Tag: australian retail

What the Lincraft closure actually tells us about independent retail

Lincraft confirmed yesterday it’s closing every store in Australia and New Zealand. Eighty years of trading, done.

The commentary will follow a predictable path. Consultants will use it as a case study. Retail journalists will write about physical retail dying. Neither response is especially useful.

Lincraft was a chain. It ran at scale — national leases, centralised supply, fixed cost structures across dozens of locations. When that model stops working, it stops working everywhere at once. That’s not the situation an independent retailer faces. One shop, a local customer base, the ability to change something this week and see the result next week.

The data from newsXpress member stores tells a different story from the headlines. The most recent benchmark covered 33 stores, January to May 2026 against the same period last year. Transaction count was down 4.1%. Revenue was up 4.8%. Average sale value was up 8.5%. Gross profit was up 10%. That’s 750,000 transactions from locally owned shops. Not businesses in decline — businesses mid-transition, and the transition is working.

No consultant drove that. No conference session. Individual owners made their own calls — new categories, adjusted product ranges, shops that reflect what their local customers actually want to buy. Gifts, homewares, sensory toys, things no chain bothers stocking because chains can’t move fast enough or care enough about a single postcode.

That’s the advantage independent retail has always had. It just shows up more clearly when a chain hits a wall.

Costs are up for independents too. Some traditional categories are smaller than they were. Foot traffic has changed. The owners doing well aren’t pretending otherwise — they’ve moved, steadily, in the right direction.

The Lincraft closure is a real loss for the staff and the customers who relied on those stores. But scale and longevity don’t protect a business when the model underneath stops fitting the market.

Local ownership and a willingness to change — that’s harder to replicate than any supply agreement.

newsXpress helps local indie retailers thrive on a minimal budget and without overthinking. We like to have fun while we work on our businesses.

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newsXpress supports small local independent retailers to thrive. Find out more at help@newsxpress.com.au.

Printer ink and toner: newsXpress helps newsagents think clearly about a category that still matters to some stores

For a segment of newsagency retailers, printer ink and toner remains a genuine part of the business. Customers ask for it. It connects to stationery and office supplies. It brings people back regularly.

Ink is not dead for newsagents, it’s changed, evolved.

Whether it deserves floor space, investment, and staff attention is a different question — and not one that has a single answer across the channel.

newsXpress has developed detailed strategic guidance for members on exactly this category. The guidance does not push a particular outcome. It helps each member think through whether the category makes sense for their specific store, their location, their customer base, and their capacity to manage it well.

That kind of honest, store-specific analysis is what distinguishes useful retail advice from generic category promotion.

The competitive landscape for ink and toner has shifted considerably. Customers can check prices on their phone while standing at your counter. Large format retailers and online specialists have invested heavily in range and fulfilment. The question for an independent retailer is not whether those competitors exist — they do — but whether there is a genuine opportunity that those operators cannot easily serve.

In some locations and for some customer profiles, there is. The newsXpress guidance helps members identify whether their store is one of them.

It also addresses the risks that are easy to underestimate. Stock management in this category requires discipline. SKU counts can grow quickly. Some products become obsolete. Slow-moving stock carries a real cost. The guidance is structured to help members avoid the mistakes that turn a reasonable category test into a cash flow problem.

For members already stocking ink and toner, the guidance offers a basis for reviewing whether the current approach is working as well as it should. For those considering it for the first time, it provides a framework for making the decision with clear eyes.

This is the kind of strategic support newsXpress provides across a range of categories — not telling members what to do, but making sure they have the information and the framework to decide for themselves.

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newsXpress supports small local independent retailers to thrive. Find out more at help@newsxpress.com.au.

Small business retailer warning: Your social media account is your business voice. Be careful who you hand it to.

Handing your social media to someone else feels like a sensible time-saver. You are busy. Content takes time. Someone else can handle the posting while you run the shop.

It is worth pausing before you do that.

Your voice matters.

The most common problem with outsourced social media is generic content — posts that could belong to any retailer anywhere. A seasonal graphic with your logo. A product category promotion with no local reference. A caption written by someone who has never set foot in your shop, serving customers they have never met, in a community they know nothing about.

Every post like that is a missed opportunity. Your customers follow your business because it is local and specific. Generic content tells them nothing worth knowing. Posted often enough, it trains people to scroll past you. It signals to the platform that your content is not worth amplifying. And it quietly positions your business as interchangeable — which is the last message an independent retailer should be sending.

Control is the second issue. When someone else has access to your account, their judgement is operating under your name. That includes how they respond to a complaint in the comments, whether they acknowledge a message, and what they post when they are rushing to fill a schedule. A reputational problem on social media is easy to create and slow to repair.

The third issue is subtler. Your regulars follow your account because they have some connection to you — the person who runs the shop, who knows what they buy, who is part of the same community. Content that clearly was not written by you, that carries none of your voice or local knowledge, wears that connection down. Not dramatically. Just steadily, post by post.

None of this means you have to do everything yourself. It means that anyone posting under your account needs to understand your business specifically — not retail in general. And every post should be able to answer one question honestly: could this only have come from us?

