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

newsagency of the future

Change your newsagency without losing the people who matter most

“If I change my business too much, my regulars will stop coming. Soon I won’t have a shop.”

I hear this often. It is a common feeling, and it comes from a good place. You care about your customers. You know their names and what they buy. You do not want to let them down.

We all like what we know. We like the space where we feel comfortable. That is human.

Plenty has already changed

Change has been happening in your shop for years. It is easy to miss because it happens slowly, a little each week.

Over-the-counter newspaper sales keep declining. Most magazine titles are declining too. The exception is special interest titles, which continue to do well. Lottery customers are moving online. The shoppers coming through your door today are not quite the same as those of ten years ago.

So the question is not whether to change. The change is already underway. The real question is whether you guide it, or let it guide you.

You do not have to choose between old and new

Changing your newsagency does not mean turning your back on your regulars. You can make the shop fresh and relevant to today, while keeping the products and services that matter in your location.

That might mean keeping your newspapers near the counter, while giving more floor space to categories that are growing. It might mean keeping the special interest magazines your customers love, and trimming titles that no longer sell.

Your regulars are more likely to stay when the shop feels busy and alive. New shoppers bring energy. Energy brings everyone back.

This is why I say there is no single approach. Every shop, every town and every community is different. What works in a regional main street will differ from what works in a city shopping centre.

What we do know

There is no coming back for the newsagency channel. There will be no return to the days of around 5,000 shops that looked almost the same.

That is not a reason to worry. It is a reason to plan.

The growth categories are clear based on the evidence we have:

  • Gifts
  • Collectibles
  • Play, including toys, games and jigsaws
  • Clothing
  • Books

These are easy categories for newsagents to add, with the right backing. You already have the skills. You know your customers, you know retail and you know your community.

You do not have to do this alone

Yep, this is a pitch. I am a Director of Stride Retail Pty Ltd. It helps newsagents transform. Yes, we changed the name of the newsXpress Pty Ltd business to Stride Retail Pty Ltd last month as our own distancing of the newsXpress business from the newsagency channel.

We can look at your shop, your location and your current range with you. We can help you work out what to keep, what to grow and what to try. We do this at a pace that suits you and your customers.

Change works best one careful step at a time. Start with one small step this month. Your regulars will come along with you.

Reach out: help@newsxpress.com.au

3 likes
newsagency of the future

If you are thinking about a website for your newsagency or retail business: How to pick your niche

Yesterday I wrote about newsagents doing $500,000 a year and more online, and why the winners run niche stores rather than putting their shop online. The obvious next question: how do you pick the niche?

There is no proven approach.

Anyone selling you a formula for finding a winning niche is selling you a formula, not a niche. What you can do is take steps that give you a better chance of getting it right.

Here’s where I’d start, based on years of experience in this space: what you know outside the shop.

What do you know, collect, follow or do that has nothing to do with the newsagency? Fishing. Model trains. Quilting. Coins. Vintage pens. Board games. A sport, a craft, a fandom.

This matters more than people expect. A niche website needs feeding every week for years. Product descriptions, buying decisions, answers to customer questions from people who know their subject deeply. If you have to research every sentence you write, you will stop writing. If you love the subject, the work is not work.

The knowledge shows in ways you cannot fake. A collector can tell within a minute whether a store is run by one of their own. When it is, they buy, they come back and they tell others.

Research the heck out of your idea.

Plenty of people love things nobody spends money on. Before you commit, spend real time on questions like these:

  • Is there demand you can see? Search the niche the way a customer would. Look at what sells on marketplaces, what sold listings look like, which stores rank and how busy they appear. You want evidence of people spending, not just people interested.
  • How good is the competition? A niche with no competitors is usually a niche with no customers. A niche with two or three ordinary competitors is interesting. A niche owned by one excellent, deep, well-fed store is hard. Be honest about which you are looking at.
  • Can you get the product? Supplier access decides more niches than demand does. Can you buy at a margin that works? In quantities that suit a small business? Is there product the big players cannot or will not range? The niches I like most have suppliers who will not deal with mass retail.
  • Does it ship well? Weight, size, breakage, and whether the average order covers the postage. A niche of $8 items that cost $12 to ship is a hobby, not a business.
  • Will they come back? One-off purchase niches are harder than collector niches. A collector buys again next month. Repeat purchase is where online margins are made.

