A blog on issues affecting Australia's newsagents, media and small business generally. More ...

Stop! Is that mountain with riches at the top waiting for you worth it?

I keep seeing the same ads. People selling scale. Courses, seminars, mentorships at a few hundred dollars a month. That is what this video is about, because I have had enough of the pitch.

You know the look. The bright new car. The house they bought for mum and dad. Dinner at some restaurant in Europe. It is all there to sell you the idea that the same life is waiting, if you just pay for the secret.

Here is what bothers me. Those ads are built to make you feel bad about a business that is already working. There is no guarantee attached. The money only moves one way, and it is not towards you.

My argument is simple. A profitable, well run local independent shop can give you more than a scaled one ever will. Scale has costs the marketing never mentions. The money, sure. But also the worry, the hours, and the control you hand over to other people. I have watched retailers chase scale and lose plenty. I have watched others stay local and do very nicely.

So what actually works? Be careful with every dollar you put into the shop. Decide on facts, not on a hunch. Make mistakes and get on with it. Fail early, fail often, learn each time.

One more thing. We are economic champions in this country and almost nobody says it out loud. The media certainly does not. So say it to yourself at the end of the day. You traded today. You will open again tomorrow. You like the work and you met some good people doing it. Sit with that for a minute. It counts.

If you are banking money and you are happy, you do not need someone charging you to tell you to want more.

Try and ignore the noise from the scale promoters because, in reality, they are only promoting themselves as they want to scale. Too many of them genuinely care less about you, no matter how slick their pitch.

As always, buyer beware.

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Ethics

Practical AI for newsagents and other independent retailers: a starter guide

AI is software you talk to in plain English. Type what you need and it types back – or tell it what you want through voice input. Most of the tools run in a browser, many cost nothing, and you do not need to be technical to use any of them. Here is how to put it to work in your shop this week.

Start with what is already in your POS software

The easiest AI to use is the AI with nothing to set up. For Tower Systems customers, the Retailer AI tools are built into the software, with no prompts to learn and no extra subscription. Because they were built for local retail, they already understand shop data.

They cover the jobs that quietly eat a retailer’s week. Product descriptions get drafted from basic item details, ready for your website. Supplier invoices arrive as PDFs and import automatically, with stock codes, costs and quantities filled in. Reorders can be generated on rules you set, for your review before anything is sent. An end of shift email summarises the day’s trading. Pricing can be checked against other retailers without you giving up an afternoon.

If you do nothing else from this guide, turn those on.

Three rules before you go further

Outside your POS software, the rules are short. Never paste customer names, emails, phone numbers or addresses into an external tool. Treat everything AI writes as a draft and edit it before anyone else sees it. And start with one task rather than ten: test it, judge the result, then add the next.

Which external tool

Start free. Free plans are enough for most retailers, and within a month you will know if you are hitting their limits.

Claude (claude.ai) is the strongest writer of the group and suits customer emails and planning. ChatGPT (chat.openai.com) is the general all-rounder for ideas and quick answers. Gemini (gemini.google.com) makes sense if your shop already lives in Google Workspace. Canva (canva.com) handles social media graphics, posters and shelf signage. Perplexity (perplexity.ai) answers research questions with sources you can check.

Paid plans run roughly $20 to $28 a month. Consider one only when you hit daily message limits or find yourself uploading documents regularly. One chat tool and one design tool is plenty.

Six things to try

Hand over the basic writing first. Social posts, promotion copy, signage. A prompt as plain as “Write a friendly Instagram post about our weekend candle sale at a small Melbourne gift shop, under 60 words” comes back usable in seconds.

Paste messy notes from a supplier call into a chat tool and ask for an action list for your team.

Let it draft replies to routine emails, the late order and the event invitation, then read and adjust before sending. The reading part is not optional.

Use it to brainstorm when the calendar looks quiet. Ask for ten Father’s Day ideas for your kind of shop and expect two or three good ones, which is a fair return on two minutes.

If your staff will use AI, write a one page policy. Say what is allowed, such as drafting and task lists, and what is banned, which is customer data and passwords. Anything public-facing gets a human read before it goes out.

Then, after thirty days, take stock. Did it save time? Did the emails get better? If something worked, add one more use. If something did not, drop it without guilt.

What to watch

AI states wrong things with complete confidence, so check prices, supplier terms and dates before they go anywhere near a customer. Make sure the words still sound like your shop and not a corporate template, and edit until they do. Keep passwords, financials and customer records out of public tools, always.

None of this is complicated. The retailers getting value from AI are not the technical ones. They are the ones who started.

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Newsagency management

For newsagents who want more than an average newsagency delivers

I have owned newsagencies since February 1996. In that time I have seen the best of this channel and plenty of the worst, and I understand why some newsagents feel stuck. The categories we were built on are in decline. Papers, magazines, lottery. That is not a criticism of anyone. It is arithmetic.

I also understand what stuck feels like, because newsagents describe it to me every week. You open early, you work hard, you do everything the old model says you should do, and the numbers drift backwards anyway. It wears people down. Some of the most capable retailers I know have quietly concluded that this is simply what owning a newsagency is now, and that the best they can hope for is a slower decline than the shop up the road.

I do not accept that.

Watching hundreds of these businesses up close has taught me that average is a choice. The newsagents doing it toughest are usually running the model as it was handed to them years ago. The ones enjoying their businesses, making good money and looking forward to Monday, are running something quite different, often from the same shop, on the same street, with the same landlord.

The difference is rarely luck or location. It is decisions. What to stock, what to quit, how to use the space, where new shoppers might come from. Made one at a time, with evidence, those decisions add up to a different business. I have watched a wall of slow magazines become the most profitable run of shelving in a shop, and shops attract customers who would never have crossed the threshold two years earlier. None of it happened overnight, and all of it started with one decision made on evidence rather than habit.

