AFL Grand Final Syndicate at newsXpress Eli Waters

grand-final-syndicate.jpgCollingwood tragic Allan Wickham has kicked off AFL Grand Final Week with two house lottery syndicates at newsXpress Eli Waters promoting the AFL Grand Finalists – Collingwood and St Kilda.

This is an excellent initiative which is certain to drive lottery sales as well as customer engagement around the topic of the Grand Final.

newsXpress members understand the value of theatre in retail and sporting Grand Finals present an excellent opportunity to leverage this.

newsXpress officially prefers St Kilda because their team colours are the newsXpress colours.  We are considering making supporting St Kilda a mandatory requirement of newsXpress members.

Newsagent conference attracts 118 newsagents

The travelling one-day national newsagent conference hosted by newsXpress earlier this month attracted in excess over 100 newsagents across several locations.

The feedback from attendees on content, supplier deals and networking with others has been excellent.

The overwhelming feedback from those attending was that they prefer this type of one-day event closer to their home location than a longer national event which requires considerably more time out of the business.

We hope to have an announcement later this week for those unable to attend the one-day conference.

Great calendar range at newsXpress Sunbury

sunburysq-calendars.jpgnewsXpress Sunbury Square is already enjoying terrific success with their 2011 calendar range.  As one of the owners, Brendan Mason, commented last week: This is about 2/3 of our brown trout range. They were selling as we put them out and are attracting a lot of attention. A comprehensive range of dog and cat breeds works for us each year.  Kudos to everyone at newsXpress Sunbury Square in creating such a strong statement around the 2011 calendar offer.

newsXpress identified calendars as a key category right when the newsagency marketing group started. Smart members actively engage with the category from around now until well into the New Year.  We help members make the most of the category with buying guidance, exclusive terms and in-store marketing support.

Slow cooking at newsXpress Streaky Bay

streakybay-slowcooker.jpgThe two dishes cooking in-store at newsXpress Streaky Bay (SA) gave the shop a warm and comforting smell and helped sell more copies of the Slow Cooker and other cookbooks from the ACP range.  The display led to good impulse purchases as well as providing Sue and the famile with dinner that night!

One additional book on the display was The Aussie dumb a&$e cook book, a cookbook aimed at blokes. newsXpress Streaky Bay has sold  75 of these at $24.95.

Gifts integrated with cards at Port Lincoln

portlincoln-gifts.jpgTwo weeks ago, newsXpress Beers Port Lincoln (SA) integrated gifts with cards as part of a strategy pursuing increased basket penetration.  They have placed a selection of appropriate gifts near each key card category.  Shoppers in Port Lincoln now have another reason to shop at newsXpress Beers Port Lincoln for cards and gifts.

Joy and David Whennen have been terrific innovators in their business, constantly evolving their offer to build a more enjoyable shopping experience and a more valuable retail business.

Newsagent conference attendees see the newsXpress difference

gotalk-newsxpress.JPGNewsagents flying in for the newsXpress newsagent conferences held in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane over the last week have seen an excellent example of a proactive newsagency marketing group at work.   On Virgin Blue flights an ad is playing for the gotalk  Prepaid Mobile product and there, branded next to four other respected national brands is newsXpress.

newsXpress is the only newsagency marketing group recognised in this high profile advertising – as is othen the case with national brand media campaigns in the newsagency channel.  Yes, we are very proud!

newsXpress has been promoted this year in a range of national TV and other campaigns from Hallmark cards, gotalk and several national brand stationery companies.  In each case, we are the only newsagency marketing group to receive such traffic building attention.

newsXpress newsagent conferences a hit

vicmembmeet.JPGnewsXpress mini conferences a hit.  In Melbourne yesterday we hosted our third one day mini conference with an excellent turn out of newsXpress and non newsXpress members.

The conferences have been a good blend of practical business training, business development workshops and networking.  They have also been an excellent example of the newsXpress difference in action.

The decision we took some months ago to not run a national conference this year and instead host state based one-day sessions has proved to be a good decision.

newsXpress supports RSPCA Happy Tails Day

newsXpress is proud to be supporting the RSPCA Happy Tails Day again.  This year, we are sponsoring with Big W, Bendigo Bank, Peter Alexander and Hill’s.

rspca-happy-tails.jpg

All newsXpress stores are raising funds for this worthy cause. Each year, the RSPCA in Australia cares for around 154,000 stray, injured and abandoned animals and investigates more than 47,000 complaints of cruelty and neglect.

The RSPCA receives less than 3% government funding and as a charity, the funds raised through Happy Tails Day helps us continue our vital work.

