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newsagency advice

The first newsagent ChatBot is now even smarter

A little over a month ago, newsXpress quietly launched the second generation of AI ChatBot made for newsagents. The first generation was launched many months ago.

This ChatBot is unique and completely self serve. In creating it I have leveraged years of experience in the software space and years owning newsagency businesses and being involved with newsXpress.

In the weeks since launch of the second generation, the knowledge of the ChatBot has radically expanded.  It covers more topics and goes deeper on previously known topics.

How it works

The ChatBot uses closed-loop AI. It answers only from what it has been trained on, so it’s designed not to guess.

You ask a question the way you’d ask a person. You don’t need to learn any special commands.

Here’s some of what it has been trained on:

  • Wage rates under the current Retail Industry Award
  • Classifying employees based on the work they do
  • Managing a difficult employee
  • Dismissing someone within the law
  • Steps to take if you suspect theft
  • Insurance policies to consider
  • Checking your EFTPOS rate
  • Negotiating with your landlord
  • Managing cashflow
  • Selling your newsagency
  • Improving your business
  • How your business compares to others
  • New products and which suppliers stock them
  • Where to find mental health support

It covers a lot more than this. You can also upload a report and ask it what it sees.

How we built it

The work started years ago, when we built a searchable knowledge base for newsXpress members.

In 2025 we expanded that knowledge base and reviewed and updated every article. This year we reviewed every article again, sorted them into categories and wrote new ones.

We then connected it to Fair Work, the Retail Industry Award and other public resources, so pay and employment answers come from the right source.

It’s our own knowledge base though where the real value-add lives.

Before launch, we asked it hundreds of questions and checked each answer for accuracy and usefulness.

What I like about it

Most of what newsagents ask are questions they’d otherwise ring about, or not even ask at all. Now they can get an answer after close, on a weekend, or whenever the question comes up.

I also like that it sticks to the source material. When you ring someone, you get their experience along with their opinions. For questions about staff, money or selling the business, a straight answer from the right source is often what you need.

Using it also builds confidence with AI tools, which helps elsewhere in the business.

I think this is where small business support is heading. It lets us help more members at a lower cost.

If you’re a newsXpress member, try it with a question you’ve been meaning to ring about.

…

Oh, and newsXpress is now known as Stride Retail Pty Ltd.

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AI tools

Most newsagents are giving their best space to their worst-performing departments

This post promotes a service my business sells. Read it with that in mind, and judge it on whether the argument holds.

Here is the argument.

The typical newsagency floor was laid out for a business that no longer exists. Newspapers and magazines got the front, the window, the walk from the door to the counter, because that was what people came in for. Print bays have been shrinking for fifteen years. In most stores the space they hold has not shrunk anywhere near as fast.

Now, while you may have made some changes, most I see are not enough for a bright future.

Meanwhile cards, gifts, stationery, art and craft, collectables, plush and the newer categories are squeezed in around the edges. They earn their keep in poor positions, which is exactly why they are worth more space. A category performing from a bad spot is telling you something.

I see this constantly. Not because newsagents are careless, but because layout changes slowly. Nobody wakes up and decides to hand prime real estate to a declining category. You take out one bay, then another, then you shuffle a fixture, and five years later the shop is a compromise between what it used to be and what it is becoming.

The numbers most newsagents never see side by side

Two figures per department. The share of your selling space it occupies, and the share of your sales and gross profit it returns.

Almost nobody has these two figures next to each other. Yet the gap between them is the single most useful number in a newsagency, because it tells you where your rent is being wasted.

There is a second pattern I look for, and it is the one that worries me most.

Revenue flat, transaction count down.

I see it constantly in this channel now. Revenue holds because prices rose and because lotto and agency lines carry a dollar value. Underneath, fewer people are walking through the door. Foot traffic is the whole basis of a newsagency, and when it goes, everything built on it goes with it, usually about two years after the owner could have acted.

You cannot see this in one year of data. It shows up plainly in two.

What newsXpress is offering

A Store Opportunity Review. Send two years of sales data from your POS software and a sketch of your shop showing what is located where. That is all.

It comes back as a written report — how your two years compare on revenue, transactions, average sale, items per sale and department performance; how your space allocation stacks up against what each area actually returns; research on your local area and who is in it now; and research on the category opportunities that suit your catchment. Opportunities listed in the order I would tackle them.

Three business days. Then a follow-up consultation with the retail professional who wrote it, included.

$595 inc GST. $395 inc GST until the end of September. Prepaid to qualify you. And you know what, since I own newsXpress, if the report you receive is of no value to you whatsoever, let me know and I will refund your payment.

It is open to any local retailer, not just newsXpress members and not just newsagents. Gift shops, bookshops, jewellers and homewares stores face the same space and margin questions.

help@newsxpress.com.au.

Why I think it matters more in this channel than any other

Because newsagents are running out of runway, and space is the lever they still control.

You cannot fix print decline. You cannot negotiate lottery terms. You cannot stop a masthead closing or a distribution frequency changing. What you can do is decide what occupies the best two metres of your shop, and most newsagents are making that decision by inheritance rather than by evidence.

The stores I see doing well in 2026 are the ones that stopped waiting for the old model to stabilise and started treating themselves as retailers with a good site. The layout usually changed before the results did.

And the honest caveat

A report will not save a shop in the wrong location on the wrong lease with the wrong rent. Nothing will, and I would rather tell you that in the follow-up call than take your money and pretend otherwise.

But if the business is fundamentally sound and simply arranged for a version of itself from a decade ago, this is a cheap way to find out what to move and what to back.

Draw the sketch badly. It is the part I find most useful.

To kick this off, email help@newsxpress.com.au.