So where is the growth coming from? Not from the old categories. In the shops that are growing, the customer traffic, revenue and gross profit contribution growth is coming from categories traditional newsagents do not stock. This is where real innovation lies in our channel. The shops finding a brighter future are ranging products the traditional newsagency never considered, and they are being found by shoppers who never thought to walk in.

That belief is why newsXpress exists, and I should be upfront here: I own the business, so read what follows knowing that. What we offer members is hope backed by practical support. Hope on its own is just waiting. So the support is practical. We start by listening to what you want from the business, because that is different for everyone. With your permission we look at your data, and we almost always find early wins sitting in plain sight. From there we work beside you on a plan specific to your shop, your resources and your goals, at whatever pace suits you. Nothing is mandatory, and what you build stays yours.

There is also the company of others on the same road. Our members share what is working in their shops with a generosity that still surprises me after all these years. Nobody has to figure this out alone.

I will be honest about the other side too. If your plan for the business rests on newspaper home delivery, lottery commissions and parcel collection, we are probably not the right fit, and I would rather tell you that in the first conversation than take your money.

But if you are wondering whether there is a brighter future for your business than the one currently in front of you, I am happy to talk. No pitch and no obligation, just an honest conversation about your situation and what might be possible. Email me at mark@newsxpress.com.au or call me on 0418 321 338.

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newsagency of the future

Asking your landlord for a rent reduction? Prepare before you knock

Asking a landlord for a rent reduction is a reasonable thing to do. Rent is one of the biggest costs in any retail newsagency, and when circumstances change it makes sense to talk. But how you ask matters as much as what you ask for.

The first question is a hard one, and you ask it of yourself: are you making good money? A smart landlord will want to see your profit and loss statement. If it shows a healthy, growing profit, your argument may disappear before it begins. Think that through before you knock on the door.

If there is a case, build it before you make the request. Know why you are asking. What is the commercial reason? Gather the evidence and present it clearly. Bring your P&L. Bring your sales figures. Explain the situation rather than simply asking for a discount.

Too many retailers ask before they have prepared. I have seen it plenty of times. Some have no real case. Others have a strong case but never present it, so the request quietly fades away. It is hard to blame a landlord for saying no to an argument that was never made.

The detail matters. What is your occupancy cost as a percentage of revenue? Are sales up or down? Is the location delivering the foot traffic you expected when you signed the lease? Compare this quarter with the same quarter last year, and this half with the same half a year earlier. The Tower Systems newsagency software can produce these numbers in minutes.

Do not be afraid of difficult numbers if that is what the records show. Honest data builds a stronger case than vague complaints.

Remember, too, that landlords are more likely to help a tenant they want to keep. If you pay on time, look after the shop and bring traffic that benefits the stores around you, you are worth keeping. Neighbouring retailers may even support your case, and it is worth asking them.

Preparation is everything here. Have your evidence in hand and a specific number in mind, because a landlord can take a prepared case to their own decision makers.

Walk in ready.

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Newsagency management

Fake NeeDoh is being sold in Australia. Check your stock today

Fake NeeDoh squishy product is being sold in Australia. Two wholesalers have been caught stocking it. The packaging looks like NeeDoh. The product is not. It is fake, it has not passed Australian safety standards, and every retailer selling it is breaking the law.

This is not a grey area. It is illegal.

The safety problem

NeeDoh is a sensory toy. Kids squeeze it, chew on it, carry it everywhere. Genuine NeeDoh is tested against mandatory safety standards. With a fake, nobody knows what is inside it or what happens when the casing splits in a child’s hands.

The law

Selling this product breaks the law in at least four ways.

It infringes the Trade Marks Act 1995. Selling goods with a false mark is a criminal offence under Part 14 of the Act, carrying up to 5 years in prison.

Not a fine. Prison.

It is passing off at common law, misleading or deceptive conduct under section 18 of the Australian Consumer Law, and a false representation under section 29.

It breaches section 106 of the Australian Consumer Law, which bans supplying goods that fail a mandatory safety standard. Penalties doubled in March 2026. A corporation now faces up to $100 million. An individual faces up to $2.5 million.

And under Part 3-5, a supplier is liable for injury caused by defective goods. With a fake, the manufacturer cannot be found. The retailer who sold it may be the only person an injured child’s family can sue.

No supplier invoice protects you. Buying in good faith is a reason to act fast. It is not a defence to keep selling.

The wholesalers

Wholesalers supplying our channel have been found offering fake NeeDoh. That any business person would sell fake product, risking public safety and all for profit, is appalling. It puts every retailer who buys from them at risk and drags the reputation of the whole channel with it.

What to do

Check your stock against genuine NeeDoh from the authorised Australian distributor – William Valentine. If in doubt, take it off the shelf now. Do not sell it down to clear it. Once you know it is fake, every sale is a deliberate crime. Report it to the ACCC and the distributor, and only buy NeeDoh from the authorised source. If a deal from another wholesaler looks too good, it is.

Why this matters

Local retailers trade on trust. Parents buy NeeDoh because they trust what is in the packet. One fake product on one counter damages that trust for all of us. Check your stock. Check your suppliers. If you find fake NeeDoh, it comes off the shelf today.

This one makes me angry. Risking the health of kids for a few bucks is disgusting.

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Ethics

Payments providers are chasing newsagents. My advice: don’t rush

Payments providers are chasing newsagents right now. Suncorp Bank exiting this space has plenty of newsagents thinking about what to do next, and the providers know it. The calls and emails have started, and reps are turning up in shops.

My advice is to not rush into a decision.

It is still early days. I know of three deals being pitched to newsagents right now, and I know of more options being prepared that are not public yet. Better deals may emerge. In my experience of moments like this, they usually do.

