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If you’re chasing cost cutting in your newsagency, you may be chasing the wrong thing

Most of the conversations I have had with newsagents lately started with the same question. How do I cut costs?

Fair enough. I ask it in my own shops too. Rent is not going down and neither are wages.

But I have noticed something. Some newsagents are spending all their energy on chasing cost savings and none of it on the business.

Someone will spend an afternoon chasing lower EFTPOS fees or getting insurance quotes and feel productive. The same person has not looked at dead stock in a year, or brought on a new product category.

That is the wrong thing, I think. You can make more money today and into the future by working on your business, in your business. I know the business books don’t agree.

I think the cost saving wins because it is easy. A phone call, a form, done. Working on the business is harder. You have to look at decisions you’ve made and be honest about them based on the evidence. That is uncomfortable, and so it waits.

What I see in the numbers

Here is what I see when I go through the numbers in a newsagency, mine included.

A saving of a couple of hundred dollars a month is hard to find and disappears in one bad quarter. Meanwhile, there is stock on the shelves that has not sold since March. A section running at 25 per cent margin sits where something at 55 per cent could be. Prices on some items are lower than they could be without hurting sales. And every day people walk in, buy what they came for, and walk out without an impulse purchase.

That is where the money is. Not in a cheaper phone plan or insurance.

Where to start

My advice if you want to free up cash and make more money is to start here.

  • Run a report of everything that has not sold in six months. Mark it down and get it out within two weeks. That is cash you’ve already spent, sitting there doing nothing.
  • Rank gross profit contribution by floorspace allocation. Most who do this are shocked.
  • Reset your counter to attract impulse purchases. Surprise people, so they notice.
  • Audit where the labour you pay for is spent. Typically, 20 per cent of that time can either be freed for more valuable work or cut from the roster.
  • Look at your prices for the products over which you have price control. A 1 per cent price increase is unlikely to affect unit sales. You get to bank the 1 per cent.

None of that is exciting. It is where I have seen the biggest financial benefit, bigger than you will get chasing a cost reduction on insurance.

An offer

If you would like a second pair of eyes, I will look at your business for free and come back with specific opportunities to improve its financial performance.

I need two things from you. A monthly sales comparison report for the year to 31 August 2026 against the same period a year earlier, and a rough sketch of your shop floor layout showing each of your departments. Send them direct to mark@towersystems.com.au and I will come back to you myself.

I am not selling anything here. I want to show, with your own numbers, that working on the business is likely to make you more money than chasing a reduction in an operating expense. What you do with what I find is up to you.

…

Disclosure: I founded Tower Systems (sold it in 2024 and still work for the business today) and I own newsXpress, and I own and run newsagencies.

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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

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newsagency of the future

A card company paying cash for card space says a lot about their business

Greeting card suppliers are back at retailer doors offering cash for wall space.

Before you sign, understand exactly what you are agreeing to.

I don’t get it, I really don’t.

What does it say about the card company that they have to give a retailer cash to buy their business. I would have thought that the retailer and the card company would make more money if the cards were the best and backed by the best service. A bag of cash takes consideration away from product. maybe that’s what they want.

The offers I am hearing of are big. Fifty thousand dollars. One hundred thousand. Sometimes three hundred thousand. The old structure was an interest free loan, repaid through rebates on card sales. More recent deals leave the rebate untouched and require the retailer to repay the cash on top.

Either way, the deal is the same. The supplier is not investing in your business. They are renting your wall. And you are the one carrying the debt.

It doesn’t make sense to me.

When choosing a card supplier you need to choose based on revenue for the business from cards, and what else happy card shoppers will buy in your business.

A card company should earn its space through sell-through. Once money enters the deal, performance stops being the measure. You stop asking which cards sell and start planning what the cash will pay for. That is exactly what the supplier wants.

The evidence is clear. We have seen a business where one supplier held the entire card wall. Splitting the wall fifty fifty delivered immediate double digit growth. A later supplier change lifted sales again. Competition and range drove those results. No cheque did.

One newsagent with multiple stores took around three hundred and fifty thousand dollars from a card company and later collapsed, leaving the supplier out of pocket. I wonder if retailers ended up paying for this?