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Newsagency management

When there is no buyer: closing your newsagency well

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, they often just close. I said as much to Mumbrella late last year, and the rate of closures lifted again through 2025. 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. I am not selling you a turnaround. I want 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. 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 this is your business, the absence of a buyer is not a personal failure. It is the market telling you the goodwill is gone. The sooner you accept that, the better your exit will be.

I know one regional owner who did exactly that. They put the business on the market, wanted to retire, and set themselves a deadline. Theirs was a transformed business by then. It did not look or feel like a traditional newsagency and it was terrifically profitable. Even so, two years passed with no sale. When the deadline arrived, they closed in a calm, structured way, sold the building and retired happy. There was no drama and no shame in it.

They had decided how their exit would look, and they held to it.

Winding down well

A closure is still a project, and it deserves to be run like one. The owners who manage it well start twelve months out, not twelve days.

Start with the lease. 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.

The lottery licence needs its own plan. It sits with the operator, not with you to sell freely. Speak to the Lottery Corporation early about surrendering or transferring it, as the process and timing are theirs to control. Do not leave this to the last week.

Stock takes patience. Resist the urge to strip the shop overnight. Wind supply down category by category, stop reordering slow lines now, and 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.

Give your card, gift and stationery suppliers notice, settle accounts, and return what you can. A tidy close protects your name and any future dealings.

Your people will know something is coming, so 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.

And 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 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 had one clear reason for retiring happy: they were open about the plan, inside the business and out. Staff knew, and so did customers and suppliers. There was no awkward secrecy. That openness turned a closure into a dignified ending rather than a quiet retreat, and it is the single lesson I would take from their exit.

A few things help. Give yourself time before deciding 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, because it matters to them and it will matter to you. Keep some connection to the people and the work you valued. 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. What hurts owners is doing it badly, rushed and alone. Done on your terms, with clean accounts and your head up, it is something to be proud of.

The point

If you cannot sell, you still have choices about how you leave. Plan the wind-down properly, look after your cash and your staff, and sort the lottery and the lease early. 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.

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Newsagency management

Reading your P&L and balance sheet: a plain-English guide for newsagents

Most newsagents I know don’t enjoy looking at their financials. The reports often arrive from the accountant. They get a glance. Then they go in a drawer.

That’s a missed opportunity I think.

Your profit and loss statement and your balance sheet are two useful management tools. They cost nothing extra. You already pay to produce them. Yet few retailers read them well, and fewer still act on what they show.

This is a plain-English guide. No jargon for its own sake. Just what the numbers mean, and the handful that actually matter in a newsagency.

The two reports, in one sentence each

The profit and loss statement shows whether the business made money over a period. A month, a quarter, a year.

The balance sheet shows what the business owns and owes at a single point in time. Think of it as a photograph taken on the last day of the period.

One is a video of the trading period. The other is a snapshot at the end of it. You need both.

The profit and loss, top to bottom

A P&L reads from the top down, and it narrows as it goes.

At the top is revenue, sometimes called sales or turnover. This is everything the business sold. In a newsagency it blends very different things: lottery commission, magazines, papers, cards, gifts, stationery, and whatever newer categories you have added.

A word of caution here. Total revenue can flatter you. A big lottery number lifts the top line but adds little profit. More on that shortly.

Next comes cost of goods sold, usually shortened to COGS. This is what the stock cost you to buy. Revenue minus COGS gives you gross profit.

Gross profit is the number that matters most in retail. It is the money left after paying for the stock, and it is what pays for everything else.

Below gross profit sit the operating expenses. Wages. Rent. Power. Insurance. Bank and card fees. Accounting. These are the costs of keeping the doors open, whether you sell much or little.

Take operating expenses away from gross profit and you reach the bottom line: net profit. This is what the business actually earned.

Why gross profit beats revenue every time

Here is the trap. Two newsagencies can report the same revenue and be worlds apart in health.

Imagine both turn over one million dollars. The first leans heavily on lottery and papers, low-margin lines. The second has shifted space to cards, gifts, and collectables. The second business keeps far more of every dollar. Same top line. Very different result at the bottom.

This is why a rising revenue figure is not, on its own, good news. What you want to see is gross profit rising, and rising as a share of sales.

Watch the gross profit margin. It is gross profit divided by revenue, shown as a percentage. Track it month on month and year on year. A margin that is drifting down is an early warning, often long before the bank balance shows it.

The handful of numbers that actually matter

You do not need to read every line. A small set of numbers tells the real story.

Gross profit margin. Covered above. The single most important percentage in the business. If it is falling, find out why before anything else.

Wages as a percentage of sales. Total wages divided by revenue. This is usually the largest controllable cost in a shop. Roster to sales, not to habit. The % should be 11% or less.

Occupancy cost as a percentage of sales. Rent, outgoings, and any centre levies, divided by revenue. It shows whether the site is earning its keep. The % should be 11% or less.

Stock turn. How many times a year you sell and replace your stock. Slow turn means cash tied up on shelves. It is the quiet killer of small retail.

Net profit, and the wage you pay yourself. Read these together. A business that shows a profit only because the owner takes nothing is not really profitable.

Get comfortable with those five. Ignore the rest until you have.

A note on the owner’s wage

Many newsagents do not pay themselves a proper wage. The profit then looks better than it is.

This matters most when you come to sell. A buyer, and a broker, will add a market wage back into the accounts to see the true earnings. Better to run the business that way now. It gives you an honest picture, and it protects the value of the business.

The balance sheet, without the fog

The balance sheet has three parts. Assets, liabilities, and equity.

Assets are what the business owns. Cash in the bank. Stock on the shelves. Money owed to you. Fittings and equipment.

Liabilities are what the business owes. Suppliers. The tax office. Any loans or finance.

Equity is what is left for the owner once you subtract liabilities from assets. It is the true worth of the business on that day.