There is time, too. The new regulations banning surcharging start October 1. That sounds close, but for a decision like this it is not. You can watch the market for a few more weeks and still have plenty of time to move comfortably before the deadline. Nobody should feel pressured into signing with the first rep who calls.

When you do compare offers, look past the headline rate. What is the total cost per transaction once every fee is counted? What is the contract term, and what does it cost to leave early? Who owns the terminal, and who answers the phone when it stops working on a Saturday morning? When does the money land in your account? Cash flow depends on that last one more than people expect. Whatever answers you get, get them in writing.

Most of all, think about, and ask questions about, who is making money from the decision you make. Every deal being pitched earns someone a margin somewhere. Maybe the provider, maybe a referral partner earning a commission along the way. Once you know who gets paid and how much, you can judge whose interests the deal really serves.

This is not a criticism of the providers. They are doing what businesses do. But it is your decision and your money. Waiting a few weeks costs you little. A bad contract can cost you for years.

Take your time.  Do your research. The right decision could save you a ton of money, which will matter after October 1. So, be careful, do your due diligence. Ask the tough questions. Sign only when you are sure.

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Newsagency management

If you’re at Gift Fair in Melbourne

Trade shows are exciting, and that is exactly why buyers need to be careful. A lot of money gets committed in a couple of days on the floor, so ahead of the Gift Fair, here is some calm advice.

Be careful what you buy. Some wholesalers use trade shows to shift last year’s stock, or the year before’s, because it has been slow to sell and the show is a chance to move it. So when a rep tells you a product is a runaway success, ask them to back the claim. What evidence is there? Can they show you? Better still, can you speak with retailers who are actually selling it well? Some salespeople are brilliant at helping you believe and much weaker at proving. It is your money. The question is fair.

Pin down delivery before you sign anything. Some suppliers will happily take an order without a firm date, then dribble the stock out over months, which suits nobody. Confirm when the stock will arrive and when payment falls due.

If you are unsure about a line, buy a small quantity and test it rather than speculating with money you cannot afford to tie up. And while you are talking numbers, check the price against what other retailers are paying.

One more thing we are seeing: some wholesalers have become less discerning about where they place product. In one town, several shops within a short walk of each other now carry the same lines from the same wholesaler. When that happens, nobody has a point of difference left, and everyone sells less.

Ask for proof before you order. It is your margin and your uniqueness on the line.

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Newsagency management

Takeaways from The Odyssey

Okay, I saw The Odyssey and have some takeaways: Odysseus made it home through persistence and agility, not brute force. The same applies in retail. Progress comes one step at a time, every day. Standing still is not an option.

Watch for siren songs. Many fads are irrelevant to a bright future. And be wary of anyone selling a potion or a promise to fix everything. There are no shortcuts in retail.

Accept small, calculated costs where they serve the bigger goal. A good return policy or an introductory discount can cost a little today and build customer trust that pays for years.

Protect what matters most: cash flow, inventory shrinkage and customer feedback. Strict oversight of these three keeps your journey on course.

Keep moving. Stay nimble. Get home.

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Newsagency management

In closing this series: the exit you get is the one you build

Over the last fifteen posts there is one key message. What happens when you leave your newsagency is decided long before the day you walk out the door.

My goal here is to encourage you to think about this. and work on it long before you need to.

The series opened with a hard truth. Goodwill has collapsed for businesses that stayed tied to declining print and lottery, and no buyer will pay for a shop with no defensible profit. But it collapsed selectively. The newsagencies that shifted to high-margin gift and specialty categories, that became destinations rather than conveniences, and that learned to run without the owner, still attract buyers and still sell well.

From there, the path forked into choices. Know what the business is really worth. Spend the years before you list making it saleable and getting the numbers exit-ready. Understand that the lease and, for owner-occupiers, the property can matter more than the price. Where a buyer cannot fund the full amount, vendor finance can bridge the gap.

Then there is the question of who takes over. It may be a staff member who already knows the business. It may be family, if they genuinely want it and the fairness is handled openly. It may be nobody, in which case running under management keeps the income without a sale. And where none of that works, closing well, on your terms and with your head up, is a good ending in itself.

Through all of it runs one thread that owners underestimate: the human side. Succession is a joint decision when you run the shop with a partner. Co-owners rarely reach the exit at the same time. And whatever route you take, the shop eventually ends, leaving a life to be rebuilt on the other side.

The common lesson is the same one the best owners in this series lived out. Start early. Be open, inside the business and out. Get proper advice. And accept that the exit you get is, in the end, the exit you built.

The shop closes either way. What people remember is how you closed it.

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Newsagency management

Life after the shop

The final post in the succession and exit series. Whichever path you took, sale, handover or close, the shop eventually ends. This post is about what comes next: the identity change, and building a life to move towards.

The hardest part of leaving a newsagency is not the sale, the lease or the lottery paperwork. It is the Monday morning after, when the shop is gone and the day is empty.

Owners plan the exit in detail and plan the life that follows it not at all. Then they wonder why leaving feels like loss rather than freedom. This post is about the part no accountant will raise: what happens to you.

The shop was more than income

For most owners the newsagency was not just a way to make money. It was identity, routine and community rolled into one.

You opened before dawn. You knew the regulars by name. You were the local, the constant, the one who kept the paper aside and remembered the card. That role gave shape to your days and a place in your town. When it ends, all of that ends at once, and the quiet can be louder than you expect.

Naming this in advance takes some of its sting away. The flatness many owners feel after leaving is not regret about the decision. It is the ordinary grief of losing a role that mattered.

Plan the life, not just the exit

You spent years learning to run the shop. Give some thought to running the next phase.

What will fill the hours the shop used to fill? What gives you purpose when you are no longer needed behind the counter? These sound like soft questions. They are the ones that decide whether retirement feels good or hollow. Owners who thrive after the shop tend to have something to move towards, not just something to leave.