Your POS knows things. Categories that keep selling out in a small footprint. Products customers ask for that you do not range. Special orders people wait weeks for. Demand you can already see in your own shop is worth more than any trend report.

Be sure to test before you build.

You do not need a website to test a niche. List on a marketplace for a couple of months. Run the range in a corner of the shop and talk to the people who buy it. Small, cheap evidence beats a big confident guess.

I have picked niches this way myself, leaning on interests and knowledge I had before the businesses existed, then checking the demand, supply and shipping questions before spending serious money. Some worked better than others. The ones that worked shared two things: I knew the subject, and the research said people were already spending.

No formula. Better odds.

3 likes
Newsagency management

Online sales: newsagents are doing $500,000 a year and more, and some are failing. The difference is choices.

There are newsagents in Australia right now doing $500,000 a year and more in online sales. I know a couple above $1 million.

I appreciate those numbers may feel out of touch, made up even. They are not, I can assure you.

What the numbers are is ame changing. The rent does not go up because you shipped 40 orders yesterday. The labour you already roster packs orders in the quiet hours you were paying for anyway. Online revenue makes the two biggest overheads in the business, the lease and wages, work harder. Same costs, more sales across them.

There is a second benefit that few talk about: A serious online business is an off ramp. If the landlord turns difficult, if the rent at renewal makes no sense, if the centre dies around you, a business with real online revenue can move, downsize or walk away from the lease and keep trading. A shop with no online presence has no such option. It negotiates from weakness.

We are way past “should I”

Should I sell online is a 2015 question. The newsagents doing this well settled it years ago. The question now is how, and that is where I see it go wrong.

Where online fails, and why it is on the owner

I know plenty of newsagents where online has failed. Money spent, site abandoned, owner telling anyone who will listen that online does not work for shops like ours.

In every case I have looked at, the failure came down to choices the owner made.

The most common failure that I see: they put their existing shop online, selling a bit of everything the shop carries. I have recommended against this for years. Nobody in Australia is searching for your shop name, and nobody wants to browse a general store online. Online shoppers search for a thing they want. A website wins by being the obvious answer for that thing.

The ones doing $500,000 and more are not newsagencies online. They are niche stores: a jigsaw store, a plush store, a collectables store, a pen store. One passion, deep range, named for the niche. The physical shop behind it is almost irrelevant to the shopper, and that is the point. I run several niche online stores myself and this is the model behind every one of them.

The second failure: they did not feed the website. A website is a shop. Left alone, it dies like one. New product, fresh content, updated photos, week in, week out. The owners winning online treat the website as a store with its own opening hours: always.

The third: they did it cheap. A template thrown up for a few hundred dollars, no thought to search, slow, clunky on a phone. You get what you pay for. Online you are ranked against the best in the country, not the shop across the road.

If you are starting now

Pick one niche where you already have supplier access and knowledge. Name the store for the niche, not for your shop. Go deep on range rather than wide. Commit to feeding it every week before you spend a dollar on it. And budget properly, because a website that cannot be found is a shed with no door.

The newsagents at $500,000 and beyond did not get there with a better shop. They got there with better decisions, made early and kept to.

Online is not the future for newsagents. It is the present, and it has been for a while. The only question left is whether the decisions you make are the ones that work.

6 likes
newsagency of the future

Halloween is the cheapest decouple test you will run this year

I have written plenty here about decoupling – newsagencies presenting as something else entirely, as presenting as not being a newsagency. Some owners are all in. Others want proof before they touch the fascia or the shop floor.

Halloween could be that proof, available for a small buy and a seven week run.

The numbers for Halloween in Australia are not small anymore

Last year Australians spent around $500 million on Halloween, up 11% on the year before, at an average of $103 per person celebrating. Around 4.8 million adults took part. Home decorating was close to 40% of the activity.

The fastest growing Halloween participation is among older Australians. The 50 to 64s and the over 65s are joining in bigger numbers each year. That is our existing customer base, the people already walking past your counter for a paper or a lotto ticket.