The whole thing balances by design. Assets always equal liabilities plus equity. Hence the name.

What to look for on the balance sheet

Two things matter most for a small retailer.

Can the business pay its bills? Compare what it owns that is easily turned to cash, mainly bank and stock, against what falls due soon, mainly suppliers and tax. If the short-term debts are creeping up on the short-term assets, tighten up before it bites.

Is cash trapped in stock? A large stock figure is not a sign of strength. It is often a sign of dead lines and over-ordering. Stock does not pay wages. Cash does.

Read the balance sheet alongside the P&L. A shop can post a profit and still run short of cash, because the profit is sitting on the shelves as unsold stock.

Build the habit

Set aside 10 minutes at the end of each month.

Open the P&L. Check the gross profit margin against last month and the same month last year. Glance at wages and occupancy as a share of sales.

Open the balance sheet. Check the bank, the stock figure, and what is owed to suppliers and the tax office.

Write down one thing you will act on. Just one. Do that every month and the numbers stop being a mystery. They become a guide.

The bottom line

Good retailers are not those who avoid the reports. They are the ones who read them, calmly, on a regular schedule, and let the numbers shape the next decision.

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Newsagency management

Your Google Business Profile in 2026: what’s changed, what’s still true, and one thing to fix

This advice first went to newsXpress members 3 years ago. It went to ALNA members after that. I’m sharing an updated version here to reach more newsagents, because I went back and checked it against Google’s own current guidelines and against what’s actually changed since it was written. Most of it holds up. One part of it doesn’t, and it’s worth fixing today.

It’s still free. It still takes a few minutes, not a consultant. And local search still converts better than almost anything else you can do with your time.

Why this is still worth doing

Roughly 46% of all Google searches carry local intent, and some 2026 estimates put that closer to 50%. Of the people who run a “near me” style search, 76% visit a business within 24 hours, and 28% of local searches end in a purchase. Local search is mobile-heavy too: around 70% of these searches happen on a phone. A complete, active Google Business Profile is how you show up in that moment.

One thing to fix: your categories

Here’s the part of the original advice that needs correcting. It said to select as many categories as apply to your business, on the basis that retailers too often pick just one. Google’s own current guidelines say the opposite: choose the fewest categories it takes to describe your core business, as specifically as possible, and don’t add categories just to cover more search terms.

Categories aren’t a keyword list. They’re meant to answer “what IS this business,” not “what does it sell.”

If your profile has picked up five or six categories over the years to catch every possible search, it’s worth trimming back to the two or three that most specifically describe what you are. A newsagency that also sells gifts and cards is still a newsagency, just with specific, accurate secondary categories, not a business wearing every hat in the shop.

What’s changed since this was first written

Posting no longer requires a third-party tool. Google Business Profile now has scheduling and recurring posts built directly into the posting screen: set a post once, choose “weekly” or a custom pattern, and Google keeps publishing it for you. Tools like Loomly, Sendible or OneUp still work fine if you’re already using them, but they’re no longer the only way to plan ahead.

The business description limit is 750 characters, not 750 words. Google displays roughly the first 250 characters before a customer has to tap “read more,” so put the important information first. Google’s guidelines also ask that the description itself not read like an advertisement: no “everything on sale” or price call-outs. Save the sales pitch for your posts, and use the description to say plainly what you are and what you offer.

Posts can technically run up to about 1,500 characters, but the data on what actually gets read and clicked favours something much shorter, well under 300 characters, closer to a tight paragraph than a full page. If you’ve been writing longer posts, trimming them will likely help rather than hurt.

What hasn’t changed

Posts still archive after six months, same as when this advice was first written, and profiles with something posted in the last week or so are the ones that show up looking active. That’s the real reason to keep posting weekly rather than setting and forgetting. Hashtags still do nothing on Google posts, so don’t bother. And the core advice against handing this over to a marketer or a friend still stands: you know your shop and your customers, and that’s worth more here than someone else’s template.

New this year: Gemini can now help run your profile

The one genuinely new development since last year is that Google connected Gemini directly to Business Profile, for single-location owners, from June 2026. Once connected, you can ask it things in plain language: how did my business do this month, help me respond to this review, or post something about our new stock this week. It can draft, and you can edit before anything goes live.

This doesn’t change the advice about doing this yourself rather than outsourcing it. Gemini is a tool you point at your own knowledge of your shop, not a replacement for it. It’s worth trying, particularly for retailers who found the interface itself the biggest barrier to getting started.

The short version

Set up or claim your profile if you haven’t. Pick the fewest, most specific categories that describe your business, not the most. Write a plain, accurate 750-character description with the important part up front. Post about one product a week, with a photo, in a couple of short sentences rather than a couple of paragraphs. Keep doing it yourself.

It still costs nothing, and it’s still one of the highest-return things a small retailer can do this year.

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Newsagency management

The Bon Scott 80th Birthday 2026 1g Gold Minted Bar is an easy $325.00 sale

Coins and bullion are too often misunderstood. 

A newsagent I was talking with this week complained that coins are a slow-moving category: something for the handful of customers who follow the gold price and buy a bar or coin every few months as an investment. That’s an incomplete picture, and it undersells what these products can do on your shelf.

The Perth Mint’s Bon Scott 80th Birthday 2026 1g Gold Minted Bar is a good example of why. On paper, it’s a small gold product: 1 gram, 99.99% pure, $325, with a mintage cap of 5,000. Sold as bullion, that’s a niche item for a niche customer. But it’s not who’s buying it.

AC/DC fans love it. Bon Scott fans love it. People who appreciate Australian music love it. Oh, and people buying gold as an investment love it.

We sold 20 of these bars in two days, online, and 80% of those sales went interstate, from customers who have never set foot in our shop and probably never will. That’s not local foot traffic buying gold. That’s fans finding a product because it spoke to them, not because they walked past a cabinet and had five minutes to kill.