Plenty of retailers are unhappy with their card company and cannot leave. The debt locks them in.

The cash is not free. You pay for it in weaker card sales and lost freedom to change suppliers. If a card company wants your wall, make them earn it with product that sells.

If a card company offers you cash up front for a commitment, pause. Sure, the cash would come in handy. The question has to be – over the lifetime of the contract, what is the real cost of the cash I might get today? Also ask: how bad are their products that they need to buy my business?

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Greeting Cards

What The Lottery Corporation’s FY26 results mean for newsagents

The Lottery Corporation released its FY26 results and annual report this week. There is plenty in them for anyone with lotteries in their shop, including one number that will get less attention than it deserves: the migration of lottery sales online has stalled, for now.

The year in numbers

Lotteries turnover was $6,547 million, down 3.1%. TLC puts the fall down to a ‘bad’ run of jackpots, which it calls a 1 in roughly 45 year outcome, costing around $700 million in turnover. There was no $100 million-plus Powerball for the first time since FY21 and no $50 million-plus Oz Lotto for the first time since FY17.

That context matters. Soft lottery commission in FY26 was bad luck with jackpot sequences, not a collapse in play. Base games grew 5.6%. Saturday Lotto was up 9.4%. Instant Scratch-Its rose close to 8%, and scratchies are a retail product.

Digital migration has stalled, for now

Digital turnover fell 2.3% to $2,760 million. Retail turnover fell 3.8% to $3,787 million. Digital’s share of lottery turnover crept from 45.7% to 46.6%, and the share gains are shrinking each year: 2.3 points in FY24, 1.4 in FY25, 0.9 in FY26.

Digital sales have now gone backwards in dollars for two years running, from a jackpot-fuelled peak of $3,005 million in FY24. Retail still writes the majority of lottery turnover.

Before anyone celebrates, I have two cautions to share. Jackpot games skew digital, so a weak jackpot year flatters retail’s position. Some of this pause is mix, not migration reversing. And TLC’s strategy leaves no doubt about direction.

TLC describes itself as moving from a lottery operator to a digitally-led entertainment platform, calls digital its primary growth engine, is building a new app for 1H28 and wants to convert more than 4 million unregistered players into known, registered customers.

The shift online has slowed, not stopped.

What retailers should watch

A commission review is coming. In the FY27 priorities published by TLC is: “review retailer commission structure”. No detail is given. Individually and through our representative bodies, we need to engage early and argue for a structure that rewards service and performance rather than one that shrinks the pool

The network language has changed too. TLC now talks about its retail footprint as quality over quantity. Expect continued pressure on marginal outlets and higher expectations of those that stay. At 30 June 2026 there were 3,880 lottery outlets and 3,263 Keno venues, more than 7,100 points of distribution in all.

The channel is still valuable. TLC paid $637 million in commissions to retail and venue partners in FY26, and its CEO acknowledged those partners are primarily small businesses.

Price rises keep coming. Powerball went from $1.20 to $1.40 a game in November 2025 and held 63% of the increase. Set for Life goes from 60 cents to 70 cents in September 2026, with an Oz Lotto change slated for 1HFY28.

On integration, new terminals have been rolled out in NSW, the ACT and Queensland, with Victoria to follow. QR codes on unregistered tickets, digital prize claiming and Check & Collect blur the line between channels. Where TLC connects digital play back to a retailer, support it. Where it does not, ask why.

What I would do in-store

Nothing in these results changes my long-held advice. Don’t run a business reliant on lottery commission to survive. Lottery products bring traffic on thin margin, and around 30% of turnover from lottery commission is the most a well-balanced newsagency should rely on. Even though it is hard hard work, use the traffic to build baskets in cards, gifts and good margin categories. And watch that commission review like a hawk.

The point

TLC had a soft year because jackpots ran cold, not because Australians stopped playing. Digital sales fell and the migration online has stalled for now, while the company’s plans remain firmly digital. Retailers have been handed time and a warning in the same set of results. What we do with both is up to us.

General commentary, not financial advice.