If it could have come from anyone, it probably should not go out at all.

This is so true. While you may feel its wonderful saving time, the real question is: is this content reflecting of you?

Small events, real foot traffic: how newsXpress is helping members use their biggest advantage

Independent retailers have something large format stores cannot easily replicate. They are embedded in their communities in a way that a national chain simply is not. They know their regulars. They can make decisions on the spot. They can do something genuinely local — and mean it.

newsXpress has been helping its members turn that advantage into foot traffic through a practical programme of micro-events.

The idea is not complicated. Give people a reason to visit that has nothing to do with a promotion or a price reduction. Build connection with the community through the shop floor itself. The events are small by design — low budget, low complexity, manageable for a team of two or three people running a busy independent store.

What the newsXpress guidance covers is the range of formats that work, how to execute them without disrupting normal trading, and how to get the most out of each one. Some events are built around customer participation — creating something in-store that people contribute to and come back to check on. Others lean on local partnerships, sharing the promotional load with a nearby café or maker and reaching each other’s audiences in the process. A few are simply about doing something unexpected on an otherwise ordinary day — the kind of small gesture that earns goodwill and gets mentioned.

The social media angle matters here more than many retailers realise. A micro-event that lands well generates content that is almost impossible to manufacture any other way. It is local, it is genuine, and it gives people something worth sharing. For independent retailers who find it hard to post consistently without feeling like they are just pushing product, a steady programme of small events solves that quietly.

The guidance also addresses the calendar — when these events make the most sense, how to pace them across a quiet trading period, and how to keep the idea fresh enough that regulars have a reason to keep coming back.

None of it requires a big budget. It requires treating the shop as more than a place to buy things — and most independent retailers are closer to that than they think.

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newsXpress supports small local independent retailers to thrive. Find out more at help@newsxpress.com.au.

There is a growing market in your stationery aisle that most newsagencies are missing

Stationery has long been treated as a legacy category in newsagencies — something stocked out of habit rather than genuine commercial intent. The journalling segment is quietly changing that picture.

Young men aged 18 to 40 are buying journals in growing numbers. Not diaries. Structured formats built around habit tracking, daily reflection, and personal discipline — products that found their audience through podcasts, online communities, and a broader shift toward analogue habits in a screen-heavy world. The market data behind this trend is consistent and the trajectory is upward.

newsXpress has researched this category in depth and translated that research into practical and valuable guidance for its members.

The advice provided to newsXpress members covers more than product selection. One of the more useful insights is that this category has two distinct types of buyer, each arriving in-store with different motivations and different decision-making processes. Understanding both — and setting up the floor to serve both without confusion — is what separates a display that converts from one that sits.

The newsXpress guidance covers what to look for in product selection, how to merchandise for credibility with each shopper type, and how bundling can lift average transaction values without requiring a hard sell. It also addresses what to avoid — signals that inadvertently tell the self-purchaser the product is not for him, and which are easy to get wrong without knowing the category.

The entry point for trialling this is deliberately low. The advice is built around a small, focused range, clean execution, and a clear read on what is working before committing further. For a category that costs little to set up and carries strong margins relative to traditional newsagency lines, the risk-to-reward ratio is worth a serious look.

It is the kind of category intelligence that newsXpress brings to its members — research that an independent retailer would rarely have the time or resources to develop alone, turned into something actionable on the shop floor.

This is another example of practical help delivered to newsXpress members that helps them run more valuable retail businesses. businesses they are more likely to love. This matters.

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newsXpress supports small local independent retailers to thrive. Find out more at help@newsxpress.com.au.

Advice for newsagents: Your floor space can do more than you think

The newsagency of 2026 looks nothing like it did a decade ago. That shift has created something genuinely interesting: an independent retailer with an existing customer base, established floor space, and the flexibility to move into categories that larger format stores cannot easily enter.

newsXpress is actively helping its members explore what that looks like in practice. Not in general terms — in specific categories, with specific shoppers in mind, backed by market data and real execution advice.

Three directions are worth understanding.

Emerging shopper segments with money to spend. There are customer groups actively buying products that sit squarely within a gift and stationery offer — groups that most independent retailers have not deliberately targeted. The demographics are well-documented, the spending behaviour is consistent, and the category fit is natural. In most locations, these shoppers are underserved. That is not a minor observation. It is a commercial opportunity sitting in front of most newsagencies right now.

The quiet periods in your trading calendar. Every gift-adjacent retailer has a gap between major seasons. Most operators treat it as time to survive. The better approach is to use it — to run small in-store events that bring unfamiliar faces through the door, to tackle the business tasks that never seem urgent enough during busy periods, and to test new product ideas with lower risk. The stretch between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day is the obvious example. Operators who treat it as development time rather than dead time come out of it in a stronger position.