This bar carries the Bon Scott crest, the words “BON SCOTT 80 YEARS,” and comes packaged in his touring tartan with his photo and signature on the sleeve. For an AC/DC fan, that’s not an investment product. It’s a piece of music history they can hold, tied to a birthday that will never be celebrated the usual way. At $325, it’s an easy purchase for someone who already owns the albums, the t-shirt and the vinyl reissue, and wants one more thing that means something.

If you’re only thinking about coins and gold bars as a bullion category for a small, older, price-watching customer, you’re leaving sales on the table. Licensed and themed releases, tied to music, sport, film or anniversaries, reach a younger buyer who cares about the story, not the spot price.

Magazines and lottery keep shrinking as a share of newsagency revenue, which makes this category worth a proper look.

Our future will be in products that you wouldn’t;t associate with a newsagency of twenty years ago.

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newsagency of the future

Collins Debden has a journal range that works for the male journalling opportunity

I’ve been talking a while about the male journalling opportunity: young guys 15 through 35 who are journalling more now than ever.

Anyway, here is a new video from me about a terrific range from Collins Debden: https://youtu.be/aP4dyCswFGU

Now, if the opportunity of selling journals to young guys is new to you, here’s more context:

Journaling has shed its old image. It’s now widely treated as part of a healthy lifestyle, and one of the fastest-growing groups taking it up is younger men, roughly aged **18 to 35**.

AFL footballers are journaling and talking about it openly. Olympians describe it as part of how they manage performance. Outside sport, plenty of people talk about journaling as a mental health tool and a way to build a steady daily routine. Whatever’s driving it, the trend is real, and it’s showing up in what customers are asking for at the counter.

## Why structure matters for a first-time journaller

Handed a blank notebook, most people freeze after the first page. What gets someone journaling regularly isn’t a nicer cover. It’s a bit of structure to work from until the habit sticks.

Collins Debden has built a range around exactly that idea, called Jumble. It includes titles such as Routines, Doze, Passion, Flex, Thankful and Believe, each built around a single clear theme.

Take the Passion journal as an example. Once the marketing slip comes off, the layout does the work. There’s space to sum up the week in one word, simple prompts with small icons to circle covering how the week felt, the hurdles overcome, the ways people supported each other, and a favourite memory, then open space for free notes alongside.

Routines follows the same logic from a different angle. It asks for a main goal for the week, the steps to reach it, weekly habits to track, and a quick read on mood and energy. Both journals, like the rest of the range, come with a sticker sheet.

A little scaffolding at the start makes it far more likely the habit sticks, and that’s really the whole idea behind the range.

## Why this is worth stocking

Collins Debden is an established international publisher of diaries and journals, and the Jumble range is a solid place to start for any retailer looking to serve the male journaling market. It gives a first-time journaller somewhere obvious to begin, rather than a blank book and good intentions.

It’s also worth talking about on social media. Local men’s sheds, mental health groups and community organisations are exactly the kind of audience who’ll want to know these journals are stocked nearby, and a short post is often enough to put your shop on their radar.

To find out more about opportunities like this, get in touch with the team at help@newsxpress.com.au.

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Newsagency opportunities

Why newsagents can’t afford to run old software anymore

Software security has changed more in the last eighteen months than in the previous five years, and small retailers, like newsagents, are squarely in the firing line.

Newsagents handle sensitive data: EFTPOS transactions, lottery and gift card sales, loyalty accounts, customer details. Running old software is a commercial risk to your business and to the people who shop with you.

What’s changed

Cyber criminals have worked out that small businesses are easier targets than large ones, and just as valuable.

According to the Australian Signals Directorate’s Annual Cyber Threat Report for 2024–25, the average cost of a cyber incident to a small business rose 14% to $56,600. The ACSC’s cyber security hotline took more than 42,500 calls that year, up 16% on the year before, and the agency issued over 1,700 warnings about malicious activity targeting Australian organisations, an 83% jump. Read the full report.

Payment security rules have tightened. PCI DSS 4.0, the standard that governs how businesses handle card payments, made a set of new requirements mandatory from April 2025, including multi-factor authentication for anyone accessing systems that touch card data. If your POS provider hasn’t talked to you about this, it’s worth asking.

Attackers are going after software supply chains too. Industry research on retail breaches found close to a third involved a compromised third-party vendor rather than a direct attack on the retailer, nearly double the rate from the year before. A weakness in a POS provider, a payments processor, or an IT support company can expose every retailer connected to them.

And a lot of small business software is older than it should be. Security researchers still find point-of-sale systems running operating systems that stopped receiving security patches years ago, because “it still works” felt like a good enough reason to leave it alone. Unsupported software is an open door. Nobody is watching for weaknesses in a system the vendor stopped maintaining, and attackers know it.

The businesses ransomware groups target most aren’t the ones with the least valuable data. They’re the ones with the least resistance.

Why this matters more for newsagents specifically

Most newsagents have grown beyond newspapers and magazines. Gift cards, loyalty programs, mobile recharge, lottery accounts and card payments all run through the same till, and all of it depends on software that’s connected to the internet, connected to your bank, and often connected to a support provider with remote access to your systems. That’s real exposure. It’s a profile attackers look for: valuable transactions, limited in-house IT support, and a temptation to delay updates because the shop is busy and the software “still works fine.”

What keeping software up to date means

Keeping software current is more than clicking “update” when a pop-up appears. A few questions worth putting to your POS provider or IT support:

  • Is your point-of-sale software still actively supported, with regular security patches, or is it running on an older version the vendor no longer maintains?
  • Is multi-factor authentication switched on for anyone who can access your systems remotely, including your support provider?
  • How quickly does your provider apply security patches after they’re released, and do they tell you when they do?
  • Are your backups tested, and stored somewhere separate from your main system, so a ransomware attack on your till doesn’t take your records with it?

