Where will I be able to buy the Australian Women’s Weekly Birthday Cake book coins?

Here’s where you will be able to purchase the Australian Women’s Weekly Birthday Cake book coins: https://www.newsxpress.com.au/birthdaycake

newsXpress features in The Australian Women’s Weekly

Today in The Australian Women’s Weekly you can see the first of a series of ads and media coverage supporting newsXpress retailers and their release in exclusive partnership with The Royal Australian Mint a coin program honouring The Australian Women’s Weekly Birthday Cake Book.  The QR code takes you to the newsXpress website where stockists (from June 12) are listed.

This is good news for the newsagency channel and, especially, newsXpress retailers. It will drive net new traffic in-store, increase sales and honour a beloved

While the coins release on June 12, the teaser campaign starts today. What is planned between now and June 12 is comprehensive, big. What is planned for June 12 and the weeks after is even bigger.

newsXpress members are grateful to The Royal Australian Mint and Are Media for the opportunity and their support over the last two years bringing this to life.

Advice on buying a newsagency in Australia

There’s a buzz in the air in May 2025, with plenty of newsagency businesses changing hands across the country. A newsagency is a good business to buy and a good business to work on, improve and make more valuable.

A question we frequently encounter from prospective buyers is, “What should I ask for when I’m looking to buy a newsagency?”

Our advice is: thoroughly understand the newsagency business as it stands today. The newsagency of the present and future is a far cry from the predominantly agency-focused model of the past, for which the Australian newsagency channel is well known.

To help you get a clear picture, here’s a list of essential data we recommend all prospective newsagency buyers request from the vendor or their representative:

  • The accountant’s Profit & Loss (P&L) statements for the last two years. Insist on the actual financial statements, not a specially prepared spreadsheet.
  • A detailed list of all add-backs used to arrive at the profit figure upon which the asking price is based.
  • Tax returns for the same two-year period. While their relevance can vary depending on business structures, they can serve as a valuable cross-reference against the accountant’s P&L.
  • Sales data reports directly from the Point of Sale (POS) software for the last two years. This is critical data for verifying the claimed income.
  • Sales data reports from the lottery terminal to corroborate the income figures.
  • Business Activity Statements (BAS) to further confirm the data presented in the P&L.
  • A comprehensive inventory list detailing every item in the business, including its purchase price and the date it was last sold. Additionally, request copies of invoices for random verification.
  • A copy of the current shop lease agreement.
  • Copies of any other leases that the vendor expects you to assume as part of the sale.
  • A list of all forward orders that have been placed on behalf of the business.
  • A complete list of all employees, including their names, hourly rates, employment type (e.g., full-time, part-time, casual), start dates, accrued annual leave, and accrued long service leave.

This information is fundamental for any buyer to properly assess a business opportunity. If a business for sale cannot readily provide this data, it raises serious questions about its preparedness for sale.

Once you have this information in hand, take the time to analyse it yourself. Don’t outsource the critical decision of whether a business is a sound investment.

For newsagents considering selling, and who might feel apprehensive about this list, our advice is to address these points proactively. Focus on running your business effectively now, ensuring that the data outlined above reflects a healthy and well-managed operation. Preparing your newsagency for sale is an ongoing process, something you should be mindful of every day you’re in business.

This is why we here at newsXpress often say that every day in a well-run business is a payday. Operate a smart, lean, and profit-focused newsagency, and you’ll enjoy success today and a significant reward when you decide to sell.

The most attractive businesses for buyers are those that are straightforward to operate and consistently profitable. While a buyer might be willing to turn a business around, they should rightfully reap the rewards for that effort, not the seller.

Ultimately, the selling price of your business will be determined by its current performance. So, get your affairs in order and make your newsagency as appealing as possible to potential buyers. The effort you put in now will undoubtedly be worth it in the long run.

newsXpress helps newsagents run businesses they enjoy and that are profitable. We love helping new newsagents settle in and then to evolve the businesses to be relevant into the future.

We help newsagents thrive

From easy actionable business advice to advocacy to practical in-store help, newsXpress is helping local Aussie newsagents transform their businesses.

This Mother’s Day

As you’re out shopping for Mother’s Day, it’s likely you’ll encounter a mum working in or running a shop, juggling work, the business, family, home and more. Plenty of mums we see in local retail are mentors to others in their business. Plenty are champions in their local community. See them. Celebrate them. Appreciate them.

See how a POS software integrated Shopify website is helping a newsXpress business grow online sales

Ten months ago, we embarked on a small experiment: building a POS software connected Shopify website for a local suburban Melbourne newsXpress shop on a tight budget. The goal was to test the waters and see what could be achieved with minimal investment.

That website has, as at the end of April 2025, racked up more than $125,000 in online sales.

What a huge boost to the physical shop!