And this year, October 31 falls on a Saturday. Party night on a party night. Expect a strong year.

Where the gap is and where opportunity lies

The supermarkets and the discount variety stores own the low end. Bags of lollies, $3 spider webs, flimsy masks. They do it on price and they do it fine.

What most of them miss is the better end. Quality home decor people keep and bring out each year. The deeper party basket: table settings, props, lighting, the pieces that make a host’s house the one everyone talks about. A shopper planning a Halloween party on a Saturday night is not shopping on price. They are shopping for the look.

That gap is yours if you want it. Better product, curated, displayed with some theatre. Nobody expects it from a newsagency, which is exactly the point.

Do it fun or don’t do it

A half bay of packet decorations near the magazines proves nothing. That is a newsagency having a go at Halloween, and shoppers will read it that way.

Go the other way. Give it your window. Dress the team up in the last week. Build one display that makes kids drag their parents in. Post it, because Halloween content travels on social media like almost nothing else a local shop can make. Run something in-store: a colouring competition, a guess the lollies jar, trick or treat mapping for your town.

The product makes money. The theatre changes what people think your shop is. You want both, and the second one is worth more.

Why the risk is low

The buy is small next to a card or gift order. The season is short, so you learn fast. Sell through and you bank margin at a quiet time of year, right before Christmas floor moves. Left with stock? Core Halloween decor carries to next year without looking dated.

Compare that with the usual decouple questions: new fascia, new name, floor replan. Big decisions, big money. Halloween lets you test the underlying idea, that people will buy things from you they never associated with your shop, for a few hundred dollars.

Measure the right thing

Sales matter, but watch two other numbers. How many new faces the season brings in, and what else lands in the Halloween basket. If people who never shopped with you walk in because of a window, and they leave with decor plus a card plus a treat, you have your evidence.

That evidence is the answer to the question I hear most: would decoupling actually work for my shop, in my town?

Run the Halloween test, it’s low-cost.

5 likes
newsagency marketing

Here are ten things every newsagent should be doing in their business, and which too many are not

This is a brutal and practical list focussed on your profit.

  1. Manage product location by GP% return. Low margin product should not be taking up more expensive real estate. Papers and magazines to the back of the shop.
  2. Review your markup approach. Charge more for items people buy from you because you are convenient – these people are not buying based on price. Stationery: 125% at least.
  3. Stop letting supplier reps place orders without your explicit approval. Know what is being spent, and when.
  4. Empty your backroom of all stock. Customers don’t shop there. Stock has no place in any back room with logistics the way they are today. None of your competitors have a loaded back room.
  5. Clean out all the shit at, under and behind the counter. And, yes, I use shit because so much at the counter is there because of habit, and not because of profit.
  6. Load three different reports from your POS software into the AI of your choice and use this prompt: what do you see? I suspect it will see things you’re not seeing.
  7. Open the shop when you will make money and not because of some misplaced notion of customer service.
  8. Buy from suppliers who will not supply newsagents.
  9. Look at your bookkeeping and accounting processes and costs. An average newsagency should spend under $5,000 a year on this and I know many spending under $3,000.
  10. Take a sheet of paper and write down the last three times you had fun in the shop. Do one of those things again. have fun.

In too many newsagency businesses things are done because they have always been done, and that’s dragging the business down, hurting it, costing it money.

You need to disrupt the business. This list seeks to do that, or at least getting you thinking of what you could come up with to disrupt the business. In disruption is innovation.

You are the best person to blow parts of your business up.

Fixing a newsagency is not high brow stuff.

You certainly don’t need a consultant, or a coach.

You need desire, followed by action.

Time is short.

7 likes
Newsagency management

Ten years. That’s what I think this channel has left.

I’m back from our national conference in Perth. Two and a half terrific days with newsagents, newsXpress members and suppliers to the channel.

Two subjects took up most of the room. Where this channel is heading, and what AI is already doing inside shops.

Where the channel is heading

I’ll put it plainly. I think the newsagency channel, as a channel, disappears inside ten years. It gives me no pleasure to write that.


