Award wages went up 4.75% on 1 July. Rent is tracking 4–5% higher for most. From 1 October, the RBA surcharge ban means card fees you were recovering from customers need to be absorbed or built into prices. The combined hit is around 1.5% of turnover for a typical newsagency — real money when margins are already thin.
Here are five ways to recover some of it, using tools already in newsagency software.
1. Reprice the stock you control
Magazines and newspapers are priced for you. Stationery, gifts, art supplies and general merchandise are not. If you have not looked at those prices recently, there is a reasonable chance you are undercharging.
A smart stock manager lets you update prices across a category in one pass, in bulk, accurately, safely. Some newsagencies mark up stationery at 100%; others run 125% and see no drop in sales. Worth checking where you sit.
A small increase of 1% across what you control might get you nicely into positive ground.
2. Stop entering invoices by hand
Five to ten hours a week on manual invoice entry is a full day of wages, every week, on admin. AI invoice arrivals imports supplier invoices directly — no typing, fewer errors, no chasing up mistakes.
Those hours go back to the counter or to something that actually earns revenue.
3. Clear dead stock
Stock that has not sold in six months typically accounts for 10–15% of total inventory value. It is taking up shelf space, paying rent per square metre, and returning nothing.
The software flags these lines. Get them out through clearance, supplier return or bundling, and the capital goes back into stock that moves.
4. Find your stockouts
Missed sales are invisible unless you look for them. The insights dashboard makes them visible: it shows the dollar value of sales lost because a product was not in stock when a customer wanted it.
Match that with automated reordering and the lines that drive your sales stay on the shelf.
5. Use theft detection tools
Theft typically accounts for 3% – 5% of newsagency turnover. Most of the volume is customer theft; the highest individual losses tend to be internal.
The audit log and early detection tools in the software catch discrepancies well before a stocktake would. Earlier detection means a smaller problem to deal with.
Contact the Tower Systems team at sales@towersystems.com.au.