Adjacent business models that drive repeat traffic. Pre-loved categories — records, books, physical media — are performing well in main street retail, particularly in regional locations. The model has real structural advantages. Your local community becomes your stock supplier. Gross margins are strong. And the format creates a reason to visit that no online retailer can match: the prospect of finding something unexpected. For a store that already has foot traffic from cards, gifts, or stationery, adding a curated pre-loved section is a low-capital way to extend dwell time and basket size.

None of these require a major capital outlay or a complete change of identity. They require looking at what you already have — floor space, community relationships, an existing customer base — and deciding to use it more deliberately.

That is the kind of thinking newsXpress brings to its members.

newsXpress helps newsagents master AI for profit in local retail

Most newsagents have heard about AI by now. Far fewer have used it in a way that actually changed how they run their business. newsXpress has been working on that problem for over two years.

newsXpress is giving its members a real head start on AI

The starting point is an exclusive AI toolkit — 19 prompts written specifically for newsagency retail. These are not generic templates pulled from a business blog. Each one is built around a decision newsagents face regularly: what to buy, what to drop, how to plan a season, how to write a job ad, how to think about a category that is not performing. A member can open the toolkit and use a prompt the same day.

For members who want to go further, newsXpress has developed a set of super prompts designed for deeper business analysis. A member provides their own store data — sales figures, category performance, whatever is relevant — and the prompt processes it in a way that would take hours to do manually. What comes back is specific to that business. Not an industry average. Not a general recommendation. An analysis of what is actually happening in that store, with the low-hanging fruit identified.

Then there are the AI member meetings. These are sessions where newsXpress members share what they have been doing with AI — what worked, what did not, and what caught them off guard. A member who has been hesitant watches a colleague walk through a real example on their own business. That tends to move things faster than any amount of general encouragement.

The through-line is practical capability, not hype. newsXpress is not telling its members that AI will transform everything overnight. It is giving them tools they can use now, in the businesses they have today, to make better decisions more quickly — regardless of their technical background.

For a channel where margins are tight and time is short, that matters.

Now, AI can seem daunting to many, this is where the newsXpress assistance and support makes a difference in delivering genuine help and opportunities to newsagents through smart plain English advice and engagement.

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newsXpress supports small local independent retailers to thrive. Find out more at help@newsxpress.com.au.

Why newsXpress is the best marketing group for newsagents who want to thrive

newsXpress is not a franchise. There are no mandatory requirements, no turnover-based fees, and no locked-in obligations. Membership costs $295 a month for your first store. Additional stores you own cost nothing.

That fee buys you access to a team of people who have owned newsagencies, managed retail floors, and spent years analysing real store data. The advice is evidence-based. It is not shaped by supplier preference or group politics.

A few things set newsXpress apart from any other group in the market.

Seasonal Edge is exclusive. Each major retail season, newsXpress funds a prize pack worth $350 or more for every member store, provides the in-store and digital marketing collateral, and runs the promotion at zero cost to the member. Some stores have reported a 20% lift in greeting card sales from this program alone. No other group does this.

The Mint relationships are exclusive. newsXpress is the only marketing group in Australia with access to the Royal Australian Mint, the Perth Mint, the New Zealand Mint, the British Mint, and New Zealand Post. Members who have leaned into coins have gone from selling none to generating $50,000 a year in revenue. These are supplier relationships you cannot access through any other group.

The card performance analysis program uses proprietary data to show you which pockets are earning their space and which are not. Members who have acted on the recommendations have recorded revenue increases of 33%, 50%, and in one case 70% — without additional capital investment.

The AI toolkit — 19 prompts built specifically for newsagency retail decisions — is live now and free to all members. newsXpress has been working in this space for over two years. These are not generic business prompts. They are built around the decisions newsagents actually face.

The group also runs its own physical shops and four online businesses, including one that turned over $2 million last year. The advice comes from running retail, not reading about it. This helps it offer practical and valuable advice from the lived experiences.

If you want a group that will be direct with you, move fast on trends, and actively work to make your business more valuable — talk to Michael Elvey on 0400 331 055 or Mark Fletcher on 0418 321 338.

The Newsagency Is History. What Comes Next Is Up to You.

In this video, Mark Fletcher holds up a copy of A Companion to the Australian Media, published in 2014. He wrote several pages for it — a section on Australian newsagencies, capturing the channel as it stood just over a decade ago.

It’s worth reading now, because the gap between then and now is significant.

Visit ten newsagencies today and you’ll find ten different businesses. Gifts, toys, cards, collectibles, books, homewares — the format has fractured entirely. Newspower, Nextra, and newsXpress all carry the word “newsagency” in some form, but the stores operating under those banners look nothing alike. That’s not a problem. It’s proof that the generic model is gone.

The pressure points are not subtle. Newspapers and magazines are down in double digits and falling. Stationery is in trouble in stores that haven’t rethought it. Lotto is moving online faster than most operators would prefer. Greeting cards are still holding, but one category does not carry a business.

The newsXpress approach is to move toward what works locally — high-margin gifts, collectibles, boutique product ranges — rather than defend a format that the market has already left behind. Members who have made that shift are trading well. Waiting for conditions to improve is not a strategy.

The history is worth knowing. The book is worth owning. But the business decisions have to be about what comes next.