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Lotteries

If you’re at Gift Fair in Melbourne

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Newsagency management

Takeaways from The Odyssey

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

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

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

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

Keep moving. Stay nimble. Get home.

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Newsagency management

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Newsagency management

What is a newsagency actually worth?

Third in the succession and exit series, and the foundation for everything that follows. Before you can plan a sale, a handover or a graceful close, you need a realistic number. This post explains how a buyer values your business, and why that figure has fallen.

Every conversation about selling starts with the same question, and most owners answer it wrong. They value the business on what they paid, what they need for retirement, or what a neighbour sold for a decade ago. None of those is the value.

A business is worth what a buyer will pay today. This cliche is true. For newsagencies, that number has fallen hard, and understanding why is the first step to a realistic exit.

Goodwill has thinned

For years a newsagency sold on a multiple of profit. Strong businesses fetched good goodwill because the income was reliable and the buyers were there.

That has changed. Print has declined. Lotteries have gone digital. Foot traffic that once came for the paper now comes for nothing. The reliable income a buyer used to pay a premium for is no longer reliable. In many cases the goodwill a seller expects simply is not there, because the future earnings a buyer is paying for look uncertain.

This is the hard truth behind the no-buyer businesses. The value did not disappear because the owner did anything wrong. The market changed underneath them.

What a buyer is really buying

A buyer pays for future profit, not past effort. When you value your shop, look through their eyes.

Sustainable profit is the core. Not turnover, and not the profit that only exists because you take no wage. A buyer wants the profit that remains after paying someone to do your job. That is the number a multiple gets applied to.

Not all income is equal. Agency income tied to declining categories is valued cautiously. Gift, card and stationery margin that the owner has built is valued more highly because it is defensible and growing. Two shops with the same profit can be worth very different amounts depending on where that profit comes from.

Lottery and agency lines are treated carefully. They bring traffic but thin margin, and the licences are not freely transferable. A buyer discounts income they cannot control.

Land is a separate question

Many owners confuse the value of the business with the value of the building they happen to own.

They are two assets. The business is worth its future profit. The property is worth what property is worth in your town. A shop that cannot be sold as a business can still hold a valuable building, and the two should be valued and sold separately. Do not let a weak business drag down how you think about strong real estate, or the reverse.

Getting a real number

Do not guess, and do not rely on hope. Get your accountant to prepare a defensible profit figure with the owner add-backs stripped out. Look at what comparable businesses have actually sold for recently, not what they were listed at. If the business is your main asset, pay for a proper valuation.

A realistic number, even a disappointing one, is worth more than an inflated one that keeps the shop unsold for two years.

The point

Your newsagency is worth what a buyer will pay for its future profit, valued category by category, with the property counted separately.

Face that number early. It tells you whether to sell, to build value first, to run under management, or to plan a graceful close. Every other decision in this series flows from it.

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Newsagency management

Why newsagency goodwill is not what it used to be

This is the first post in a  series on newsagency succession and exit. It sets the scene: why so many businesses now struggle to find a buyer. The posts that follow move from this hard diagnosis through valuation, preparing to sell, deal structures, family and partner succession, and finally closing and life after the shop.

The no-buyer businesses in this series share a root cause. The goodwill that once made a newsagency saleable has largely gone. Understanding why matters, because the reason is not the one most people reach for.

The easy explanation is that print died. It is not that simple, and the simple version leads owners to the wrong conclusions.

The numbers are real

The decline is not imagined. Newspaper unit sales in the businesses I track fell around 13% year on year in 2025, an acceleration on prior years. Magazine unit sales dropped roughly 10% across the board in the same period. Industry revenue has fallen at an annualised 5.2% over five years, and IBISWorld expects the decline to continue.

Lotteries, long the reliable traffic driver, are shifting too. More than 40% of lottery sales now move online, bypassing the shopfront entirely. The traffic a buyer used to bank on is thinning.

But print decline is not the real killer

Here is the part owners get wrong. The collapse in goodwill is not mainly about print falling. It is about businesses that stayed dependent on print while it fell.

