newsXpress Blog

Making Money from Greeting Cards

In another first for the newsagency channel, newsXpress hosted the first of a series of Greeting Card training workshops yesterday in Melbourne. The Making Money from Greeting Cards workshop was run by Ron Thorpe, one of the most experienced greeting card professionals in Australia. This workshop now moves to Brisbane later this week.

Packed with practical advice, this session provided attendees with a clear action-plan for greeting cards in their newsagencies. Part of this action-plan was developed through two interactive sessions with newsagents sharing ideas with others.

Too often, newsagents leave greeting cards to be managed by their card company. Over the course of half a day, Ron shared practical strategies which newsXpress members can use to work this category to greater commercial advantage. His advice was drawn from decades of experience with Hallmark and a thorough knowledge of worldwide best practice in greeting card retail.

newsXpress has developed this workshop as another way the group helps members achieve a better return from their businesses and thereby improve the sale value when it comes time to exit from the business.

newsXpress newsagents can expect to achieve more from the Greeting Card category than an average newsagency. This is, in part, thanks to having Ron Thorpe on our team and delivering training like the workshop yesterday.

The challenge of selling the newsagency

newsXpress backs itself with a membership structure which enables members to leave the group at thirty days notice. There is no time this is more important than if your newsagency is for sale. Prospective purchasers look at a business from the perspective of what they can achieve with it. Sometimes this will include re-branding to mark a departure from previous ownership.

A prospective purchaser cannot re-brand if the franchise agreement a vendor has signed with a marketing group does not permit a fair and reasonable exit strategy.

Another risk with franchise agreements can be the requirement to give the franchisor first right of refusal. This means that a newsagent may have a signed buyer but cannot proceed until the franchisor decides if they are going to purchase the business. Buyers will be wary of making an offer in this situation.

At newsXpress we believe in a simple structure which sees members stay in our group because they want to and not because of an onerous contract. We believe in a structure which does not get in the way of the sale of the newsagency.

The business development difference

One of the differentiating services newsXpress provides its members is on the ground visits from our Business Development team. Our experts are armed with years of practical newsagency experience and an exclusive to newsXpress toolkit of marketing and management strategies which offer our members help in many areas of their businesses.

On the phone and face to face our Business Development Managers play a key role in helping newsXpress members achieve greater year on year success than other newsagents. This success was recently reported by magazine publishers and greeting card companies at our National Conference – data showing that in a same store basis, year on year, newsXpress members achieved growth ahead of any other group in the channel.

Our Business Development Managers guide, drive and encourage our members and it is through this regular contact that together we are able to achieve more. They are unique in the newsagency channel and exclusive to newsXpress.

Connecting with the Spring Racing Carnival

Seasons like the Spring Racing Carnival present an excellent opportunity for newsagents to engage in retail theatre. newsXpress supports these seasons through visual merchandising packs which supplement local creativity around the opportunity.

Too often others neglect opportunities like the Spring Racing Carnival and then complain later about the leakage of consumers from their business to other retail channels. In today’s market, more than ever before, we need to be on top of every opportunity. Certainly as the premier marketing group for newsagents that is the case for newsXpress. Our members can choose whether to engage or not – our job is to put the opportunity on the table and to back this with appropriate collateral.

Newsagents are a good fit for promoting the Spring Racing Carnival because newspaper sales are up, racing magazine sales are up, party supplies are up and, most important of all, it’s fun!

Supporting breast cancer research

newsXpress Kin Kora are right behind the newsXpress/Pentel exclusive Pink Roller Boys. Sponsoring Breast Cancer Research the always popular Pentel Roller Boys have been given Sarah’s famed merchandising treatment as these very striking merchandise units show.

The benefit of a mobile unit such as this is seen by the positioning just near the Darrell Lea Stand. The stand can be moved to the lotto counter, news stand or magazine rack to capitalise on increased traffic flow and encourage bigger basket size as well as bringing more recognition to this most worthy of charities.

Statement about the role of CEO

Following the resignation of Mark Nagy, the two Directors of newsXpress, Graham Randall and Mark Fletcher, have taken a more active role in the business in a team oversight capacity. This is providing newsXpress with time to consider the skills which will best suit the needs of newsXpress and its members in the next phase of its expansion. It is part of the plan Mark Nagy put to the Board when he approached them about his future plans.