Not all newsagency businesses are the same, as we note above. Those with a future are those that are moving, outside what’s expected, beyond the traditional, and this is exciting for the owners, those who work in the shops and the communities in which they thrive.

While we 100% respect every newsagent, the truth of the data is undeniable – the future newsagency businesses will be those playing outside of history, and that matters plenty.

newsXpress works with newsagents of all sizes, shapes and situations. We help newsagents enjoy their businesses more and set themselves up for a brighter future as a result. It’s hard work, rewarding work.

Our focus is on local, independent and willing.

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newsXpress supports small local independent retailers to thrive. Find out more at help@newsxpress.com.au.

The 12-month test: is your business ready to sell, or are you just hoping it is?

This one is about the preparation that most owners skip when planning to sell their newsagency business. They then often regret when they are sitting across from a broker wondering why the valuation is lower than expected.

The owner-dependency problem

If your shop cannot run without you for a week, it is worth less than you think. Buyers know it. Brokers know it. The multiple applied to your earnings is directly affected by how removable you are from daily operations.

This is not an insult. It is a structural issue that is fixable, but it takes time. The businesses that sell well in 2026 are the ones where the owner started working on this 12–18 months before they decided to sell.

What documented systems actually look like

Opening and closing procedures written down. A staff training document that exists somewhere other than your head. A reordering system that a manager can run without asking you. A rostering approach that is predictable. Supplier contact details that are accessible to someone else.

None of this is complicated. All of it takes time to build. None of it can be done in the weeks before a sale.

The revenue mix question

In 2026, a business that is 70–80% commission-based (lotteries, newspapers, magazines) is selling a diminishing income stream, and buyers price it that way. A business where 50% or more of revenue comes from categories you control the margin on — gifts, collectibles, stationery, café — is selling a retail business. The valuation multiple is different.

If your current mix is wrong for a sale in the next two years, you have time to fix it. If your current mix is wrong and you are planning to sell in six months, you have a problem.

The practical question

Ask yourself honestly: if you stepped away from the shop for a month, would it run? Would it run profitably? Would a new owner be able to step in without you and know what to do?

If the answer is no, that is the work. Not the broker conversation. Not the signage. The systems, the staff, the revenue mix, the documented processes. That is what you are actually selling.

Retail theft is at a 21-year high. Here is what to do about it in your shop.

The ABS recorded 595,660 theft victims nationally in 2024, the highest level in 21 years, up 6% on the prior year. Almost half of those incidents occurred in retail settings. The Griffith University ANZ Retail Crime Study put the total cost to Australian retailers at $7.79 billion in 2023–24, up 40% in two years.

Anecdotal evidence suggests it has grown since.

Newsagencies are not immune. High foot traffic, open floor plans, small items at accessible heights, and often a single staff member on the floor. The category mix — confectionery, stationery, small gifts, trading cards, collectibles — is exactly what opportunistic theft targets.

What is actually driving it

Cost-of-living pressure is part of it. Monash University research found a measurable increase in people who view certain theft as more justifiable under financial strain. Organised retail crime is also growing — coordinated groups, not just opportunistic shoplifters. Both are harder to deter than the individual customer pocketing a chocolate bar.

What works

Visibility is the cheapest deterrent. If your floor layout means there are areas your counter staff cannot see, those are your theft hotspots. Rearrange product so high-value small items are in sightline from the counter. This costs nothing.

Staff acknowledgement matters more than cameras. Research consistently shows that a staff member making eye contact and saying “I’ll be right with you” is more effective at deterring shoplifting than a CCTV sign. Train your team to greet every person who walks in.

For high-value items, trading cards, collectibles, premium stationery, locked display cases are a straightforward solution. The friction of having to ask deters casual theft and doesn’t meaningfully deter genuine buyers who want the product.

The data problem

Most newsagents don’t know their actual shrinkage figure. If your stock-on-hand data in your POS is not accurate, you cannot measure what you are losing. Regular stock counts in your high-theft categories are the baseline. If you have never done a specific count on trading cards or confectionery, do one. The number may surprise you.

The employee theft question

Industry data puts employee fraud at 39% of total retail shrinkage. We think it is higher in our channel. That is not a comfortable number to sit with. Random till reconciliations, dual-person authority on refunds, and reviewing transactions for patterns are the basics. If you have never looked, you do not know.

newsXpress helps newsagents with tough issues like theft. It’s part of the kit of services we provide.

Let’s check out Paper salad and Glick at Spring Fair in Birmingham

In this video, we dive into our recent visit to the Spring Fair in Birmingham, where we had the opportunity to explore some of the most exciting trends in the greeting card and gift packaging industries. Accompanied by a group of fellow Australian retailers, we highlight two standout suppliers whose products are making a significant impact on the independent retail market: Paper Salad and Glick.

Visiting the wonderful Harry Brand shop in London

newsXpress hosts retail tours, taking small business Aussie retailers to see innovative retail. Join us on a visit to Harry Brand, an inspiring shop.

