Through this we can speak to key metrics such as return on floor space, return on labour, and return on investment, and through these help you cultivate more value from your business.

We own, and run our own shops, as playing fields where we experiment for our members with their full knowledge, and guidance.

We were first with a consumer-facing online offer at the group level, and at an individual store level.

We have an active new shopper strategy, focussed through several suppliers that do not partner with any other marketing group.

We will disagree with you sometimes. If you ask our opinion, our feedback will be honest, and backed by evidence. We owe you the truth.

We do much more than this, leverage much more than this. So much is outside what is traditional for newsagents, and this is where we cultivate value.

Okay, this is important.

Enjoying your business helps you make better decisions. It also helps those with you in the business make better business decisions.

Through our newsXpress community you have friends you can have a laugh with, and folks you can trust to decompress with.

In our Zoom meetings and other contact points we, together, have a laugh.

We listen, and share with you. We nurture your resilience and, sometimes, help you find enjoyment when it may not have been obvious.

It really comes back to why you are in business. The answer to this varies. Understanding it is key to the enjoyment you feel and achieve.

The business itself becomes enjoyable when speed bumps are overcome and stormy weather guided away. Having access to your own business mentor can help achieve these things.

Success is enjoyable. We encourage and help to find success so you can feel the happiness it brings.

We understand, too, that enjoyment can be different for each of us. We are keen to know what enjoyment feels like for you, to make sure that we tap into enjoyment in a way that is meaningful to you.

Next, let’s turn to the how …

The value of a product depends on its gross profit, what you sell it for less what you paid for it. The real value of a product is the gross profit less the labour, and retail space costs for the product. The value of a product over a year is these things times the quantity of the product sold.

If you sell a gift for $250 with a GP% of 50%, you make $125.00. That’s the same as the GP you would make from around 380 newspapers, 85 magazines or 100 or so lottery tickets.

newsXpress helps its members grow profit, and through this cultivate greater value for their businesses, and from that flows enjoyment.

Can anyone sell items worth $250 or more? In our experience, yes!

But, value is about more than the ticket price of an item. Other factors:

• Buy price. We help you buy better.
• Stock turn. We help you understand this and improve it.
• We help you reduce the cost of theft.
• We help you cast your business differently, to help improve shopper stickiness

We offer advice and support on these, data driven advice, helping you to maximise every value opportunity. Evidence is key, your evidence.

We know that if we help you maximise value at the transaction level, it plays out wonderfully when the time comes for you to sell your business.

Value is key in any business, especially in local indie retail like newsXpress. You need to think about both the value you create today and the value your business will have when you sell it.

The newsagency channel was created in the 1880s to distribute a magazine through the goldfields of Victoria. Some of the agency arrangements put in place then can still be seen in business arrangements today.

But while we respect the history of the channel, the future for our shops is the future. It’s nothing like those goldfield days.

newsXpress works to provide its members with opportunities of and for the future, opportunities for value.

What you sell, how you sell, when you sell, and who you sell to are all up for grabs. It all starts with the narrative of your business, how you pitch yourself.

How far you go is up to you. We’ll pitch ideas and opportunities, but what you do with them is up to you. Once you decide, we can help with the practical steps.

We understand that old-school products and services are valuable, but their value is declining. But you’re not alone. We’ll help you, work with you, hold your hand, and encourage you – as much or as little as you want.

Let’s talk about how we can help you create more value for your business today and in the future.

Today is the last day of our Bali conference and local maker buying trip. We have met so many creative makers committed to fair trade principles and working to up-cycle and re-purpose to create innovative products through which we can differentiate.

Here’s some of the crew at a wonderful dinner last night.

newsXpress membership is $175 a month including GST. This provides access to a package of opportunities and services that members will tell you delivers financial and operational rewards worth much more than the cost.