A short checklist for your shop

None of this requires becoming a cyber security expert. A few habits make most of the difference:

  • Turn on multi-factor authentication on every account that offers it, not just your bank login.
  • Keep the operating system and browser on any device connected to your POS current.
  • Treat unexpected “urgent” emails about supplier invoices or EFTPOS settings with suspicion, and verify by phone before acting.
  • Back up your data regularly, and keep at least one copy separate from your main system.

Treat your POS software the way you’d treat your shop’s front door: locked, current, and not something you put off dealing with because business is busy. The retailers who get hit hardest are usually the ones who assumed it wouldn’t happen to a shop their size.

Now, here are some valuable sources:

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Newsagency management

The sale that walked out the door

A customer walks into a local shop looking for NeeDoh, one of the best-known names in sensory play. Out of stock. The assistant holds up a generic off-brand substitute when asked of they have NeeDoh.

No but, we have these off-brand products.

Right next to that substitute, on the same shelf, sits a full range of Crazy Aaron’s Putty, a premium brand that does exactly what Nee-Doh does. They don’t point it out. The don’t ask what the customer actually wants, or offers to let them try it.

If you’d rather head about this, here’s a video that I made today reflecting on the experience.

The shopper turns and leaves with nothing

The shop has lost a sale it didn’t need to lose.

Why how we engage matters

Shoppers rarely walk into a local store for one planned purchase. They browse, and they react to whatever catches the eye. People buy sensory and novelty lines for all sorts of reasons: arthritis relief, sensory needs, or just something to fidget with at a desk.

That’s exactly why these products deserve better than a spot near the counter as an afterthought. Stock the brands people recognise, know the range, and be able to talk about it like you mean it. That’s what turns a browser into a buyer.

What went wrong

A team that doesn’t know its stock, its trends, or its alternatives well enough to mention them naturally will lose sales like this one and never notice it happened.

An out-of-stock answer with no real alternative can be enough to lose a customer for good, along with every repeat visit and word-of-mouth recommendation that would have followed.

Independent retailers compete on service. Every interaction either builds the relationship or ends it, and there’s rarely a moment in between.

What good service looks like instead

It doesn’t take much to turn this around: a mention of the putty on the same shelf, a question about what the customer actually needs it for, an offer to try before they buy, or just a heads-up that new stock is on its way.

The takeaway

Train every team member to treat a stock shortage as a chance to offer something else, not a dead end.

Independent retailers can’t compete with the majors on price, but they can out-curate and out-serve them, provided staff know the range well enough to make a recommendation without having to think about it.

6 likes
retail

5 ways your newsagency can profitably deal with the award wage increase, a rent increase and the surcharge ban

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.

5 likes
Newsagency management

What good foot traffic in a retail newsagency actually looks like in 2026

Foot traffic is one of those metrics newsagents talk about constantly but rarely define. When someone says their traffic is down, what does that mean exactly? Fewer people through the door? Fewer transactions? Smaller baskets? The same customers buying less?

The distinction matters because the response is different in each case.

Here is what I see in the businesses that are actually performing well right now. Their traffic story is not about volume. It is about who is coming in and what they are buying.

The old model is not coming back

The newsagency of 2010 ran on high-frequency, low-value visits. A paper every morning. A scratchie. A magazine. Frequent visits, small baskets, thin margin.

That traffic is declining structurally. Newspapers are bought online or not at all. Lottery players are being pushed to apps — deliberately, by the people who run the lottery. Magazine readers have moved on. You cannot run a campaign that fixes a habit change.

The businesses I respect have stopped trying to. They are building something different.

What the better businesses are doing

The stores growing right now attract less frequent but higher-value visits. A customer who comes in three times a year to buy gifts, cards, and a collectible is worth more to the business than one who comes in five days a week for a paper and nothing else.

That requires a different shop. The product mix has to give people a reason to come in when they are not running an errand. That does not happen by stocking what your rep suggested. It happens when you look at what your customers actually respond to and build around that.

Seasonal traffic compounds

Newsagents who take seasonal execution seriously — real displays, a genuine reason to visit around Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Christmas — see something interesting. The spike visits convert. A customer who comes in for a card and finds a gift range they like comes back.

That repeat visit did not come from advertising. It came from having something worth discovering. You earned it.

The number worth watching

Stop asking whether your traffic count is up or down. Ask whether the traffic you have is getting more valuable.

Check your average transaction value over the past year. Look at whether repeat customers are growing as a share of your total. Ask yourself whether the people coming through the door are browsing or just transacting.

If those numbers are moving the right way, the business is in better shape than the foot count suggests. If they are not, the problem is almost certainly in the product mix and presentation — not in how many people walk past the window.

Volume is a vanity metric. Value is what you actually manage.

… Mark Fletcher founded newsagency software company Tower Systems and is the CEO of newsXpress, a marketing group serving innovative independent retailers, including newsagents, who continuously evolve their businesses to be enjoyable, relevant and successful. You can reach him on mark@newsxpress.com.au or 0418 321 338.

7 likes
Newsagency management

What we can learn from The Lottery Corporation Investor Day in Sydney

The Lottery Corporation held an Investor Day in Sydney last week and I am grateful for insights someone who attended shared with me. Here are takeaways that could interest newsagents who sell lotteries.

1. DIRECT TARGET: CONVERTING RETAIL CUSTOMERS TO DIGITAL

The absolute biggest priority for The Lottery Corporation (TLC) is converting unregistered retail shoppers into registered digital users. They said this in Sydney and they have said publicly elsewhere. The hiring decisions announced last week also speak to this.