Free Practical Advice to Help Australian Independent Retailers Grow

Running a small retail business in Australia requires constant adaptation. Traditional methods often fall short in a rapidly changing market. Finding reliable guidance can be both difficult and expensive.

To help meet this challenge, newsXpress offers a valuable resource. The newsXpress YouTube channel serves as a free public service for the wider retail community. It is designed for all independent small business retailers, not just newsagents.

The channel focuses on practical, real-world advice. The content is free from corporate jargon and expensive seminar pitches. Instead, it provides actionable strategies that store owners can implement immediately.

Several key topics are covered regularly on the channel:

  • The “Across the Street” Audit: Store owners are encouraged to step outside their physical doors. Viewing a shopfront from a customer’s perspective helps identify why passersby might not enter.
  • Frugal Visual Merchandising: Retailers can learn how to create authentic, engaging displays without spending thousands on professional shop fitters. The videos demonstrate how to use secondhand furniture and everyday items to build a warm, inviting atmosphere.
  • Understanding Habit-Based Shopping: Content explores how to transition a business from a mere convenience stop into a local destination. This includes diversifying stock to attract younger demographics and men.
  • Reviewing Sales Data: The channel emphasises the importance of respecting business data. Understanding this information leads to better buying decisions and fewer costly mistakes.

  • Navigating Difficult Situations: Practical guidance is provided for complex retail issues, including managing employee theft and protecting business margins.

The channel delivers honest insights. It challenges the myth of the retail “silver bullet” and instead promotes consistent, local action. Independent retailers have a distinct advantage in their agility, and these videos explain how to leverage that strength.

Taking action on these insights does not require a massive budget or a complete overhaul of your shop. Success in retail often comes down to making small, deliberate improvements every single day.

By spending just a few minutes watching these videos each week, you can gain a fresh perspective on your business and find simple ways to boost your sales. It is about working smarter, protecting your margins, and ensuring your business remains a vital part of your local community.

Whether you run a gift shop, a local newsagency, or an independent boutique, this resource can assist your business. You can access the complete library of practical advice on the newsXpress YouTube Channel.

This free service from newsXpress is another way we demonstrate skill, transparency and commitment, cornerstones of small business retail in Australia.

Thanks for stopping by.

What is the difference between newsXpress and Newspower?

First up, the best way to discover the difference between newsXpress and Newspower is to speak with them. Call them, talk about business, your own situation, what you need, what you hope for from your business.

Ask tough questions. Seek out answers.

Be sure to ask about the most retail experience of the person you speak with, so you have relevance and contextual data for your consideration.

See which one engages with you strategically and in the manner best suited to your needs.

newsXpress and Newspower are very different organisations. They do different things for their members, offer difference benefits.

Newspower is industry owned and run.

newsXpress is privately owned and run.

newsXpress back itself by not having a locked in contract. This says it is not scared about losing members – because members do stay with the group to leverage the benefits available to them.

As we write this blog post, our understanding is that Newspower does have a lock-in contract that binds businesses to the group even if they do not want to be in the group.

This is a huge difference.

Being commercial, newsXpress is focussed on the success of its members. It is answerable to them. The leadership of the group is known to all members and accessible to all members.

Newspower members could ask: who are the board members? can I easily contact them? what is the current retail experience of the board members?

The differences between newsXpress and Newspower are considerable.

Newspower is bigger than newsXpress for sure. Size is not everything though.

If you travel around Australia and look at brand representation, from what we have seen you could find 4, maybe 5 different Newspower logos out in the field. You will only find one newsxpress logo. There has only ever been one newsXpress logo.

The consideration of logo is important though for it was around 6 years ago that newsxpress started telling its members to not use the newsXpress logo. the newsXpress advice was call your business a name that is meaningful locally. That will deliver more value to you and your local business than a brand that could mean different things in different shops.

This matter of a shop brand has evolved plenty this year. newsXpress actively advising its members to de-couple from the Aussie newsagency channel because of all the negative press out there, all the news stories about newsagency closures.

De-coupling from the newsagency channel is a considered strategy, well documented, carefully planned and financially sound for the future of each local business doing it.

It’s easy to be bland and average. In our opinion that’s what Newspower offers. A check of social media shows this we think.

newsXpress is not a bland offer. It’s energetic, engaging and edgy. We push out members to play outside the fence line for it is out there that they find the blue ocean, a space where they can thrive, and many are thriving.

If you are running a newsagency and are looking for a marketing group, consider newsXpress. We will answer your questions and talk business.

Speak to our CEO, Mark Fletcher, on 0418 321 338 or email him at mark@newsxpress.com.au.

newsXpress and Newspower are very different organisations. Take your time, do your research. Join the group that best serves your needs.

7 shifts in independent retail shaping newsagents in 2026

The morning in a busy newsagency does not look like it did even five years ago. Newspapers are still on the rack. Lottery is still queueing. But the rhythm of the day has changed, and the customers who used to come in for one thing are now coming in for something else entirely. Or not coming in at all.

If you run an independent shop, the question is no longer whether things are changing. It is which of the changes you choose to lean into.