Starting with a modest product range, the website quickly began generating sales. In just the past seven weeks, this simple online store has raked in over $18,000 without any additional marketing spend or inventory investment. This new video from us takes you behind the scenes on what we have been able to do through the Hugs and Love website integration with our POS software.

The Hugs and Love website (www.hugsandlove.com.au) is a prime example of how seamlessly integrating Tower Systems POS software with Shopify can streamline online sales and fulfilment processes for local businesses. This powerful combination allows businesses to efficiently manage their inventory, process orders, and fulfill purchases both in-store and online.

By leveraging the strength of these two platforms, local shops can:

– Expand their reach: Attract new customers and increase sales beyond their physical storefront.

– Simplify operations: Streamline inventory management and order processing, saving time and reducing errors.

– Enhance customer experience: Offer a convenient and efficient online shopping experience.

The experience with this website has been valuable in helping us take care of the tech for local small business retailers and provide business advice for implementation, advice based on lived experience.

With so many offering website development services, we differentiate ourselves by providing business operational advice and support to make the revenue dream from online sales a reality.

Everything we do in this POS software / Shopify integration space is about maximising profit for the local small business retailers we are grateful to serve. Our innovation with Shopify is part of this.

Profit is vital in any business and especially vital in local small retail businesses.

If you are a small business retailer looking to earn more money from online sales, Tower Systems can help. Our team of experts will work with you to create a customised solution that meets your unique needs. We can demonstrate our POS software and demonstrate integrations like with we have done with Shopify for many of our customers. Better still, we can connect you with many other retailers for whom we have done this already.

Tower Systems is a small business focussed POS software company developing, and supporting POS software for niche specialty retailers.

Here is a video we made five months ago.

This Mother’s Day, newsXpress offers a difference

newsXpress shops across Australia are running a local in-store Mother’s Day competition. Each store has a prize pack valued at close to $400.00 to give away to a local shopper. Locals love it when a local wins.

Every card purchase is eligible to enter, not only Mother’s Day. This has been key to above-average card sales growth for newsXpress stores over the last year – this Mother’s Day promotion is the fourth of a series of seasonal promotions.

newsXpress funds the promotion for members: providing the prize packs, the in-store collateral, digital assets and more. We do this with some support from Henderson Greetings and Simson Cards.

A vital piece of this promotion is the analysis using our POS software data. This is key to the evolution of these campaigns to maximise the value for retailers. Our retail and tech expertise combine to help our local retailers cultivate more valuable businesses.

If you haven’t shopped for Mother’s Day yet, please shop local, preferably in a newsagency. There you’ll find many local Aussie made cards that also do good by supporting a local charity you’re bound to love.

An awesome newsagency transformation success story

Congratulations to Ravi for the fresh and fun shopping experience he and the crew are bringing to newsXpress Newstead in Tasmania. A good news story about a newsagency business on the front page of the local daily newspaper is good news for our channel. This is from The Launceston Examiner yesterday.

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This is a newsXpress business, the second for Ravi. newsXpress helps its members transform their businesses, to make them enjoyable and profitable.

Our thoughts on the future of the Australian newsagency

The future of the Aussie newsagency has been in the news late last year thanks to what we’d label inaccurate reporting by the ABC.

We are grateful to Henry Johnstone of Real Commercial for their interest in our opinion on the future of the newsagency. This video reflects our opinion on commentary about this topic and we explore why we take a different view to some others, a few we back with current data.

newsXpress helps local newsagents thrive.

Retail transformation: Launceston, Tasmania

Join us in a chat with Ravi as he shares us his journey from engineer in India to flourishing retailer in Launceston Tasmania.

Ravi’s newsagency at Prospect Marketplace near Launceston Tasmania looks nothing like a newsagency. This is a wonderful and inspiring business transformation that has locals loving shopping there. It has come so far from when it was run by others as a traditional newsagency.

It is a true treasure hunt retail experience, offering shoppers of all ages fun and inspiring engagement opportunities.

What Ravi has achieved in what was a traditional retail newsagency is an inspiration to other newsagents. he’s done it on a tight budget, using items bought at markets and elsewhere to bring character and warmth to his shop.

We love seeing retail transformations like this and are grateful for the opportunity to share. We are grateful to have helped Ravi on this journey.

Retail transformation: newsXpress Leven, Ulverstone, Tasmania

This business has been in the family for decades, across two generations. What was once a traditional newsagency is today a vibrant gift shop that has some newsagency lines as a service for customers.

This shop is an excellent example of doing it yourself and creating something genuinely local, warm, comforting and clearly loved.

This shop also shows that you can succeed by trading outside of what people expect for your type of business, that today in retail, your shingle does not have to define your business.