The Gap: TLC currently has approximately 8,600,000 active players, but only 4,300,000 are registered. That’s what they are chasing. Some retailers see these folks as their customers. TLC sees them as their customers.

The Strategy: TLC intends to identify these in-store customers, transition them into app users, and market directly to them to increase playing frequency and retention.

Retail Impact: This represents a deliberate strategy to shift the customer relationship away from the physical counter and directly onto TLC’s own digital platforms.

2. RETAIL NETWORK FRICTION & STRUCTURAL CHANGES

The balance of power is shifting, which is expected to cause what some call a “tricky period” of tension between TLC and independent retailers.

QR Codes: The introduction of new QR codes on physical tickets is seen by  newsagents as a direct mechanism for TLC to poach their foot traffic and data.

Cap on Outlets: TLC is freezing the expansion of its physical retail network. That is a huge message on where TKLKC sees retail. Growth will no longer come from opening new outlets; instead, the focus is entirely on extraction, productivity, and quality over quantity from the existing footprint.

The Margin Shift: For TLC shareholders, this migration is highly lucrative: every 1% of turnover that moves from physical retail to digital adds roughly $6,000,000 to TLC’s EBITDA.

3. GAME REFRESHES AND PRICE INCREASES

TLC is taking a more active approach to game management, price increases, and margin optimisation than previous management.

Set for Life (S4L): A major refresh is launching in September 2026. Ticket prices will increase from 60 cents to 70 cents, introducing additional cash payouts while keeping the top prize at $20,000 a month for 20 years.

Oz Lotto: This is officially under review and is expected to be the next major game overhaul.

4. THE YOUNGER COHORT PUSH

TLC is repositioning itself from a traditional lottery operator into a “digitally led entertainment business.” A key focus of this transformation is capturing younger adults. TLC plans to introduce more social features, syndicates, subscription models, and AI-driven personalised recommendations to attract younger sports-betting demographics who are hunting for “lottery-style” high odds.

To me, the big note here are the tight focus on migrating shoppers to digital – evidenced by the QR code move, new hires, freezing new outlets and absolute clarity in the business about the commercial value of the transition.

COMPLAINING IS A WASTE OF TIME.

TLC is a public company with one requirement – to drive shareholder value.

In my opinion, complaining about what they are doing will not improve the situation of any retailer, investing money in lobbying them will not deliver a lasting benefit for any retailer.

If I was representing lottery retailers or if I was a lottery retailer, my focus would be on lobbying TLC for permission to place other products in the lottery area – to support retail and provide a smoother path to the transition TLC is seeking.

The best thing a TLC lottery retailer can do is to urgently recalibrate the business to bring shoppers in for products outside of lottery products, do the bare minimum to satisfy the franchise agreement and create a business that is strong without any lottery revenue.

If you have lottery products are feel you will lose your business as they migrate lottery customers to digital, you have to act today to improve your business. Nothing else matters.

If you’re in Newspower, Nextra or The Lucky Charm, ask what they are doing about this. I say this as what I have been sharing here on this is part of what I share with newsXpress members.

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Lotteries

What You Control Is Enough

There is a simple framework that can change how you run your newsagency. Four lines. Easy to remember. Hard to ignore.

Control what you can. Let the rest go. When action is yours to take, take it. And be self-aware enough to tell the difference.

Most retail stress, and stress in any business or personally for that matter, comes from worrying about or fighting battles you were never going to win.

In retail, it’s: Foot traffic shifting. Print declining. A supplier decision made in a boardroom nowhere near your shop.

These things are real. But they are not yours to fix.

What is yours? Your floor layout. Your product mix. How your team greets someone who walks in. The categories you back. The decision to change before the market changes you.

The noise is everywhere. Industry rumours. Economic headlines. What the shop down the road is doing. Some of it matters. Most of it is a reason to avoid the actual work.

The hard part is not knowing what you can control. Most retailers know. The hard part is acting on it. Backing a new gift range and actually ranging it, merchandising it, telling customers about it. Cutting magazine space and doing it now, not after Christmas.

That is where the fourth line matters most.

Self-awareness is the check on all of it. It stops you building a story about why you cannot move when the truth is simpler — you have not decided to. It also stops you wasting a week on things that were never yours to fix in the first place.

The retailers doing well right now tend to share one thing. They know what they own. And that is where they show up.

This is a mantra I have embraced for years:

Control what you can.

Let the rest go.

When action is yours to take, take it.

And be self-aware enough to tell the difference.

Footnote: I am sharing this today because I know there are folks out there investing too much energy in fighting things then cannot change, worrying about things outside their control. This mantra, which has its roots in the serenity prayer, it is designed to help you see through that which you cannot control to green fields and blue oceans of what you can control. Without wanting to be to weird about it.

19 likes
Social responsibility

It’s 2026. No website means no online customers

If your newsagency does not have a website, you are invisible to anyone who is not already walking past your door. That covers most people.

Your current customers are likely mostly locals. Regulars. People who found you years ago and kept coming back. That is not a bad thing — but it is a ceiling.

A website reaches the shopper in another suburb, another state, who typed “gift shop” or “greeting cards” or something else into Google and got results. Right now, none of those results are you.

The wrong website does not fix this.

A page with your address and trading hours is not a selling tool. Your site needs to show up in search, look right on a phone, and connect to wherever else you might sell — eBay, for example. A cheap site that dates badly inside a year costs you twice: once to build it, again when you have to redo it.

Your POS software should drive the whole thing.

Product names, descriptions, pricing, stock levels, images — all of it should come from your point of sale data. When something sells in the shop, the website should reflect that without you touching anything. If it does not, you are doing double entry. You will make mistakes. Customers will be annoyed.

The POS software and website platform need to talk to each other properly — not approximately, not with a workaround.

Now for the pitch:

Tower Systems builds this for newsagents.