The margin on print was always poor. A medium newsagency selling 50 copies a day of a major daily makes under $7,000 a year gross from it, and many newsagencies actually lose money on magazines once labour, space and theft are counted (). A business closing because print fell was, in my view, a business rooted in the past. The print wasn’t paying the bills anyway.

So the goodwill did not collapse because paper sales fell. It collapsed because too many owners built nothing to replace print, and a buyer will not pay goodwill for a shop with no defensible profit.

What a buyer sees

A buyer values future profit they can rely on. Look at the legacy newsagency through their eyes and the problem is obvious.

Declining, low-margin print. Lottery commission leaking online. Foot traffic that came for products now available elsewhere or on a phone. No strong, owner-built category throwing off real margin. There is nothing there to pay a premium for. The goodwill is gone because the future earnings are uncertain and thin.

That is the honest anatomy of a no-buyer business.

The lesson in the collapse

The healthy businesses tell the counter-story. A well-run modern newsagency should make less than 10% of turnover from print, around 30% from lottery commission, and 60% from gifts, homewares, books, toys and the like, categories delivering 50% and more gross profit ().

Those businesses have goodwill because they have defensible, growing profit. The ones with no buyer are, overwhelmingly, the ones that never made that shift.

The point

Goodwill collapsed in the businesses that stayed tied to print and lottery while both thinned, and that built nothing profitable in their place.

That is a hard message, but it is also a hopeful one. The businesses that did diversify still hold value and still sell. Which is the subject of the next post.

Footnote: it’s never to late to start diversifying.

Second footnote: I am seeing too many who think they have diversified and while they have changed, they have not change enough.

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newsagency of the future

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

Sales Rep Visits In-Store Are a Waste of Time in Most Cases I Think

How long do you give a sales rep who wants to meet to pitch a new range? I give them none. Send it to me in an email instead.

That’s not me being rude. It’s a decision I made after noticing how much time these visits were eating, and how little most of them changed what I actually stock. Twenty minutes here, forty there, add it up over a month and it’s a working day gone, mostly on ranges I was never going to take.

An email pitch has to work harder, and that’s the point. If you want my shelf space, tell me:

  • What the range actually is, in a few lines, not a slideshow. If it takes ten minutes to explain, it’ll take my customers longer to understand.
  • The evidence behind any claim you’re making, sales data, a case study, something I can check. “Retailers love it” isn’t evidence.
  • Who the target shopper is, specifically, not “everyone.”
  • How this range gets me in front of shoppers I’m not already reaching. Recycling the same faces already through my door doesn’t count.

A rep standing in my shop can talk around all four of those. An email can’t hide as easily, and it doesn’t cost me the time it takes to be polite while it happens.

Something else: a lot of rep visits are social, on purpose.

Reps and the companies behind them know retailers often buy from people they like, and that this counts for more in the decision than it should. A friendly half hour costs them nothing and buys a lot of goodwill, goodwill that shows up later as shelf space the product hasn’t earned.

So the question worth asking yourself: how much time do you actually spend with sales reps in an average month? And when did you last sit down and work out whether that time is buying you better ranges and more sales, or just buying the rep goodwill at your expense?

If you haven’t audited it, that’s the exercise. Not every visit is wasted, some earn their keep, but you won’t know which until you actually look.

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Newsagency management

“Support local” is a guilt trip, and it’s not working – are you wasting your time on it?

Walk down any street or go on social media and you’ll see the signs in the windows our read the words.

Support local. Shop small. Keep it in the community.

We say it to each other too and we say it to shoppers every chance we get.

It doesn’t work. It never has. I think a lot of us know that and keep doing it anyway, because it feels like we’re doing something.

The problem is what “support local” actually asks. It asks the customer to do you a favour. It puts your need in the middle of it, not theirs. Shop here because I need you to, because if you don’t I might not make it. Nobody wakes up wanting to prop up a struggling business. They wake up wanting a good card, a gift that works, a quick errand done well. You’re asking them to pay in guilt, and people don’t like paying in guilt.

It’s worse than just useless I think. It quietly tells the shopper you might be in trouble. It casts you as the underdog who needs a hand. That’s not a reason to come in. If anything it’s a reason to wonder how long you’ll be around. Are you looking for a pity party?