Here’s what the $175 a month provides access to:

1. Personalised to your business, based on your data, card department reset – often resulting in a 15% to 40% increase in card sales.
2. Easy access to more than 100 preferred suppliers, including some exclusive to newsXpress.
3. Access to new shopper traffic products that help you expand your reach.
4. Better than wholesale pricing on many items.
5. Better supplier payment terms.
6. Supplier problem resolution. We actively represent you.
7. Landlord negotiation. We help you negotiate.
8. Low EFTPOS rates.
9. Budget planning to help stabilise the business.
10. Retail business refresh / reset to help those looking to change focus and attract new shoppers.
11. Supplier product swag bags that enable you to touch and feel plenty of products without leaving your shop.
12. Free supply of customer loyalty cards for card shoppers, plush shoppers and pop culture shoppers.
13. Easy online selling for 3 products categories with out the need for you to have your own website.
14. Half price Shopify website development from Tower Systems.
15. Digital collateral. 100s of exclusive assets for your use each year.
16. Exclusive to newsXpress seasons. To help you attract new shoppers.
17. Social media collateral. Images, and videos ready for you to use.
18. Team member training.
19. Visual merchandising advice, training, and inspiration.
20. Shop fit, and layout advice. We have helped save thousands of dollars.
21. Timely access to award rates.
22. Member meetings. Online. Via Zoom. Recorded for later watching too.
23. Supplier launches / presentations. Filmed by us, for you.
24. Private Facebook group. Talk about anything, any time.
25. Online knowledge base. 150+ business management articles.
26. We can be your sounding board on anything.
27. Mental health support. We will help any way we can.
28. We do more than this every day.

The $175 a month membership fee is paid each month, by direct debit. This is your membership fee. It pays in part for our services. We also receive rebates from suppliers. these are disclosed to members annually.

You are under no obligation to purchase from any newsXpress preferred suppliers.

In all of our years of operation, there has been no profit distribution from newsXpress. Everything earned by the group has been reinvested for the benefit of member businesses.

Some big retailers are predicting flat or declining sales through 2023 and into 2024 in the US and some here in Australia. There are forecast reports of comp (comparable) store sales, we tend to call these same store sales, of 3% to 5%.

The challenge is that journalists and news editors hear this and attach the downward forecast to all retailers.

We know plenty of independent retailers, including independent newsagents, who are forecasting growth over the same period. Know, not massive growth, but growth nevertheless.

In our own stores, we are planning for 5% growth and hoping for closer to 10%. 

But more important than the sales revenue growth number is growth in business GP percentage achieved. Growing that several points is more important than revenue growth.

If you grew business GP% by, say, 3% and overall revenue by 1% the bottom line benefit to the business would be considerably magnified compared to no change in GP% and 1% revenue growth.

There are many growth opportunities in our channel, many opportunities for retail newsagents to achieve good growth in revenue and in gross profit percentage performance.

How do we achieve that?

Look at your current sales data, look for green shoots, indicators of opportunity for you. In a retail newsagency these are typically in cards, magazines and stationery. Sales in these departments can indicate opportunities outside of them, maybe in new areas for the business, better margin areas for the business.

We know of many retail newsagents where this approach of data lead range review and gross profile percentage growth is successful. It’s the newsXpress approach.

Covid.

One of the consequences of Covid was that many shoppers tried local retail for the first time in years. We showed that we offered diversity in products and personal service. We can continue to leverage these differences. But we have to show rather than tell.

Big retail looks like big retail. Their displays tend to be blah and their differentiator tends to be price.

In local retail, displays that are more fun, appealing and enticing can work well. Back this with shop floor knowledge and genuine personal service and price is a secondary factor. people want to enjoy shopping. They want to walk out of the shop feeling good. That feeling is currency, it pushes pure price to a secondary consideration as value is felt in other ways.

The economy.

Yes, there is pressure in the economy because of rising interest rates. There is still plenty of money around for what people want. Want is a big driver for spending. It’s the emotional purchase where you have good opportunity. 

Especially as a skilled local retailer who is able to feed into the want.

You.

The reality is that there will be more tough economic news and negative reports about retail. You can choose to watch that and worry, or you can create the retail experience that is an oasis of happiness, a place locals enjoy and are happy to spend. Every day, choices you make in your business determine this.

If you do what you’ve done every day for years, your results will be what you are used to. We think the Aussie newsagency channel can do much better than that. 

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newsXpress helps newsagents grow overall GP%, attract new shoppers and run more enjoyable shops.

newsXpress can help. Email or call: help@newsxpress.com.au 0400 331 055. we can show what you get for the $175 a month membership fee.