Ulverstone is a wonderful local community, a beautiful part of the world. What Shareen and Wayne have created at newsXpress Leven is a shop people love to visit and spend money in.

Often, local retailers can get caught in their head about what they could do in their business. Seven years ago, Sharene and Wayne set about embracing change, and they haven’t stopped since – creating a business of which they can be proud.

  • Location Benefits: Ulverstone’s relaxed lifestyle, with its proximity to beaches and mountains, attracts both locals and tourists.
  • Business Evolution: Originally a magazine and souvenir shop owned by Sharen’s parents, Sharen and Wayne have turned it into a gift shop offering a diverse range of products, including homewares, leather bags, and toys.
  • Shop Design: The shop boasts unique design elements, such as a black painted wall inspired by New York shops, and custom-made fixtures by Wayne. He even repurposed old boxes into retail shelving.
  • Product Range: newsXpress Leven caters to a wide range of customer needs, offering everything from everyday gifts to premium products, with dedicated sections for baby items, games, and even John Deere merchandise.
  • Customer Experience: Sharen focuses on creating an appealing and easy-to-navigate shopping environment with distinct zones and storytelling displays.
  • Inspiration: A trip to New York inspired Sharen to implement innovative retail concepts.

It was a thrill to see what they have created.

newsXpress Leven brings to Ulverstone in Tasmania a wonderful retail experience, a shop that would be at home on the high street in the UK or in retail streets of Brooklyn. Ulverstone locals love shopping here and visitors are surprised at the elevated shopping experience.

Small retail business advice: easy steps to transforming your newsagency for success

If you recognise the need for a transformation in your newsagency but find your business data isn’t up to scratch, don’t despair. There are immediate actions you can take right there on the shop floor to initiate change.

In our experience, businesses in this situation often have a very traditional shop floor layout. The advice we are about to give is all about deliberately disrupting what you currently have. We have found this can be incredibly helpful for retailers to see their business with fresh eyes and identify new possibilities. It’s a radical and somewhat rough approach, designed to shake things up significantly.

It’s crucial to understand that whatever changes you implement aren’t set in stone. Make these moves, observe the results, learn from them, and be prepared to adjust. Your shop needs to be in a constant state of evolution.

First: Confronting the Old Guard – The Newspaper and Magazine Unit

If your shop features a traditional magazine fixture running down the length of the store, with newspapers facing customers as they enter, here’s what you need to do: remove all the stock and rip the entire unit out. Don’t overthink this; just get it done.

That prime central space is valuable retail real estate that should be dedicated to products yielding a gross profit of 50% or more. Allocating this high-visibility area to products with a 25% gross profit or less is simply not a sound business decision.

Tear the whole unit out.

Now, using basic, low-cost shelving – the kind you’d find in any hardware store – relocate your magazines to the back wall of the shop. Whatever was previously in that back wall space will need to be moved elsewhere. Simple strip shelving with adjustable brackets will suffice.

Place your newspapers on a low, flat shelf beneath the magazines.

Furthermore, if you’ve been displaying newspaper or magazine posters, it’s time to stop. They don’t effectively increase sales.

Second: Filling the Newly Liberated Space

Find a couple of old tables or some sturdy wooden boxes. Use these to create display areas on the main shop floor. On each of these makeshift displays, tell a story about a specific product category. Bring products to this central part of the shop that customers might not typically encounter.

If you don’t have spare tables, check out your local op. shop, your garage, or a discount retailer like Amart. Keep your spending to an absolute minimum.

Resist the urge to use spinners in this newly recovered space.

Carefully select products that you are genuinely proud to offer.

Crucially, make sure to include some products that you think won’t work for your customers. This is a vital step in uncovering what you don’t yet know about their preferences and buying habits.

Be prepared to completely change these displays within a week if they aren’t generating the results you’re looking for.

Three: Observe and Learn

The initial changes might not yield immediate success, and that’s perfectly okay. If they don’t, make further adjustments and continue experimenting until you see positive outcomes.

You might also experience some early wins. If that happens, capitalise on it – do more of what’s working.

If your business still has that traditional central magazine and newspaper unit, we suspect you’ll see some encouraging results from this radical shift. That’s been the pattern in every similar business we have seen try it.

Most importantly, have fun with this process.

We know one newsagent who, after making these changes, hosted a Saturday afternoon sausage sizzle specifically so people could watch as they literally used a chainsaw to dismantle and remove the old magazine unit from the shop!

The fundamental aim of this initial move is to disrupt your ingrained view of your business. Yes, the shop floor will be temporarily disrupted, but more importantly, you need to be disrupted in your thinking. That’s why you need to undertake something radical that you’re likely to initially resist. These suggested changes could potentially do more for your personal perspective than for the immediate bottom line of the business itself.

newsXpress helps Aussie newsagents and small business retailers thrive.