It does not have to be grand. Part-time work, a long-postponed interest, more time with family, a role in a community group. The point is to have a shape to your days before the old shape disappears.

Leave well, for your own sake

How you close matters to how you feel afterwards. A rushed, secretive, ashamed exit leaves a wound. A calm, open, dignified one leaves something to be proud of.

Tell your customers properly. Let them thank you. A proper goodbye, a note in the window, a last conversation with the regulars, is not sentimentality. It gives you closure and reminds you that the work meant something. Owners who let their community mark the ending carry it far better than those who slip out quietly.

Stay connected to what you valued

You do not have to sever everything. Many former owners keep a thread to the parts they loved: the people, the trade, the community.

That might be staying in touch with old customers, mentoring another retailer, or keeping a hand in the industry in some small way. Connection on your own terms, without the pressure of the counter, can give you the good parts of the old life without the grind.

The point

You will spend real effort getting the exit right. Spend some on getting the aftermath right too.

Expect the loss and name it, plan a life to move towards, leave well so you have closure, and keep a connection to what you valued. Do that, and the Monday after the shop closes has a shape of its own.

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Newsagency management

When there is no buyer: closing your newsagency well

Fourteenth in the succession and exit series. When every other path has been weighed and there is still no buyer, this post is about closing well: winding down with care, handling the practicalities, and facing the emotional side.

I get asked about buying and selling newsagencies often. There is a harder conversation we do not have enough: what to do when there is no buyer at all.

It is more common than most owners admit. When a newsagent cannot sell their business, they will often just close it. I said as much to Mumbrella late last year, and the rate of closures lifted again through 2025. The pattern is consistent. A business built on newspapers, magazines, stationery and lotteries, with little change over the years, has no goodwill a buyer will pay for.

This post is for the owner facing that reality. Not to sell you a turnaround. To help you leave well.

The no-buyer reality

Frank and Moya Livingstone paid around $600,000 for the Mansfield newsagency two decades ago. They listed it, waited two years, and got no takers. In the end they closed the doors and walked away. “Unfortunately, it’s an industry nobody wants to take on anymore,” Frank told the ABC.

Their story is not rare. Around 300 newsagents in net terms left the industry over five years. McGills, once the largest newsagency in Victoria and a Melbourne CBD landmark, closed because no-one offered to buy it. Whole towns have lost their last news service.

If your business is one of these, the absence of a buyer is not a personal failure. It is a market telling you the goodwill is gone. Accepting that early is the first step to a good exit.

I know one regional owner who did exactly that. They put the business on the market, wanted to retire, and set themselves a deadline. Two years passed with no sale. When the deadline arrived, they closed in a calm and structured way, sold the building, and retired happy. There was no drama and no shame. They had decided how their exit would look, and they held to it.

Winding down well

A closure is still a project. Run it like one. The owners who manage it well start the work twelve months out, not twelve days.

Read your lease first. Your exit date is set by your lease more than anything else. Know when it ends, what your make-good obligations are, and whether you can hand back early. This shapes every other decision.

Wind down the lottery separately. Your lottery licence sits with the operator, not with you to sell freely. You cannot simply pass it to whoever you like. Speak to the Lottery Corporation early about surrendering or transferring the licence, as the process and timing are theirs to control (). Do not leave this to the last week.

Clear stock deliberately. Resist the urge to strip the shop overnight. Wind supply down category by category. Stop reordering slow lines now. Discount in stages so you protect cash rather than dump everything at a loss. Magazines and returns need a clean final reconciliation with each distributor.

Talk to your suppliers. Give card, gift and stationery suppliers notice. Settle accounts. Return what you can. A tidy close protects your name and any future dealings.

Plan the staff conversation. Your people will know something is coming. Tell them early and honestly. Work out entitlements, final pays and references. This is often the part owners dread most, and handling it with care matters.

Get your own advice. Talk to your accountant well before you close, not after. There are tax outcomes to a wind-down, and a clean set of final accounts protects you. Two to three years of lead time is ideal, but even a few months helps.

The part no-one prepares you for

The practical steps are the easy part. The hard part is what closing does to you.

For many owners the newsagency is not just income. It is identity. You have opened the door before dawn for twenty or thirty years. Customers know your name. You have been the local, the constant, the one who kept the paper aside and remembered the birthday card. When that ends, the loss is real.

Frank Livingstone put it plainly. “You just close the doors, walk away, and lick your wounds” (). There is grief in that line. Do not pretend it is only a transaction.

The regional owner I mentioned earlier had one clear reason for retiring happy: they were open about their plan, inside the business and out. Staff knew. Customers knew. Suppliers knew. There was no awkward secrecy, no pretending. That openness turned a closure into a shared, dignified ending rather than a quiet retreat. It is the single lesson I would take from their exit.

A few things help. Give yourself time before you decide what comes next. Tell your customers properly, with a note in the window and a proper goodbye, rather than a locked door one Monday. Let them thank you. It matters to them and it will matter to you. Keep a connection to the people and the work you valued, even in a small way. And be honest with your family about how you are feeling, because they carry it with you.

Closing a business you built is not defeat. Doing it badly, in a rush, ashamed and alone, is the thing to avoid. Doing it well, on your terms, with your accounts clean and your head up, is something to be proud of.

The point

If you cannot sell, you still have choices about how you leave. Plan the wind-down. Protect your cash, your name and your staff. Handle the lottery and the lease properly. And give yourself the same care you have given your customers all these years.

The shop closes either way. What people remember is how you closed it.

Note: this is a version of a post I published a couple of weeks ago. Then, I thought about it and decided to build a bigger series of posts on the topic.

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Newsagency management

The alternative to closing: make the business run without you

Thirteenth in the succession and exit series. If no buyer appears and no insider takes over, there is still an option short of closing: keep the business and step back from running it. This post sits just before the two on closing and life after.