We have an experienced and mature team at newsXpress from the back office to our on the road team to our marketing and merchandise teams. As professional mature business people working to a common mission and with a structure which has been well established over the last three years, we are continuing to enjoy good membership growth and good growth within existing member businesses.

We blog about this today because one group, with a vested interest, is spreading a different story.

The best way to see how newsXpress is operating is to come to one of our member meetings. Our next round will be in the second week of November. Non members will be most welcome to experience the newsXpress culture and deliverables first-hand. We will post details here next week.

newsXpress is confident of the quality of its offer to newsagents. This is why the group does not lock newsagents into five year contracts which can also make selling the business a challenge.

Next round of member meetings planned

newsXpress has set its final round of member meetings for 2008. Following today’s Victoria member meeting, Graham Randall, Mark Fletcher, Ben Kay and local newsXpress team members will host member meetings in Brisbane (Nov. 11), Sydney (Nov. 13) and Perth (Nov. 18). These member meetings will recap some content from our National Conference, preview Christmas 2008 and Back To School, discuss several new supplier offers and provide training is some exclusive newsXpress intellectual property which we know will drive good business outcomes.

Our member meetings are open to newsXpress members as well as to newsagents seriously considering joining the growing newsXpress community. They are a great way to assess the value of newsXpress to a business and to experience the transparency of the group first-hand.

Promoting Halloween outside your shop

newsXpress Silver Sands have fully embraced Halloween and have looked at innovative methods to draw more foot traffic. The newspaper advertisement below invites a new (and very strong minded – just ask the parents!) generation of shoppersby offering a FREE face painting service.

Nothing says Halloween more than a good costume and Phil Foo and his team are doing what they can to spread the word. They have also invested in a small doscument about the origins of Halloween and it’s Australian application to educate their customers who may have had anti-American perceptions.

newsXpress on Facebook

newsXpress has established a page on Facebook, the social networking site being used by close to 100 million people worldwide. The newsXpress page will be used as a meeting place for newsXpress members and others connected with the group – suppliers, employees of members and former employees of members.

newsXpress will use the Facebook page in a way which is in keeping with the social context of Facebook – to connect people through the common link of an interest in newsXpress.

As the first newsagency marketing group in Australia to use Facebook, newsXpress is demonstrating an understanding of the importance of social media and the value of this medium for facilitating new conversations.

Anyone is welcome to become a fan of newsXpress on Facebook – search for newsXpress, once you are at the page click on become a fan. fans are kept up to date with newsXpress news through Facebook.

Halloween’s a hit at newsXpress Riverlink

newsXpress Riverlink greatly enjoyed the Halloween promotion last year, the interaction with their local community, the re-telling of the fun Halloween story, the introduction to several new suppliers and above all else the in-store fun!

This year Belinda and her team have ordered three times the quantiy of merchandise and created a full front window display. By supporting and growing newsXpress exclusive promotions members are reaping the on-going benefits.

Playing golf for newsagents

newsXpress is a proud sponsor of the Gippsland Newsagents Golf Day at Lakes Entrance today.

Supporting this Golf Day is one of several ways newsXpress puts something back into the newsagency channel – beyond our day to day work with our member businesses. A day away from the business, enjoying the outdoors, can be excellent personalls and for the business.

Days like this are more about socialising with colleagues than the scorecard at the end of the round – that’s what some of the golfers say at least.

Good luck to everyone playing in Gippsland today!

Smart business at Bathurst

Geoff and Virginia Dale at newsXpress Bathurst wholeheartedly embrace the opportunity of the Bathurst race at Mount Panorama each year. They transform their newsagency into a Bathurst race souvenir and memorabilia shop. This year was no exception. They replaced greeting card and other fixturing with Bathurst product including a huge range of clothing. For several weeks, newsXpress Bathurst was THE go to place in town for all things Bathurst.

It is terrific seeing newsagents embrace opportunities such as this. We are proud to count Geoff and Virginia as newsXpress members. We will learn considerably from their input to our group, especially around special event marketing.