Here are the seven shifts we see most clearly across the newsXpress network in 2026.

1. Magazines are not coming back, and that is not the problem

Magazines have been declining in volume for more than a decade. The retailers who treat the loss of magazine foot traffic as the problem are stuck. The retailers who treat it as freed-up floor space are growing.

The space a slow magazine bay used to occupy can deliver three to five times the gross profit when it is reset to a category that suits your customers. The decision is not whether to do this. It is which category, and how soon.

2. Lottery has moved to the phone

Online lottery purchase is now the default for a meaningful share of regular players. The over-the-counter draw is not gone, but it is smaller. The smart response is not to chase the lost revenue. It is to use the freed counter time and counter space to drive higher-margin sales to the customers still walking in.

3. The card category is consolidating around fewer, better suppliers

Greeting cards remain one of the most profitable categories in the shop. What has changed is that the right pocket plan now matters more than the total pocket count. Independent retailers running a disciplined two-supplier model are routinely outperforming retailers carrying three or four suppliers across more pockets.

We have documented card revenue lifts of 33%, 50%, 70% and 76% in newsXpress shops that recast their card mix on evidence. Floor space stayed the same. Capital tied up went down. Revenue went up.

4. Coins and collectibles have become a real revenue line

Five years ago, coins were a curiosity in most shops. Today, in shops that have learnt how to merchandise and recommend them, coins are a meaningful weekly revenue line. We have seen shops go from $0 to $50,000 a year in coin sales.

The trend is not about coin collectors. It is about gift-givers. The gift buyer who walks past a beautifully presented commemorative coin set is a buyer the supermarket cannot serve.

5. Click and Collect is expected, not innovative

Local retailers who do not offer a way to reserve, pay for or pick up a product online are conceding a class of customer. Click and Collect does not need to be a Shopify build. It can start as an Instagram message and a held item under the counter. What matters is that the option exists and that local customers know it.

6. AI has moved from novelty to daily tool

The retailers using AI in 2026 are not the retailers with technical skills. They are the retailers who started with one task — writing a Facebook post, replying to a Google review, summarising a sales report — and built from there. Five minutes a day, repeated, has become a real productivity gain.

We have been helping newsXpress members use AI for more than two years and have published an exclusive AI toolkit for our members covering the everyday tasks where AI saves time and improves decisions. The toolkit details are members-only, but the principle is not: AI works best when you treat it as a fast, helpful colleague who needs to be told about your specific shop.

7. The marketing group itself is being reset

Independent retailers are reassessing what their marketing group actually does for them. The old model — supplier discounts and a quarterly catalogue — is no longer enough. The retailers who are growing belong to groups that are active partners: groups that will sit down with you, look at your numbers, and tell you what to change.

That is the difference between a directory of suppliers and a partnership.

What this means for your shop

The seven shifts are not coming. They are here. The retailers who lean into them are growing 10% to 20% a year. The retailers who do not are slipping at about the same rate.

We can help you work through any of the seven, starting with whichever one is most pressing for you.

If any of this resonated, we would be happy to talk. There is no obligation, and no sales script. Just a conversation about your shop.

Mark Fletcher 0418 321 338  mark@newsxpress.com.au Michael Elvey 0400 331 055 michael@newsxpress.com.au www.newsxpress.com.au

The card pocket conversation most newsagents NEVER have

Most newsagents inherit a card plan. The supplier set it up. The previous owner accepted it. Year after year, the same range refills the same pockets, and the same revenue comes out the other end. Or, more often, slightly less revenue each year.

There is a conversation hiding inside that pocket plan that most retailers never have. It is the conversation that has lifted card revenue by 33%, 50%, 70% and 76% in newsXpress shops that did have it.

Why the total card sales number hides the story

If you only look at the headline card revenue, the picture is usually flat. What is hidden inside that flat number is a wide spread of pocket performance. Some pockets are paying their rent five times over. Others are paying nothing.

The retailers who outperform are the ones who can see the spread, not just the average. That is what pocket-level analysis exposes.

The signal we look for

In every shop we audit, the bottom 25% of pockets typically generate less than 5% of card revenue. They occupy floor space. They tie up capital. They cost time to refill. They do not pay their way.

The bottom 25% is also the easiest 25% to fix. You do not need new fixtures. You do not need a renovation. You need an evidence-based decision on what to remove, what to replace it with, and which supplier deserves more of your floor.

Four examples of what happens when the conversation is had

Each of these is a real newsXpress shop:

  • One shop moved 120 pockets from one supplier to another. Pocket return more than doubled. Same floor space, same staff, more cash in the bank.
  • One shop moved from a single-supplier model to a split model and cut total pockets by 25%. Card revenue went up 33%.
  • One shop split cards across two suppliers without any capital investment. Card revenue went up 70%.
  • One shop quit the $2 card range entirely and recast the everyday mix. Card revenue went up 50%.

These are not theoretical numbers. They are documented outcomes from shops that ran their own audit, made their own decisions, and watched their own revenue lift.