What does pull people in? The boring answer, and the true one. Being good at it.

Have the thing they actually came for. Know their name, and remember what they bought last time. Be quick when they’re in a rush and happy to chat when they’re not. Make the place a pleasure to walk into instead of a duty. People go back to shops that are good to them. They don’t go back out of pity. The few who come in once because they felt they should don’t come a second time.

Give them a reason that’s about them, not you. A range that’s worth the trip. Staff who know their stock cold. A shop that feels like a place rather than just a spot to hand over money. Do that and you never have to ask anyone to support local. They shop with you because you’re the better option, and they tell their mates, because people talk about a shop they love and nobody talks about a charity case they helped out.

Now the bit we don’t say out loud.

Plenty of the retailers shouting loudest about supporting local don’t do it themselves. Coffee from the drive-through chain. Printing ordered online because it was a few dollars cheaper. The weekly shop at one of the big two. Shopfittings, uniforms, the lot, bought from whoever came up first in a search, none of it from anyone nearby.

Walk into some of these shops and ask where they bank, where they buy their own gear, where they had lunch. The answer tells you the whole story. They want a loyalty they won’t hand over themselves.

Customers pick up on that. Maybe not in words, but they feel it. A shopkeeper who actually lives the line is convincing without a poster, because the whole shop runs on it. One who preaches it on the door and breaks it everywhere else is just another sign in a window.

So before you print the next poster, have a look at your own card statement. If you want a town where people choose the independent option, be that customer first. Spend up and down your own street. Use the local tradie, the local supplier, the cafe round the corner. Not out of guilt. Because it’s the world you keep saying you want, and you can’t ask anyone else to build it while your own money’s going somewhere else.

Be worth shopping at, and back the others having a go at the same thing. That’s the only version of supporting local I’ve ever seen actually work.

2 likes
Newsagency management

Not another boring EOFY post

No. Not from me.

You already know the required stuff. Run the stock listing, take the backup, ring the accountant. You’ve read that post a hundred times and you’ll read it a hundred more this week. I’m not adding to the pile.

What interests me today is the other list. The one you never write down. The jobs you keep meaning to get to and keep finding a reason not to. New financial year tomorrow, so it’s as good a night as any to stop dodging them.

Start with the dead stock. You know exactly what it is. You walk past it every day and your eye slides straight over it, because you stopped seeing it months ago. It’s been sitting there a year doing nothing. Mark it down hard, bundle it, give it away if that’s what it takes, but get it off the floor and put something that actually sells where it was.

Then have an honest look at your hours. Are you open at times nobody comes in, just because you always have been? In there from eight when the first real customer turns up at half nine? Trading Sundays for a figure that doesn’t cover the cost of being there? You can reorder stock. You can’t reorder the hours of your life, so spend them where they count.

The roster is the same question, and it’s a harder one because it’s about people you like. Are you rostering for the trade or for habit? Two on when one would cope? Be fair and be kind about it, but be straight with yourself about what each shift brings in.

Put your prices up. There, I’ve said it. You’ve been frightened of it for years, sure the customer will walk. Most won’t even notice. The few who do were never the ones keeping the lights on. You were never the cheap option and you were never going to win that fight, so stop pricing like you’re in it.

And bring in something mad, new. Something fresh, something with no business being in a newsagency, something that stops a regular in their tracks to ask what on earth it’s doing there. Back a hunch. Take the punt you’d usually talk yourself out of. Worst case, you mark it down next EOFY with the rest of the dead stock. At least you’ll know.

None of this is on the required list. That’s the whole point. Get one of these done and next year is genuinely better than this one, not just compliant.

So before you flip the calendar, pick one. Just the one. Be ruthless about it. Start the next when that’s sorted.

Happy new financial year.

6 likes
newsagency of the future

One sale, or three hundred newspapers

Sell a newspaper for $3.50 and you make about 12.5 per cent. That’s 44 cents in your hand. Sell a $250 item at 55 per cent and you make $137.50.

Do the division. One $250 sale is worth more than three hundred newspapers. You could sell a paper to every adult who walks past for a week and still not match what one good sale puts in the till.