Closing because there is no buyer is one path. It is not the only one.

There is an alternative that owners rarely consider seriously. Instead of selling or closing, you work on the business until it runs profitably without you at the counter. You step back to owning it, not running it. You keep the income and hand over the daily grind.

This is not a soft option. It is harder than selling in some ways. But for the right owner, it beats walking away with nothing.

A different mindset

Most newsagents own a job, not a business. They are the first in and the last out. Take them out of the shop for a month and the numbers slide. That is the trap. A business that depends on you cannot be sold, and it cannot be left to run.

Building a business that runs under management demands a different mindset. You stop asking “how do I get through today?” and start asking “how does this shop make money whether I am here or not?” That shift changes everything you do.

It forces a tighter focus on profit. When you pay a manager to do what you did for free, every soft line and lazy margin shows up. You cannot afford to carry dead stock or a category that only breaks even. The wage bill makes you honest about what actually earns its place.

For some owners, this is the most rewarding phase of ownership. The shop finally becomes a business.

What it takes

Know your numbers cold. You cannot manage from a distance on gut feel. Departmental sales, margin by category, wage-to-sales ratio, stock turn. If you do not have these to hand from your POS, that is the first job.

Systemise the work. Everything you carry in your head has to come out and go onto paper or into the system. Opening and closing routines, ordering rules, returns process, banking, rosters. A manager cannot run what only lives in your memory.

Hire and trust a manager. This is the hard part. The right manager is worth more than any promotion or new range. Pay properly, hand over real authority, and resist the urge to undercut them by countermanding decisions in front of staff.

Fix the margin before you step back. A business that only works because you take no wage is not a business. Rework the range for profit, lift the average sale, cut the dead weight. The shop has to fund a manager and still pay you.

Step back in stages. Do not vanish overnight. Drop to four days, then three, then oversight only. Watch the numbers as you go. If they hold, keep going. If they slide, you have found a gap to fix.

The honest catch

This does not suit every shop. A marginal business in a declining location will not carry a manager’s wage no matter how well you run it. If the numbers cannot fund your replacement and still pay you, closing may still be the answer.

But many owners never test the idea. They assume they are irreplaceable, so they stay chained to the counter until they close. Some of those businesses could have run under management for years, throwing off income while the owner did something else.

The point

Before you accept that there is no buyer, ask a different question. Not “who will take this off my hands?” but “could this run without my hands on it every day?”

If the answer is yes, you may not need a buyer at all. You need a manager and the discipline to build a business worth managing.

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Newsagency management

When co-owners can’t agree on the exit

Twelfth in the succession and exit series. Following the post on couples, this one tackles the harder case: co-owners, partners or siblings who reach the exit at different times and cannot agree on the way out.

Two people own the shop. One wants out. The other wants to keep going. Now what?

This is one of the most common and least discussed problems in newsagency succession. Business partners, siblings who inherited together, a couple, two mates who bought in years ago. The moment their plans diverge, the business can freeze, and the relationship can sour. Getting through it takes structure, not just goodwill.

Why it happens

Co-owners rarely reach the same point at the same time. Life sees to that.

One partner hits retirement age, or ill health, or simply runs out of appetite for the early mornings. The other is younger, or more attached, or not ready financially. One wants to sell now at whatever the market offers. The other wants to hold on, or hold out for a better number. Both positions are reasonable from where each person stands. That is what makes it hard.

The mistake that makes it worse

The common mistake is to leave it unspoken. One partner quietly disengages, or drags their feet, while the other stews. Resentment builds, decisions stall, and the business drifts while the owners avoid the conversation.

A drifting business loses value. Every month of deadlock is a month the shop is not being driven forward, and buyers can smell a stalled partnership. Avoidance is the most expensive option of all.

Ways through

Buy-out. The partner who wants to stay buys out the one who wants to leave. This is often the cleanest answer. The challenge is funding and a fair price, and vendor finance between partners can bridge the gap where a bank will not.

Sell the whole thing. If neither can buy the other out, selling the business to a third party resolves it, and both walk away. This suits partners who are close enough in view that a clean break beats a strained continuation.

Agree a timeline. Sometimes the disagreement is about when, not whether. A partner who is not ready today may be ready in two years. Agreeing a firm exit date can hold the partnership together long enough for both to be ready.

Bring in a third party. Where emotion is running the negotiation, a neutral adviser or your shared accountant can value the business fairly and broker terms without it becoming personal.

Put it in writing before you need to

The best time to solve this is before it arises. A written agreement between co-owners, setting out what happens when one wants to exit, saves enormous grief.

How is the business valued? How is a buy-out funded and timed? What if the partners cannot agree? A partnership or shareholder agreement that answers these in advance turns a potential war into a process. If you own with someone and have no such agreement, drawing one up now is the most useful thing you can do.

The point

Co-owners will not always want to leave at the same time. That is normal, not a betrayal.

Get the disagreement into the open before it festers. Choose a path: buy-out, sale, or an agreed timeline. Use a neutral party when emotion takes over. And if you can, put the rules in writing before you ever need them. The business, and the relationship, both depend on it.

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Selling your newsagency

Succession when you run the shop as a couple

Eleventh in the succession and exit series. Most newsagencies are run by two people, so any exit is a joint decision. This post looks at succession when the owners share a life as well as a business.

Most newsagencies are run by two people who share a bed as well as a business. Husband and wife, partners, a couple who bought the shop together and have run it for decades.

That shapes succession in a way the textbooks ignore. You are not one owner making a plan. You are two people who must agree on when to leave, how to leave, and what comes next. When they do not agree, the exit stalls, and the relationship can strain along with it.

Two owners, one decision

An exit plan only works if both partners genuinely own it. It is easy for one to drive the decision while the other goes quietly along, unconvinced. That unspoken disagreement surfaces later, usually at the worst moment.