Tower Systems is the POS software most Australian newsagents run on. It also builds Shopify websites specifically for newsagents — connected to your inventory, set up to handle payments and other things vital to success online.

The service is a fixed price. No scope creep, no surprise invoices.

Get in touch: sales@towersystems.com.au.

The thing about getting online is that it offers a plan B option – you can experiment with new product categories that may be far away from what you do in the shop. You can do this using existing infrastructure, like starting a second business with minimal capital.

I can’t imagine a reason any any retail business to be a physical only business. Not today. It doesn’t make sense to me at all.

…
Mark Fletcher founded newsagency software company Tower Systems and is the CEO of newsXpress, a marketing group serving innovative independent retailers, including newsagents, who continuously evolve their businesses to be enjoyable, relevant and successful. You can reach him on mark@newsxpress.com.au or 0418 321 338.

7 likes
newsagent software

Want to discover ways to improve your business: visit it as a stranger

This may sound like a weird idea. Stay with me. It works. To regulars here, it may sound like something you’ve read here before. You have.

How to see your shop as your customers see it and what actions you can take to improve business.

Walk into your shop like a stranger. You might not like what you see.

Walk out, go to the end of the street, turn around, shake your head a bit to clear it, and walk back in as if you have never been there before. Not as the owner. As someone who has no idea what you sell, whether you are friendly, or whether it is worth their time to stop.

What do you actually see?

Most retailers cannot answer that honestly. They have been in the same space so long they have stopped seeing it. The cluttered corner near the door has been cluttered for two years. The handwritten sign that was meant to be temporary is still there. The window that has not changed since Easter is still there.

Your regulars have stopped noticing too. First-time visitors notice everything.

Do the audit properly

Walk in slowly. Do not rush to the counter. Give yourself 60 seconds near the entrance and take it in.

Ask yourself:

  • What is the first thing my eye goes to? Is that the right thing?
  • Can I tell within ten seconds what this shop sells?
  • Does the space feel welcoming or cluttered?
  • Is there anything that looks tired, broken, or out of date?
  • What does it smell like?
  • Is there music? Is it right for the space?
  • Are the price labels clear and current?
  • Is there anything near the entrance I would want to pick up?

Write down what you notice. Do not edit yourself. The instinctive observations are the useful ones.

The front third is doing most of the work

Everything within the first three metres of your entrance works harder than the rest of your shop. That space is where the decision to stay or leave gets made. If it is stacked with point-of-sale materials, dead stock, or products that have sat in the same spot for months, you are wasting it.

Rotate what is there. Make it seasonal. Give passing customers something new to see.

Your window is free advertising

Most small retailers underuse their front window. If yours looks the same as it did six weeks ago, change it this week. You do not need a designer or a budget. You need one clear idea, one dominant product or theme, and the discipline to keep it fresh.

A window that stops people is worth more than most paid advertising.

Get someone else to do the walk

This is what I actually recommend. Your own blind spots are hard to see. Ask a friend, a supplier rep, or a family member who does not visit often. Tell them you want the unfiltered version.

The things they mention first are the things that matter most. Do not disagree with them. What they see — and what they miss — is what your next new customer sees too.

Then do something about it

Do the walk. Write the list. Fix what you can fix today and book in what needs more time. That is it.

Your shop is your best marketing tool. Make sure it is doing the job.

5 likes
Newsagency management

Marketing Groups for Newsagents: Why Australia Leads the World

This post draws on publicly available information from industry websites, association pages, and newsagency sector resources, researched using AI tools as at May 2026. I have done this to reflect what the world sees, rather than what I see, or think.

If you run a newsagency in Australia, you have access to something almost no newsagent anywhere else in the world enjoys: a dedicated commercial marketing group built specifically for your business.

Most operators here barely register this. It becomes background noise quickly. But step back and look at how newsagents are supported in other countries, and the Australian model is genuinely unusual, and it works. You only have to consider newsagency closures in the UK compared to Australia to see a difference.

What these groups actually do

A newsagency marketing group pools the buying power and marketing resources of independently owned stores. It negotiates supplier deals, runs seasonal campaigns, supports store branding, delivers retail training, and gives independent operators scale they could not generate on their own.

This is different from an industry association. Associations advocate and represent. Marketing groups put money and effort into the commercial performance of member stores directly.

The three Australian groups

newsXpress launched in 2001 on a non-franchise model. Membership is voluntary. Fees are not based on turnover. The group runs exclusive seasonal marketing campaigns under the Seasonal Edge banner, negotiates supplier deals, and provides retail business coaching. It spends over $1,500 per member annually on prizes and collateral. A Perth conference ran in May 2026.

Newspower is the largest by store count and has been operating for over 20 years. Based in Padstow, NSW, it focuses on printer supplies and consumables alongside product and range negotiation for members.

Nextra (The nextra™ Group) is the franchise model of the three, established in 1995. It runs two store formats — nextra™ for flagship stores, news extra™ for medium-sized stores — and provides fuller franchise infrastructure covering marketing, business management, and product negotiation.

These groups sit alongside Australia’s industry associations, not in place of them. ALNA (the Australian Lottery and Newsagents’ Association, formerly the Australian Newsagents’ Federation) handles national advocacy. State bodies like NANA (Newsagents Association of NSW & ACT, operating since 1891) cover employment relations, insurance, and state-level lobbying.

A note from me: None of the AI searches I did for this included The Lucky Charm in their results. It could be because it’s too small of a group, or that it’s not broadly based geographically, or that it’s quite a different structure. Anyway, the search results are the search results. I mention it here to note that The Lucky Charm does exist and that it has newsagency business members.