We all know this. So why do we keep leaning on the 44 cents?

Because the paper is easy. The customer comes in, knows what they want, pays, leaves. No risk, no money tied up, nothing riding on your judgement. It feels like business because it’s busy. But busy isn’t the same as making money, and the newspaper proves that every single day.

The $250 sale is hard, and it’s hard in two ways we don’t talk about honestly.

You have to find the item first. That means backing your own read on a range, spending real money on stock that might just sit there, giving it decent space and light, and waiting. Some of it won’t work. You’ll buy the wrong thing now and then. That’s the price of playing in the part of the shop where the money actually is. The paper never asks any of that of you, which is exactly why it pays you 44 cents.

Then you have to find the shopper. And here’s the bit that stings. That shopper is already in your shop. They come in for the paper, or the lotto, or a birthday card. You see them twice a week. You know their name. It has just never crossed your mind that they’d spend $250 with you, because somewhere along the line you filed them as a paper buyer and left them there.

They’ve filed you too. Years of selling them a paper has taught them what you’re for. They don’t look at your good stock because they don’t think of you as the shop that sells it. So they buy the $250 thing somewhere else, from someone who bothered to see more in them than a paper sale.

That’s the real work. Not just buying the right product. Looking again at the people who are already in front of you, and shifting what they think you’re for.

The maths was never the hard part. The habit is.

Now, what is the gift item you sold was worth $1,500? yes, there are ‘newsagents’ doing this.

…
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.

8 likes
Newsagency management

To the newsagents standing still

I get it. Standing still feels comfortable. It’s what you know. You don’t have the money to do anything else. You don’t know what else to do anyway. So, you stand still, smile, take payment, wish them a good day and stand still waiting for the next customer. You do what you have to do to keep the doors open and toe lights on. And you do what suppliers tell you because you like having a plan,. But it’s all about standing still, because that’s where you’re comfortable.

The problem is the world is not standing still with you. Plenty in the newsagency channel aren’t standing still with you.

Newspaper sales fell 13% last year. Magazine revenue is contracting year on year. Lottery players are being pushed online — not by accident, but deliberately, by the people who run the lottery everywhere except WA. These are not temporary dips. They have been heading this way for years, and there is nothing on the horizon that reverses them.

A business standing still in a declining channel is not holding steady. It is losing ground at a pace that can feel like nothing, until one day the numbers make it impossible to ignore.

I have watched this play out many times. The newsagents who came through it well mostly started moving before they had to. Not a full overhaul. Not a rebrand. Just one deliberate change made while they still had cash flow and mental space to think clearly. Then another. Then another.

The ones who waited until the numbers forced their hand had a much harder time. Less room. More pressure. Fewer options on the table.

Here is what I also know. Most newsagents standing still are not standing still because they are complacent. They are standing still because nobody has shown them a credible first step that fits their situation. The advice they get is either too vague to act on or comes attached to a supplier wanting an order.

here’s the thing:

If you have floor space allocated to a category that is declining, measure what it is actually earning per square metre. Not what it used to earn. What it earned last month. If that number is low, you have a decision to make about what replaces it — and there are categories with real consumer demand that most newsagencies do not stock yet.

If you have not looked at your average transaction value in the past six months, look at it. If it is flat or falling, your existing customers are not buying more. That is a product mix problem, not a foot traffic problem.

If you do not know which 20% of your range is generating 80% of your margin, finding that out is the most valuable hour you will spend this month.
None of this costs money. It costs attention.

You do not have to change everything. But changing nothing, in a business where the core categories are structurally declining, is a decision with consequences. It just does not feel like one because the consequences arrive slowly.

If you want a conversation about where to start — specific to your store, your situation, your numbers — reach out directly. No pitch. No agenda beyond helping you find a way forward.

…
Mark Fletcher is the CEO of newsXpress and founder of Tower Systems, a POS software company serving independent retailers across Australia. mark@newsxpress.com.au | 0418 321 338

1 likes
newsagency of the future

Why a stocktake matters more than ever for newsagents in this year, 2026

The newsagency channel is in transition. Most newsagents know this. The question is not whether to change, but how well-equipped you are to make the right changes for your specific business.