One partner may be ready to retire while the other cannot picture life without the shop. One may want to sell at any price to be free; the other may want to hold out for a number that is not coming. Neither is wrong. But the gap has to be talked through, not papered over.

The couples who exit well do the same thing the best owners do with staff and family: they get it into the open early and honestly.

The identity question hits differently

When a couple leaves the shop, they do not just lose a business. They lose the shared structure of their days.

For decades the shop has organised their time, their conversations, their sense of purpose. Retirement can leave a couple in the house together with none of that scaffolding, and that is a bigger adjustment than either expects. Talking about what you will do with your time, together and apart, is as important as talking about the sale price.

Divide the exit tasks

A couple has an advantage here if they use it. There is a lot to manage in a wind-down or sale, and two people can share the load.

Play to strengths. One partner may be better with the numbers, the accountant and the buyer negotiation. The other may be better with staff, customers and the emotional close. Agreeing who handles what reduces friction and stops both of you carrying the whole weight.

Protect the relationship

The exit is temporary. The relationship is not. Do not let the stress of leaving the business damage the partnership that will outlast it.

Disagreements about money and timing are normal. Handle them as a couple making a joint decision. Where you cannot agree, a neutral third party, your accountant or an adviser, can help you find a path without it becoming personal. The goal is to walk out of the shop still on the same side.

The point

If you run the shop as a couple, succession is a joint decision, and it needs both of you fully in it.

Agree on the timing and the terms out loud, not by assumption. Face the identity change together. Share the tasks. And protect the relationship through the stress, because that is the thing you are really retiring into.

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Selling your newsagency

Keeping it in the family: planning succession without the fallout

Tenth in the succession and exit series. Following the post on selling to a staff member, this one looks at the other insider option, passing the business to family, and the fairness and preparation problems that come with it.

Passing the newsagency to a son or daughter sounds like the happy ending. Sometimes it is. Just as often it turns into the hardest thing a family ever does.

Family succession fails not because the business is weak, but because the plan is unspoken. Assumptions sit unaddressed for years, then surface at the worst moment. Getting this right takes as much planning as any sale to a stranger, and more honesty.

Start with an honest question

Does the next generation actually want it?

Too many owners assume a child will take over because it would please them, or because the child once said something encouraging a decade ago. The child, meanwhile, may feel trapped by duty and quietly dread it.

Ask the question directly and early. Give them room to say no without guilt – this is critical. A newsagency handed to an unwilling successor helps no-one. It burdens the child and puts the business you built into hands that do not want it.

If they do want it, the real work begins.

The fairness problem

The hardest part of family succession is rarely the business. It is the other children.

If one child takes the shop, what do the others get? The business is often the largest asset a family owns. Handing it to one and leaving the rest to split the remainder can breed resentment that outlasts you.

There is no single answer, but there are principles. Be transparent with everyone, not just the successor. Separate the idea of equal from the idea of fair, because they are not always the same. A child who works in the business for years has earned something a sibling who never set foot there has not. Get these conversations into the open while you are alive to have them, rather than leaving a will to detonate later.

Prepare the successor properly

A child who grew up in the shop knows the counter. That is not the same as knowing the business.

Bring them through the parts owners hide. The banking, the supplier accounts, the tax, the wage bill, the lease. Let them make ordering decisions and live with the results. Hand over real authority in stages, and step back as they grow into it. The goal is a successor who can run the shop without you before you leave, not the day after.

Resist the urge to hover. Nothing undermines a successor faster than a parent who hands over the keys but keeps making every decision.

Get the structure right

Family transfers carry tax and legal consequences that catch people out. Capital gains, stamp duty, the treatment of the trading entity and any property all matter. The rules are not simple and they change.

Involve your accountant and solicitor early, and treat the transfer as a proper transaction even though it is family. A clear agreement, in writing, protects the relationship. Handshake deals between parent and child are where families come undone.

The point

Keeping it in the family can be a fine outcome. It is not automatic and it is not easy.

Ask whether they truly want it. Be fair and open with the children who are not taking over. Prepare your successor as you would any new owner. And get the structure advised properly. Do that, and you protect two things at once: the business, and the family.

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Selling your newsagency

Your next owner might already work for you

Ninth in the succession and exit series, and the first of the posts on who the buyer might be. When no outside buyer appears, the answer may already be on your payroll. It builds directly on the vendor finance post, since internal buyers usually need those terms.

When owners think about selling, they look outward. They list the business, run an ad, wait for a stranger to make an offer. Often no stranger comes.

They miss the person who might already be standing behind the counter. The best buyer for a newsagency is sometimes the manager or long-serving staff member who already knows the business, the customers and the takings.

Selling from within is worth taking seriously. It rarely happens by accident, though. It happens because an owner planned for it.

Why it can work

An internal buyer starts with advantages no outsider has. They know the trade. They know the quiet Tuesdays and the Christmas rush. They know the regulars by name. There is no handover cliff, because they are already across the business.

Customers barely notice the change. The person who served them last week serves them next week, only now they own the place. That continuity protects the goodwill that a sudden sale to a stranger can destroy.

And you get an exit where there might otherwise be none. A trusted staff member who wants their own business is a buyer sitting in front of you.

The obstacles, honestly

The catch is usually money. Your staff member wants the business but cannot raise the price in cash. A young manager will not walk into a bank and secure the full amount against a newsagency.

That is where creative terms matter. Vendor finance, where you carry part of the price and they pay you out over time from the trading profit, is common in these deals. So is a staged handover, where they buy in gradually and lift their share as they go. You take on some risk, but you also keep an income stream and a motivated buyer with skin in the game.