We are thrilled that newsXpress members and their customers are supporting this important initiative.

Lucky Charm pays for newsXpress keyword

The Lucky Charm newsagency franchise group is paying Google to promote the TLC business when people type newsXpress into the Google search engine.  This may confuse some people who are searching for information about newsXpress.

If you click on the sponsored link, usually on the right of the search results, a fee is charged to The Lucky Charm.

newsXpress does not pay to come up in any search results – our results are based on our achievements.

What TLC pays Google stays with Google – this is how the Google AdWords program operates.

Wedding offers at newsXpress Top Ryde

topryde-wedding.JPGThe wedding display at newsXpress Top Ryde is in prime position, facing into the mall, promoting a broad range of wedding related product.  This excellent display is sure to attract shoppers in the Top Ryde City mall to the store.

newsXpress members can see plenty of visual merchandising examples in the photos and ideas available through our Business Development Managers.  Our newsXpress BDMs carry an album of great displays and keep adding to this based on what they see in stores.

The value of the newsXpress community

nxp-conf-qld.JPGAt our newsXpress one-day mini conferences around the country we are including presentations from members on initiatives they have taken in their businesses which have served them well. These personal stories open up excellent learning opportunities for discussion among conference attendees.  newsXpress is thrilled to have a talented and willing community of members who are happy to share their stories from which others can learn.

Professional signage throughout the newsagency

yarram-signage.jpgnewsXpress provides members with easy to use templates for creating professional shelf talkers and other visual merchandise materials.  These templates empower stores to set prices appropriate to their local situation but to do this in a way which represents the business as part of the national; newsXpress network.  The photo shows part of the stationery department at newsXpress Yarram in Victoria – they make excellent use of these resources by creating a professional looking stationery department.

Hallmark recordable storybooks at newsXpress Riverlink

riverlink-storybook.jpgTwo helpful team members from Hallmark were on hand recently at newsXpress Riverlink, located in the Ipswich Riverlink Shopping Centre, to demonstrate the new storybooks from Hallmark.  These recordable storybooks are proving to be very popular with customers, especially once they are shown how they work with an in-store demonstration.

newsXpress has been promoting the Hallmark recordable storybooks to members for months, we were part of the initial order organised through Hallmark for their major retail partners.  Like all offers pitched by newsXpress, participation by newsXpress members was optional – this is how newsagents like it.

Book sale lures shoppers at newsXpress Knox

knoxbooksale.JPGThe book sale at newsXpress Knox is working very well, attracting shoppers from the mall into the shop and driving excellent sales as a result.  Many shoppers move deeper into the store after browsing the book tables, especially to the cards which are displayed just behind the books.

In this sutuation, the book sale tables are used as the candy to lure shoppers in.  It is part of the newsXpress shopping mall strategy of clever placement of enticing product to leverage existing mall foot traffic.

newsXpress helps its members way beyond excellent products deals, lease advice and other assistance.  We provide business building strategies which help create a more successful newsagency business.

Great diary display at newsXpress Ocean Grove

oceangrove-diaries.jpgThe 2011 diary display at newsXpress Ocean Grove looks terrific on the dance floor.  It is bold and cannot be missed.  Offering an excellent range of diaries from newsXpress preferred suppliers, the display poisitions the store well to make the most of the diary season.  Anyone in the Oceean Grove region will know where to go for their 2011 diaries.

newsXpress is providing all stores with exclusive 2011 A1 double sided diary marketing collateral in the coming weeks.

newsXpress helps newsagents sell more greeting cards

thorpe-sydney.jpgRon Thorpe, a respected and knowledgeable leader in the greeting card category in Australia, was a key speaker at the newsXpress newsagent’s mini conference in Sydney.  Ron shared his considerable expertise, outlining strategies and tactics which can be used to easily increase greeting card sales.

Providing access to Ron is the newsXpress difference in action.  It demonstrates the value of a marketing group which goes beyond excellent deals, lease advice and great marketing.  Through Ron’s presentation and others delivered as part of the mini conference, newsXpress delivered tremendous added value … what you would expect from a full service marketing group.

Partworks innovation at newsXpress Beechworth

beechworth-putaways.jpgnewsXpress Beechworth is using the newsXpress putaway request form to promote putaways for partworks like the successful Art of Crochet partwork which was recently launched.  Placed with each partwork on display, this initiative strives to extract better value from early sales of this partwork.

The newsXpress marketing team created the putaway form as part of the services offered and included in the newsXpress base membership fee.