How newsXpress Members Are Driving Marketplace Leading Jigsaw Sales

Jigsaws sales are quietly excellent.

They are steady. They appeal across age groups. They gift well. They bring people back. And when they are displayed properly, they sell far better than most retailers expect.

Plenty of newsXpress members are achieving marketplace leading jigsaw sales. That has not happened by accident.

Two things have driven it.

The first is product. We have brought members unique jigsaws through new suppliers. Titles you will not find in the discount aisle or in every shop down the street. Exclusivity matters more in this category than people realise, because jigsaw shoppers browse widely and remember what they have already seen.

The second is how the product is presented. We have developed fresh advice on in-store display and shopper engagement for this category. Where to site it. How to face it. How much to show without overwhelming. How to help a shopper who is buying for someone else and does not know where to start.

That second part is where a lot of the gain sits. The same stock, presented differently, performs differently. We see it again and again.

Everything we have shared was tested in real stores first. Field tested advice tends to stick, because it has already survived contact with actual customers, actual staff and actual space constraints. Nothing is proposed on a whiteboard and handed over untested.

This is how we prefer to work across every category. Try it. Measure it. Refine it. Then share what genuinely worked and be honest about what did not.

Jigsaws also do something useful beyond their own numbers. They pull browsers deeper into the store and they support gifting, which lifts other categories alongside them. A well run jigsaw department earns more than its own sales suggest.

There is a repeat purchase benefit too. Someone who finishes a puzzle wants another one. If your range refreshes and they know it refreshes, they come back to check. That is a habit worth building, and it costs nothing beyond attention to your range.

A few things we have found consistently. Show the image large, because people buy the picture before they consider the piece count. Group by theme rather than by supplier. Keep a clearly signed section for the harder puzzles, since serious puzzlers look for a challenge and will pay for it. And rotate the front facings regularly, even when the stock behind them has not changed.

For a newsagency looking for a dependable growth category that does not need heavy investment, this one deserves a closer look.

Our members have the supplier access and the playbook.

If that sounds useful for your store, we are easy to reach.

Coins and Pokémon: the categories quietly outgrowing everything else in our network

Collectibles was the fastest growing category in our latest benchmark study of 32 newsXpress member shops, covering January to May 2026. If you run an independent retail business and you are not paying attention to this space, the numbers below should change that.

Coins first. 21 of the 32 shops reported coin product sales. Revenue for the five months ranged from under $1,000 to more than $46,000 per shop. Coin collecting is high margin, and in most regional and suburban locations it has almost no serious competition. Few shops in our channel have developed it properly. The ones that have are being rewarded.

Trading cards are the other standout. Eight shops reported Pokémon or trading card revenue. The largest operation generated $58,852 in five months from 1,819 units. Several shops more than doubled their trading card revenue year on year. Average unit prices ran from $11 to $39, reflecting a healthy mix of single packs through to premium box releases.

Why do these categories work so well for shops like ours?

  • Collectors return. A coin or card customer visits regularly, often weekly, and buys every time.
  • Price comparison is hard. Limited releases and allocation-based supply mean you are not competing with a supermarket catalogue.
  • The demographic is gold. Young adults and families, exactly the customers most newsagencies and gift shops struggle to attract.

newsXpress members get more than this analysis. We have direct relationships in the coin space, including with the Royal Australian Mint, and we guide members on release calendars, allocation, display and pricing. For trading cards, we share what the network data says about pack mix and sell-through, so a member entering the category does not learn by expensive trial and error.

All of that is included in membership. No consulting fees, no add-on charges.

One shop in our network is on track for over $100,000 a year in trading cards alone. That business did not exist in that shop three years ago. The opportunity is real, it is documented in our data, and we will help any member chase it.

The beauty of both these categories is that they work well in regional and rural settings as these shoppers love to travel to purchase these beloved products.