The other obstacle is capability. Being a good employee is not the same as being a good owner. An employee follows the system. An owner has to build and defend it, carry the cash-flow worry, and make the hard calls. Not every good manager wants that, and not every willing manager can do it. Be honest about the difference before you go down this road.

How to set it up

Spot the potential early. Watch who takes ownership without being asked. Who reorders before you notice the gap. Who treats the shop like it is theirs. That instinct cannot be trained easily.

Grow them into it. Give a promising staff member real responsibility well before any talk of sale. Let them run ordering for a category, manage a roster, see the sales figures. You are testing them and training them at once.

Be open about your plans. If you would sell to the right internal buyer, say so. It gives an ambitious employee a reason to stay and to lift their game. Secrecy helps no-one here.

Get the deal advised properly. Vendor finance and staged buy-ins have real tax and legal consequences for both sides. Involve your accountant and a solicitor before you shake hands. A clear, written agreement protects the relationship as much as the money.

The point

Your next owner may not answer an advertisement. They may already clock on each morning.

If you have someone with the instinct and the appetite, grow them, be open with them, and structure a deal they can afford. An internal sale can hand you an exit, protect your customers, and pass the shop to someone who already loves it.

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Selling your newsagency

Vendor finance: how to sell when the bank won’t lend

Eighth in the succession and exit series. Having covered what you are selling and for how much, this post turns to how a buyer pays for it when the bank won’t fund the full price. It also sets up the next posts on internal and family buyers, who most often need these terms.

You have a buyer. They want the shop. They cannot raise the full price. This is where many newsagency sales stall, because a bank will not lend a young buyer the full amount against a business the market sees as declining.

Vendor finance solves this. You, the seller, carry part of the price and the buyer pays you out over time from the trading profit. Used well, it turns a stalled sale into a completed one. Used carelessly, it turns you into an unpaid creditor of a business you no longer control. be careful. Only go down this path is it makes sense to you, and if you fully understand it.

Why it works

For the buyer, vendor finance bridges the gap the bank leaves. They put in what they can, and you finance the rest.

For the seller, it does two useful things. It widens your pool of buyers to include the capable people who lack full funding, often the very staff or managers who make the best owners. And it can lift the total price, because a buyer who can spread the cost will pay more than one writing a single cheque.

It also signals confidence. A seller willing to be paid from future profit is telling the buyer the business can generate that profit. That reassurance can be the thing that closes the deal.

Where it goes wrong

The risk is simple. If the business fails under the new owner, your remaining payments are at risk. You have handed over the shop and kept the exposure.

This is the trap to avoid. You are no longer running the business, so you cannot control whether it succeeds, yet your money depends on it. That is why the structure matters more than the goodwill.

Structuring it properly

Take a real deposit. A buyer with meaningful money down is committed and has something to lose. Avoid deals where the buyer risks almost nothing.

Secure the debt. The amount you finance should be secured, ideally over the business assets and, where possible, with personal guarantees. Unsecured seller finance is a gift you may not get back.

Keep the term short and the payments realistic. The payments must be serviceable from the actual trading profit, not from optimism. Model it on real numbers, not best-case ones.

Stay informed without interfering. Build in a right to see the trading figures during the finance period. You are not running the shop, but you are entitled to see that your security is sound.

Have an exit for the exit. Agree what happens if payments stop. Clear default terms, worked out calmly at the start, are far better than a dispute worked out in anger later.

Get it advised

Vendor finance has real tax and legal consequences for both sides, including how and when your capital gain is treated. Do not structure this on a handshake.

Involve your accountant and a solicitor before you agree terms. A properly drawn agreement protects the deal, the relationship and your money. The cost of advice is trivial against the amount you are carrying.

The point

Vendor finance is often the only way a good internal or first-time buyer can afford your business. That makes it a powerful tool, not a soft touch.

Take a deposit, secure the debt, keep the payments realistic, stay informed and get it advised properly. Do that and you convert a buyer who cannot quite afford you into a sale that actually completes.

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Selling your newsagency

When you own the building: selling the property, not the business

Seventh in the succession and exit series. For owners who hold the building, the exit changes shape entirely. This post follows the lease discussion by treating the property as a second asset, with options a tenant never has.

Some newsagents own the building they trade from. When it comes time to exit, that changes the whole picture, because you are not holding one asset. You are holding two.

The business is one thing. The property is another. Confusing them, or selling them as if they were the same, costs owners money. Separating them opens up options a tenant never has.

Two assets, two values

The business is worth its future profit. The building is worth what commercial property is worth in your town. These numbers move independently.

A business with no buyer can sit inside a building worth a great deal. A thriving business can trade from a modest, low-value site. When you own both, you must value each on its own terms and stop thinking of them as a single lump.

This is the insight that gives owner-occupiers more choices at exit than anyone else in the trade.

The paths open to you

Sell the business, keep the building. You sell the trading business to a buyer and become their landlord. You get a sale price for the business and an ongoing rental income from the property. For many retiring owners this is the sweet spot: some cash, a steady income, and an asset that keeps its value.

Sell both together. You sell the business and the building as a package to one buyer who wants both. Simpler, one transaction, but you give up the ongoing income and you narrow the pool of buyers who can afford the combined price.

Close the business, sell or keep the property. This is the path the regional owner in my earlier post took. When there was no buyer for the business, they closed it in an orderly way and sold the building, retiring on the proceeds. The business had no goodwill, but the real estate carried the retirement. Owning the building turned a no-buyer situation into a comfortable exit.

Close the business, lease the building to someone else. Wind down the newsagency, then lease the premises to a different tenant entirely. You keep the property and the income without the trade.

Why this matters most in the no-buyer case

The hardest situations in this series are the businesses no-one will buy. Owning the building softens that blow completely.

If your business has no goodwill but your building has value, the building is your exit. You are not walking away with nothing. You are closing a tired business and realising a real asset. That is a very different retirement from the tenant who closes with only stock to clear.