What exists elsewhere

In the UK and Ireland, newsagents have trade bodies, not commercial marketing groups. The Fed — formerly the National Federation of Retail Newsagents, founded in 1919 — represents around 8,000–10,000 independent retailers across both countries, including newsagents, convenience stores, and card shops. In Ireland, the CSNA covers over 1,500 retailers with a similar advocacy and member-deal focus. NewstrAid is a welfare charity for people employed in the news trade, not a business support body.

In New Zealand, Canada, the United States, South Africa, and most of Asia, there are no dedicated newsagent marketing groups at all. Newsagents either fall under broader independent retail associations or operate with no sector-specific support. News publisher associations exist in some of those markets — New Zealand’s News Publishers’ Association, for instance — but they represent media owners, not retailers.

Why this matters

Australian newsagencies developed inside a tightly integrated distribution and retail ecosystem. Marketing groups grew out of that as a practical response to a practical problem: how does an independently owned shop compete on range, marketing, and supplier terms without the benefits of professional support?

In most other markets, that question has no structural answer. UK and Irish newsagents have advocacy. Elsewhere, newsagents mostly have nothing.

Having three competing groups in the one market is also worth noting. It creates genuine choice, pushes each group to deliver real value, and lets operators pick a model that suits their business rather than taking whatever exists.

Quick reference

Organisation Country Type Primary focus
newsXpress Australia Marketing group Business growth, supplier deals, campaigns
Newspower Australia Marketing group Product supply, community retail
Nextra Group Australia Franchise/marketing group Full franchise system
ALNA Australia Industry association Advocacy, lottery and newsagent support
NANA (NSW & ACT) Australia State association Employment, insurance, advocacy
The Fed (NFRN) UK & Ireland Industry association Commercial deals, lobbying, training
CSNA Ireland Industry association Retailer advocacy, member deals
NewstrAid UK Charity/welfare fund Support for news trade workers

The bottom line

If you are an Australian newsagent not yet connected with a marketing group, it is worth knowing what is actually on the table — and recognising that it does not exist in most other markets. newsXpress, Newspower, and Nextra (and The Lucky Charm) each operate on a different model and suit different types of businesses. The right question is which one fits yours.

…
Mark Fletcher founded newsagency software company Tower Systems and is the CEO of newsXpress, a marketing group serving innovative independent retailers, including newsagents, who continuously evolve their businesses to be enjoyable, relevant and successful. You can reach him on mark@newsxpress.com.au or 0418 321 338.

10 likes
Newsagency management

Cutting through the AI noise

There are a lot of people selling AI workshops right now. Some are good. Many are expensive, generic, and aimed squarely at business owners who do not yet know what they do not know.

At my newsXpress business , we are taking a different approach.

I think AI literacy is the new computer literacy, something every retailer needs, not a premium add-on. So we are offering free AI training and support to our members and the broader retail community. No fee, no pitch, nothing to sign.

Just practical guidance, grounded in real experience running independent retail businesses in Australia.

If you are a small business owner trying to make sense of AI without wading through the noise, reach out. mark@newsxpress.com.au and ask for it.

5 likes
Newsagency management

If your loyalty program is not adding measurable value to your business, it’s failing you

I was talking to a newsagent a couple of days ago who is running a loyalty program managed outside of their business. It’s routine work and the newsagent was wondering if it was working. Only the people who control the program have the complete data. So I asked the newsagent if they are making money from it. I don’t know was the answer.

If you don’t know what you’re making from your loyalty program in your business, it’s a failure.

Most small retailers either have no loyalty programme or have one they set up years ago and largely ignore. Both are mistakes, but the second one is the more expensive mistake, because it creates the illusion of doing something without actually achieving anything.

A loyalty programme that nobody talks about, that staff forget to mention, and that customers have stopped caring about is not a loyalty programme. It is administrative overhead with a card attached.

Here is what actually drives repeat visits.

Recognition beats points

Customers come back to businesses where they feel known. Not to businesses where they are accumulating theoretical discounts they will eventually redeem on something they do not particularly want.

If your loyalty programme is purely transactional — spend this, earn that — it is doing less than you think. The retailers with strong repeat trade are the ones where staff know customers by name, remember what they bought last time, and make them feel like their visit matters.

That is not a technology problem. It is a culture problem.

The redemption trap

Many loyalty programmes are designed around a reward that is too far away to feel real. Spend $500 to save $10. Collect 20 stamps to get a free item. These mechanics do not change behaviour. The gap between spending and reward is too wide for most customers to stay engaged.

If you want a programme that actually works, shorten the loop. Make the reward feel achievable. A customer who earns something within two or three visits is more motivated than one chasing a reward that is six months away.

Your best customers do not need a points card

Think about who your most loyal customers actually are. They come in regularly, spend well, and send people your way. They were coming before you had a programme and they will keep coming regardless.

The loyalty programme is not for them. It is for the customers in the middle,  the ones who visit occasionally and could visit more. That is the group worth targeting. Design your programme around converting occasional customers into regulars, not rewarding people who are already regulars.

Staff are the programme

The single biggest driver of repeat visits in small retail is how customers feel when they leave. If they leave feeling good about the interaction, they come back. If they leave feeling ignored or rushed, they might not.

Your staff are more powerful than your points system. Train them to engage. Make sure they mention the programme at the right moment — not as a script, but as a genuine offer. If your team cannot explain the programme clearly in one sentence, simplify the programme.

What to do

Pull the data on your current programme if you have one. How many active members do you have? How many have redeemed something in the last 90 days? What is the average time between visits for members versus non-members?

If you cannot answer those questions, the programme is not being managed. If you do not have a programme, the question is not whether to have one — it is what behaviour you want to change and what incentive is proportionate to that change.

Start there.

Now for the newsagent I mentioned at the start of this post, my advice was to demand access to the data from those at the top of their pyramid. That’s the start to understanding if all the busy work in the shop is worth it.

4 likes
marketing
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