A 30-day test you can run yourself

Even without help, there is a useful exercise you can do in your own shop:

  • Pull last 12 months of card sales by pocket from your POS.
  • Sort pockets from best to worst by revenue per pocket per month.
  • Mark the bottom 25%. These are your candidates for change.
  • Walk the card bay and look at those candidates. Are they on a poor sight line? Wrong supplier for the occasion? Wrong price point? Tired range?
  • Pick the five worst. Replace them with content from your strongest-performing supplier in an adjacent occasion.
  • Watch the result for 30 days.

Most retailers find that even a small recast lifts revenue noticeably within a month. The reason is that the floor space is being used to display product that customers actually buy.

The conversation to have with your supplier

When you are ready to have it, the conversation is direct and reasonable. You are buying floor space from yourself. The supplier is renting that floor space from you. If a pocket is not paying, it should not be there.

Suppliers who are good partners welcome this conversation, because they would rather have fewer pockets that perform than more pockets that do not. Suppliers who push back on the conversation are telling you something important about the partnership.

Where newsXpress fits

We run pocket-level performance analysis as part of newsXpress membership. The analysis is built on proprietary intellectual property and is unique to our group. It is not a sales pitch for a supplier — it is an honest evidence base for a decision that is yours.

We do this work because the card category is one of the highest-margin categories in any shop, and the difference between an inherited plan and an audited plan can be tens of thousands of dollars a year.

On implementing newsXpress’s advice on cards, I saw 76% growth over 12 months. Their strategies and guidance contributed to an overall sales increase of 57% during the same period.

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Matt Donkin, newsXpress Mount Lawley, WA

What it would mean for your shop

If your card revenue has been flat or sliding for a couple of years, the cost of having the conversation is one phone call. The cost of not having it is more of the same.

If you would like to know what your shop’s card analysis would show, we are happy to walk you through it.

Mark Fletcher  0418 321 338  mark@newsxpress.com.au Michael Elvey  0400 331 055  michael@newsxpress.com.au www.newsxpress.com.au

AI and small business retail – what’s actually working in store

Walk into a busy newsagency or gift shop on a Tuesday morning, and AI is not the first thing on the owner’s mind. The till is the first thing. The supplier delivery is the second. The rostered casual who has not turned up is somewhere in the top five.

But sit with that owner at four o’clock, and the conversation has shifted. The Facebook post for tomorrow has not been written. The end-of-week stock review has not been done. The Google review from the angry customer last Friday has not been replied to.

This is where AI is genuinely working for independent retailers in 2026. Not in the headlines. In the four o’clock list.

The simplest way to think about AI

The most useful framing we have found for retailers who are AI-curious but cautious is this: AI is a fast, helpful colleague who has never been to your shop.

It can write. It can think through a problem. It can save you time on admin. It cannot replace your judgement, and it does not know your specific shop, your customers or your local community unless you tell it.

That single shift in framing — from “complicated technology” to “helpful colleague” — is what unlocks daily use for most owners.

Where it is working

The retailers we work with at newsXpress are getting the most value from AI in three areas:

  • Writing — social media posts, customer review replies, supplier emails, gift guides, in-store signage and staff notices. Tasks that used to take 30 minutes can take three.
  • Thinking through a problem  pasting a sales report into AI and asking what to buy more of, what to cut, and what is coming up seasonally. Pasting a competitor’s price into AI and asking how to respond. Pasting a difficult customer message into AI and asking for a professional reply.
  • Time-saving on the daily grind  the end-of-week review that used to never get done, the new staff member checklist that used to be hand-written from scratch, the Mother’s Day display copy that used to be improvised on the day.

Each task on its own saves five to thirty minutes. Done weekly, it adds up to hours every month that go back into the shop instead of into the back office.

Where AI is not the answer

There are limits, and being honest about them matters.

  • AI does not know your customers. You have to brief it.
  • AI can be confidently wrong. Always read the output before you use it.
  • AI cannot make the decision for you. It gives you a starting point.
  • AI does not replace the conversation with the supplier, the customer, or the staff member. It just helps you prepare for it.

A retailer who treats AI as a starting point usually gets value. A retailer who treats it as the answer usually gets caught out.

What we are doing at newsXpress

We have been helping our members work with AI for more than two years. Our approach has three parts.

A members-only AI toolkit. We have built and published an exclusive toolkit of nineteen ready-to-use AI tasks, written in plain English, designed specifically for independent retailers in our network. The toolkit covers the everyday work — social posts, customer replies, sales analysis, supplier emails, weekly reviews — and it is free for our members. The detailed prompts and approach are intellectual property we keep for our members.

Super prompts on member data. For specific situations, we run more detailed AI work on member business data they share with us. This is not generic advice — it is evidence-based output from your actual numbers.

Member meetings to share what is working. We host regular AI-focused member meetings where retailers share their own stories — what they tried, what worked, what did not. This is how the practice gets better. Retailers learning from retailers.

The combined effect is that our members are making better business decisions, faster business decisions, seeing opportunities they had not seen before, and creating new revenue streams. AI is genuinely a game-changer for those leaning in.