Get the tax right

Splitting the two assets has real tax consequences. Capital gains on the property, the treatment of the business sale, and how rental income is taxed if you keep the building all need proper advice.

Talk to your accountant before you decide the path, not after. The right structure can make a meaningful difference to what you keep.

The point

If you own your building, you hold two assets, not one. Value them separately and the options multiply.

Sell the business and keep the income. Sell both. Or close a business no-one wants and let the property fund your retirement. Owning the walls is often the best card a newsagent can hold at exit.

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Selling your newsagency

The lease that makes or breaks your sale

Sixth in the succession and exit series. With your value and numbers in order, the deal itself comes into view. This post covers the single factor that sinks more small-retail sales than price: the lease.

Owners obsess over price when they sell. Buyers often care more about the lease. In my experience, more small-retail sales fall over on the lease than on the money, and a newsagency is no exception.

Your lease is not paperwork in a drawer. It is one of the most valuable, or most dangerous, parts of what you are selling. Understand it early, or watch it sink your deal late.

Why buyers care so much

A buyer is not just buying your business. They are buying the right to keep trading from that location. If that right is short, uncertain or costly, the business is worth far less, no matter how good the profit looks.

Nobody wants to buy a shop that might lose its premises in eighteen months, or face a rent review that wipes out the margin. The lease is where a buyer’s confidence lives or dies.

The term is everything

A buyer wants a solid run of years ahead. A lease with a good term left, or firm options to renew, gives them the security to invest and, if needed, to on-sell later.

A short remaining term does the opposite. It caps how long the buyer can trade, frightens their own financier, and drags on the price. If your term is short, the single most valuable thing you can do before selling is negotiate a longer one with your landlord. This one step can lift a sale price more than any amount of shop-floor work.

Assignment is the gate

You cannot simply hand your lease to a buyer. Almost every lease requires the landlord’s consent to assign, and the landlord holds real power at that moment.

Understand your assignment clause before you list. Know what the landlord can demand, how long consent takes, and what conditions they may attach. A cooperative landlord smooths the sale. An awkward or slow one can stall it for months or kill it entirely. Sound them out early, so a surprise does not derail you at the finish line.

Make-good can cost you

Buried in most leases is a make-good clause, requiring you to return the premises to an agreed state at the end. For a shop fitted out over decades, that can be a serious, unexpected bill.

This matters most if you are closing rather than selling, but it shapes a sale too. Know your make-good obligation early. Factor it into your numbers. Do not let it ambush you after you thought you were done.

Permitted use is vital

The permitted use clause defines the business. If it is not made for today, the business will be harder to sell.

Property and business together

If you own the building, the lease question changes shape. You can sell the business and become the buyer’s landlord, keeping an income stream. Or sell both. Or sell the property and close the business. Each path has different tax and income consequences, and each deserves its own thought rather than a default assumption.

The point

Your lease can add value or destroy it, and buyers know this even when sellers forget it.

Secure a solid term before you list. Understand your assignment rights and warm up your landlord early. Know your make-good exposure. Handle the lease as carefully as the price, because the buyer certainly will.

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Newsagency management

Getting your financials exit-ready

Fifth in the succession and exit series, and the companion to the post on making your business saleable. Clean, honest numbers are the case for your price. This post covers add-backs, separating owner from business, and surviving due diligence.

A buyer values your business on its numbers, or they should at least, provable numbers, the truth of the business. If those numbers are unclear, tangled or flattering, you lose money at the sale, or you lose the sale altogether.

Getting the financials exit-ready is unglamorous work. It is also some of the best-paid work an owner can do, because clean numbers directly lift what a buyer will pay.

Show the real profit

The profit in your tax return is usually not the profit a buyer should pay for. It has been minimised for tax and muddied by owner decisions. Your job before a sale is to reveal the true earning power of the business.

This is where add-backs matter. A buyer values maintainable profit, so you legitimately add back costs that are yours, not the business’s, and one-offs that will not recur.

Your own wage and perks. If you take no wage, the buyer must add a manager’s wage to see real profit. If you run a car, phone or other perks through the business, those come out. The aim is the profit a normal owner-operator would actually make.

One-off costs. A bad debt, a legal bill, a one-time repair. These are stripped out because they distort a single year and will not repeat.

Below-market or above-market rent. If you own the building and charge yourself an odd rent, normalise it to a market figure, so the buyer sees what they will really pay.

Done honestly, add-backs are not a trick. They are how you show a buyer the genuine profit. Done dishonestly, they destroy trust the moment due diligence begins.

Separate owner from business

Years of running personal costs through the shop feels normal until you try to sell. Then every blurred line becomes a question a buyer uses to push the price down.

Well before you list, untangle it. Business costs on one side, owner perks on the other, clearly documented. A buyer who can see exactly what the business spends, and what you spend through it, trusts the numbers. Trust holds the price.

Three clean years

One good year proves nothing. A buyer wants to see a trend they can rely on.

Aim to present two to three years of clean, consistent financials. Same categories, same treatment, no unexplained swings. Consistency signals a business under control, and control is what a buyer pays for. Erratic books have the opposite effect.

Be ready for due diligence

A serious buyer will look under the bonnet. They will want to see the POS reports, the supplier accounts, the lease, the lottery and agency arrangements, the wage records.

Have it ready. A seller who produces clean, organised information quickly builds confidence and keeps momentum. A seller who fumbles for records, or whose numbers do not match when checked, plants doubt at the worst possible moment. Deals die in due diligence more often than in negotiation.

The point

Your financials are the case for your price. Make that case clear, honest and consistent.

Show the real profit through legitimate add-backs, separate what the business spends from what you spend, present three clean years and be ready for scrutiny. Numbers a buyer can trust are numbers a buyer will pay for.

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Newsagency management
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