Branding the businessa

As newsXpress expands and more members complete shop fits, the brand itself is strengthened. There is nothing like a well-designed, professionally executed, new shop fit to best represent a retail brand.

newsXpress Gateway City in Western Australia is a good example of excellent representation of all that the newsXpress brand stands for. Owen and Robyn have created an strong design with appropriate flexibility to enable the business to evolve along with the needs of the marketplace. This is backed by a good mix of products and exceptional service.

newsXpress offers a range of assistance and advice to members as they approach shopfits. This ranges from feedback based on our experience in the newsagency channel through to access to specialist designed who understand the newsXpress mission and how to best represent this in a new shopfit design.

More fun with Halloween

Even though October 31 is still a few weeks away, newsXpress members and their team are happy to get into the spirit of the season with some dressing for Halloween. It is this team based approach which makes work fun and when work in retail is fun customers notice.

Happy customers are good for the business. This is another reason newsXpress puts considerable effort into Halloween – it is a season of fun before the busy Christmas season.

Enjoying Halloween

Wayne and the team at the newsXpress Upper Coomera Coles store are getting into Halloween. This photo shows part of their display.

This shop is right near Warner’s Brothers Movie World where they celebrate Halloween over three spooky nights. The newsXpress products and marketing collateral help the store be part of the area’s Halloween celebration.

Like any good promotion, there is an important balance to strike between pure fun and commercail success. With newsXpress having done Halloween for so long now, the group has a good mix and this is why our members enjoy the season so.

Having fun with Halloween

Visit a newsXpress Newsagency this week and you are likely to see cobwebs, spiders, snakes and witches paraphernalia. Halloween season is in full swing and newsXpress newsagents are immersing themselves in the fun of all things scary. Some staff will be dressed up and even some customers. While sales benefit from the effort so does customer enjoyment from the shopping experience as well as team member morale.

Above all else, retail needs to be fun. Halloween embraces that.

newsXpress is the only Newsagency marketing group to wholeheartedly embrace Halloween. This is another point of difference for our network of 150 newsagencies. A happy shop brings customers back again and again.

Exclusive Home Beautiful promotion

newsXpress members have benefited from an exclusive promotion in support of Home Beautiful. In addition to exclusive collateral material, one lucky newsXpress customer will win a generous cash prize. This event introduced a new element from traditional magazine promotions, with details of the competiton being directly marketed to consumers using the Home Beautiful database.

newsXpress is grateful to Pacific Magazines for supporting this promotion and helping newsXpress members offer a point of difference.

newsXpress Robina

newsXpress Beechworth

newsXpress Cairns

Trusting what we offer newsagents

newsXpress does not lock newsagents into a long contract. Our members can resign from our newsagent marketing group on thirty days notice. This is how it has always been and we do not plan on changing.

That we do not lock newsagents into a five year contract is a measure of our confidence to help newsXpress newsagents drive tremendous success from their relationship with us.

Newsagents considering joining a marketing group ought to question the length of any contract and be suspicious of anything longer than thirty days.

Calendar marketing collateral

newsXpress has enhanced its already successful calendar strategy this year with the development of several new items of marketing collateral for members.

To the left is the artwork for an A2 poster being offered for stores which want to boldly promote that calendars are now available in-store. On the poster, we are promoting products from several suppliers and covering several demographics. As calendar specialists, range is key.

We are also providing members with a combined calendar / diary catalogue to promote these products to homes and businesses in their area. Marketing outside the newsagency is crucial to driving traffic.

Thanks to the guidance from Michelle Caia our Calendar product manager, newsXpress does calendars well. Members embracing our strategies profit far better than if they were to follow the traditional newsagent calendar offering. Michelle has excellent supplier side experience with calendars and uses this when working with members on range and other strategies connected with the category.

On the road in Queensland

Belinda Adshead, our new Queensland based Business Development Manager has been on the road for the last two weeks, meeting newsXpress members and getting to know their businesses. Pictured in the photo with Belinda (right) and Vanessa and Nia from newsXpress Lowood.

Our Business Development Managers play an integral on-the-ground role with our members developing business strategies, acting ads a sounding board and helping implement newsXpress initiatives. Belinda is well equipped to help in this thanks to her years working a busy newsXpress newsagency.

Armed with newsXpress exclusive strategies and backed by Head Office resources in a range of areas, our on-the-road team plays a key road in the performance of newsXpress newsagencies.