How to start tomorrow morning

If you have never used AI in your shop, the most useful starting move is small.

  • Pick one task you do every week that you find tedious. Writing the social post. Replying to the Friday review. Drafting the supplier chase-up email.
  • Open one of the free AI tools (claude.ai, chat.openai.com, gemini.google.com or copilot.microsoft.com).
  • Tell it the name of your shop, your suburb, who your customers are, and what you want.
  • Read the output. Edit it. Use it.

Five minutes invested. One job ticked off. The next time it takes three minutes. The time after that, two.

That is the starting point. Everything else builds from there.

What this means for your shop

The retailers who are leaning into AI are not the retailers with technical skills. They are the retailers who are willing to spend five minutes on something new on a Tuesday morning. The ones who do not are watching their competitors get faster.

If you would like help making the starting move, we are happy to talk.

Mark Fletcher  0418 321 338  mark@newsxpress.com.au Michael Elvey — 0400 331 055  michael@newsxpress.com.au www.newsxpress.com.au

Why a $350 prize draws more customers than a 20% discount

A regional newsXpress shop ran a Mother’s Day prize giveaway last year. The prize was $350 worth of beautiful Mother’s Day product, displayed on a feature table at the front of the shop. Customers entered by spending in store. The prize was funded centrally by newsXpress, including the marketing collateral.

The shop reported a 20% lift in greeting card sales over the promotion period. New customers walked in. Local people talked about the shop. Existing customers came back twice instead of once.

The interesting part is what the shop did not have to do. It did not discount any product. It did not match a competitor’s offer. It did not train shoppers to wait for the next sale.

This is the story of how Seasonal Edge works, and why it consistently outperforms the discount alternative.

Why discounting is the easy answer that costs you twice

Every retailer feels the pull of a discount when foot traffic slows. It feels active. It feels like you are doing something. The problem is that discounting trains shoppers to wait for the next sale, and it shrinks the gross profit on every transaction during the period.

For most independent retailers, a 20% discount roughly halves the gross profit on the discounted line. To recover the cash you lost on the discount, you have to sell almost double the volume. That rarely happens.

A prize giveaway works differently. The cost is fixed and external. The gross profit on every transaction stays intact. The customer’s reason to engage is the prize, not a markdown.

What Seasonal Edge actually is

Seasonal Edge is a newsXpress promotion run for our members at every major retail season — Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Christmas and other key calendar moments.

The mechanics are simple:

  • newsXpress funds a $350 (or higher value) prize pack for each member shop, made up of beautiful product relevant to the season.
  • newsXpress designs and prints the marketing collateral — in-store posters, entry forms, social media assets.
  • The shop displays the prize, runs the promotion, collects entries from spending customers, and draws a local winner.
  • The winning customer is local. The talk about the shop is local. The new customers are local.

In 2025, newsXpress spent more than $1,500 per member on funding prizes and marketing across the seasons. The cost to the member retailer is nothing.

Why it works

There are a few reasons the format consistently outperforms a discount.

The prize is concrete and visual. A 20% sign on the window is invisible in a busy strip. A beautiful prize display draws the eye and pulls people through the door.

The shop becomes a destination. Locals tell other locals about the prize. The shop becomes the place to enter. The conversation in the suburb shifts.

The promotion brings in new customers. Not just regulars buying more. People who would not have walked in otherwise come in to enter the draw, and many of them spend.

The bonus is the discovery effect. Each member shop tries product on the prize table that they may not have stocked before. Some of those products turn out to be sleepers — strong sellers that get added to the permanent range. The promotion pays once at the till and a second time on the buying plan for the next quarter.

And there is one more effect worth naming. newsXpress members share their displays with each other privately. Photos go up. People see what other shops have done. Ideas travel. The next promotion is better than the last one, because the network is collectively learning.

What you need in place to run a promotion like this

A prize giveaway is not complicated, but it does need a few things to work well:

  • A visible front-of-shop space for the prize display.
  • Entry forms or a digital entry option that captures customer details for follow-up.
  • Staff briefed on how to mention the promotion at the till.
  • A modest social media presence to amplify the prize before and during the promotion.
  • A clear plan for the post-promotion follow-up: a thank-you to entrants, a small offer to keep them returning.

Each of these is achievable for any small shop. None of them require capital investment.

What it would mean for your shop

If your shop is currently relying on discounts to drive traffic at season time, the result is usually flat sales and shrinking margin. Seasonal Edge is one of the simplest ways to break that loop.

It is exclusive to newsXpress members. It costs the member nothing. It puts money in the bank.

Without the guidance and support of newsXpress, in particular the last twelve months, I’m not sure where we would have ended up. The head office team is continually trying to help us improve our businesses.

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Barb Shanahan, newsXpress Lara, VIC

If you would like to know how Seasonal Edge would look in your shop, we are happy to walk you through it.

Mark Fletcher  0418 321 338  mark@newsxpress.com.au Michael Elvey  0400 331 055  michael@newsxpress.com.au www.newsxpress.com.au