Australia sits one decision away from the closure of a capital city daily newspaper. Several of them lose money. They’re being held up partly by emotion. News Corp has always loved ink on paper. Kerry Stokes has his attachment to The West Australian. Nobody wants to be the publisher who switches the first one off. That decision is coming anyway.

Print stopped delivering news a long time ago. By the time the paper lands on the counter the story is old. Your customers already know.

Magazines tell the same story in slower motion. Deliveries went from three days a week to two, and now to one. In some places it’s a coin toss whether they turn up at all. Titles we missed used to be couriered out. Not now.

Are Media is publicly up for sale. There’s plenty of talk about a break-up, including Are Direct and possibly XchangeIT. Worth watching closely, because whoever ends up owning the distribution business owns the physical route into our shops.

Stationery keeps drifting to Officeworks. Dollarama buying The Reject Shop means a harder shove from the value end of the market.

And when we make the news, it’s a closure story. Another one bites the dust.

The answer we spent most of our time on

Most of the conference went on what to do about it. We call it decoupling.

Disconnect from being a newsagency. Stop identifying as one. Present as something completely different, ideally something local and yours, rather than another national group’s brand painted over the top of the old shop.

This is more than a cosmetic change. Once you’re not a newsagency, you can sell to people who would never have walked into one, and that’s the whole point.

Three retailers who have already done it spoke to the room. Former newsagents, all of them. They talked about de-identifying, and about how their businesses run now.

AI, live on the big screen

Nobody gave a presentation about AI. We put it on the big screen and worked on real businesses, no script, in front of the room.

One retailer is doing well with clothing and wanted to build it out. In front of everyone we looked at the mistakes being made, then at how to tell a better price and sizing story for the demographic in that town.

Another had already decided to decouple and wanted to know what else to sell. That session produced a series of opportunities needing little capital, and then a four or five page business strategy report.

We spent time on the risks too, on where AI gets things wrong. It’s useful in small business retail, but only with a human checking the work.

What I said to the suppliers in the room

This channel will lose two to three hundred newsagents this year. So think hard about what you pitch.

The smart operators want product that brings more people through the door, and a broader demographic than they have today. Product that panders to the history of the channel has no future.

If you’re not helping retailers reach further than they reach now, you’re worth less to them than the supplier who will. We’re in this together, and the ones who understand that will do well out of the next few years.

I have been called pessimistic before

A newspaper publisher once stood in front of a room and told everyone I was wrong about declining newspaper sales. Magazine publishers objected to me discussing magazine decline at all. Those calls have aged fine.

There’s no doubt in my mind that the traditional Australian newsagency has no future. A business built on lotteries, papers, magazines, stationery and greeting cards, and not much else, is already dead. The owner just doesn’t know it yet.

Now look at a shop leaning into sensory product, Pokémon and other collectibles, and good quality gifts. People walk in for completely different reasons. That business has somewhere to go.

Where we are

newsXpress has 194 members. We’ve never chased being the biggest, and we’re not your average newsagency marketing group. What we have is a group of retailers who want to move, and are moving.

Our focus is a strong back half of 2026, then 2027 and 2028.

Mark Fletcher
mark@newsxpress.com.au
0418 321 338

8 likes
newsagency of the future

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.

5 likes
newsagency of the future

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.

5 likes
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.

5 likes
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.

5 likes
newsagency of the future

How Many Newsagencies Are There in Australia? Industry Size & Store Numbers

There are roughly 2,500 local newsagency shops operating in Australia in 2026, and the newsagency industry is worth about $1.8 billion in annual revenue.

Now, some will disagree with this number so I want to explain how I reached 2,500. I considered the data I have access to from the Tower Systems dataset (Tower is the biggest software company serving the channel) as well as insights from the major magazine distributor and my own decades of experience working with newsagencies and my tracking of store closures over the lats 10 years.

Store numbers have fallen from just under 5,000 in 2000, but the surviving network is substantial and, in transformed stores especially, healthy.

Counting is imprecise because agencies, sub-agencies and standalone lottery agents can sometimes be lumped together. This page sets out the size of the Australian newsagency industry — revenue, store numbers, employment and the long-term trend — with sources, so you can see where the commonly quoted figures come from and why they differ.

Australian newsagency industry: key numbers (2026)

Measure Figure Source
Industry revenue (2025–26) ~$1.8 billion IBISWorld6
5-year revenue trend Declining ~5.2% a year IBISWorld
Number of businesses (IBISWorld count) ~1,750–1,784 IBISWorld
Number of local newsagency shops (industry estimate) ~2,500+ ALNA / Tower7
Broader lottery + retail + distribution agents 4,000+ ALNA (ACCC)8
People employed ~15,800–20,000 VANA / ALNA9

References:

  1. IBISWorld, Newsagencies in Australia, https://www.ibisworld.com/australia/industry/newsagencies/5495/
  2. Mediaweek, ABC report that newsagency sector in decline, https://www.mediaweek.com.au/abc-report-that-newsagency-sector-in-decline-fails-to-investigate-closures-claims-retailer/
  3. ALNA, Australian Lottery and Newsagents’ Association ACCC submission (April 2018), https://www.accc.gov.au/system/files/Australian%20Lottery%20and%20Newsagents’%20Association%20(April%202018).pdf
  4. VANA, newsagency industry statistics, https://www.vana.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Newsagency-industry-Statistics.pdf

Why the store-count figures disagree

Estimates of how many newsagencies exist in Australia range from about 1,750 to over 3,000. The gap is real and comes down to definitions:

  • IBISWorld counts registered businesses in the newsagencies industry classification: around 1,750–1,784.
  • ALNA and POS software providers count operating retail newsagency outlets: 2,500 or more, described as the biggest independent retail channel in Australia. This is the number that I consider to be most accurate as it is from on the ground experience.

Broader agent counts (including sub-agencies, distribution agents and standalone lottery agents) push past 4,000.

A retailer with a lottery terminal, an Australia Post agency and a magazine account can look like a newsagency without being classified as one — which is why headline “decline” numbers should be read with care.

The long-term trend in store numbers

Year Estimated newsagencies
2000 ~5,000
2007–08 ~4,635
2016–17 ~3,150
2026 ~2,500 (operating shops)

Long-term decline in newsagency numbers. Historical figures via Wikipedia; current operating estimate via ALNA / industry sources.10

The direction is clear — fewer stores over 25 years — but the network that remains is significant. Australian newsagents still sell close to half of all magazines sold in shops and around a third of all greeting cards sold nationally.

Is the newsagency industry dying?

No, it is transforming. Industry revenue is declining (around 5.2% a year through 2025–26 on IBISWorld’s measure, which I think is problematic) because legacy categories like newspapers, magazines and tobacco are shrinking, and even lottery sales are moving online (40%+ now direct to consumer).

Transformed newsagencies — those leaning into gifts, cards, specialty stationery and emerging lines — are growing revenue and basket value. The decline is concentrated in stores that have not changed their model.

Frequently asked questions

How many newsagencies are there in Australia in 2026?

There are roughly 2,500 operating local newsagency shops in Australia. IBISWorld counts around 1,750–1,784 registered newsagency businesses; industry bodies count 2,500 or more retail outlets, and over 4,000 when broader lottery and distribution agents are included.

How big is the Australian newsagency industry?

The Australian newsagencies industry is worth about $1.8 billion in revenue in 2025–26, according to IBISWorld, and has been declining at around 5.2% a year over the past five years.

How many people do newsagencies employ in Australia?

10Wikipedia, Newsagent, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsagent

newsagencyblog.com.au • Page 8 of 9

Estimates range from about 15,800 to 20,000 people, depending on whether broader lottery and distribution agents are included.

Are newsagencies in decline?

Store numbers and industry revenue are falling, driven by declines in print, tobacco and in-store lottery sales. However, transformed newsagencies focused on gifts, cards and specialty lines are growing, so the decline is uneven rather than universal.

5 likes
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.

6 likes
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:

8 likes
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 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
Trending Articles

Fairfax changes approach to TV Guide, disrespects newsagents

Published on April 20, 2011

What do you think of the Powerball changes?

Published on February 16, 2018

IPS releases new magazine contracts

Published on June 21, 2011