That is where a stocktake comes in — and why skipping it this year is a more costly decision than it might appear.

Accurate stock one hand data is critical to your success over the next year.

Your data is the map

If you are thinking about evolving your product mix — reducing reliance on print, building out gifts, collectibles, plush, or other higher-margin categories — you need to know exactly what you have and how it is performing. Not roughly. Not from memory. Accurately.

A stocktake gives you that. It makes the map honest.

Too many newsagents will not  do a stocktake this year, and this will hurt them.

Without accurate stock on hand data, every category decision you make is a guess. You might think a range is performing because it looks busy on the shelf. The data might tell a different story. You will not know until the numbers are clean.

AI insights are only as good as the data behind them

The  Tower Systems newsagency software surfaces AI-powered insights in the software (yes in the software – no, you don’t have to safe a report as a PDF and use AI externally, this is IN the software)  to help retailers make better decisions. Which lines to reorder. Which to cut. Where margin is quietly leaking.

Those insights depend entirely on accurate stock data. Feed the software bad data and you get bad insights. Feed it clean data and it starts to work for you in ways that genuinely change how you run the business.

A stocktake is not a software task. It is a business decision.

The transition question

Newsagencies that are successfully evolving share a common trait: they know their numbers. They know what is selling, what is not, what is tying up cash on a shelf and going nowhere.

That knowledge does not come from instinct. It comes from data. And that data starts with a stocktake.

If you are planning to shift space from magazines to gifts, you need to know what the magazines are actually contributing — not what you assume they are contributing. If you are considering a new product category, you need to understand the dead stock risk in your existing ranges first.

Accurate stock data does not make the decisions for you. But it means the decisions you make are grounded in reality.

June is the right month

With EOFY on June 30, the timing could not be better. A stocktake done now gives you clean data for your end of year reporting, a clear picture of what to carry into the new financial year, and a foundation for the category decisions ahead.

You do not have to count everything at once. Count a section a day. By June 30 you will have numbers you can trust.

The newsagency businesses that thrive through this transition will be the ones making decisions from accurate data. The stocktake is where that starts.

4 likes
Newsagency management

The Iran Situation Has Pushed Up the Cost of Stock. Newsagents Need to Respond.

The conflict involving Iran has pushed up fuel costs globally. Those costs flow through the supply chain quickly. Newsagents are seeing it on their invoices right now.

The most common approach from suppliers is a fuel surcharge, added as a percentage on top of the order total. From what I am seeing, these surcharges range from 5% to 20%. Some suppliers are also lifting product prices directly, separate from any surcharge. That means some newsagents are absorbing both — a higher base price and a surcharge on top of it.

That is a significant hit to margin, especially for businesses already operating on thin returns.

Some suppliers are already on their third increase.

Passing the Cost On Is Not Optional

I do not think newsagents have much choice here. Absorbing these increases is not sustainable. The business has to cover its costs to survive. That means prices need to reflect the current cost of doing business.

Raising prices is never comfortable. Customers notice. Some push back. But the alternative — holding prices while margins shrink — is a path toward serious financial stress.

The adjustment does not need to be dramatic. A modest, consistent increase across relevant product lines is usually enough to recover most of the additional cost without triggering significant customer reaction.

Transparency Matters

What I think matters most right now is being honest with customers about why prices have moved.

Most people understand that global events affect the cost of goods. Fuel prices are in the news. Supply chain pressure is not a new concept. If you explain briefly and calmly that your costs have increased due to higher fuel surcharges from suppliers, most customers will accept it.

A short note at the counter, a line on your receipts, or a post on your social media page is enough. You are not making excuses. You are being straightforward about your situation.

Having the Australia Post price increase announcements handy is a good move to legitimise your move.

What to Watch

This will not resolve quickly. The situation in the Middle East remains unsettled, and freight and fuel costs are unlikely to fall in the short term. Review your supplier invoices carefully. Track the surcharges being applied. And make sure your pricing reflects the reality of what you are paying.

Running a newsagency well means managing costs tightly and pricing honestly. Right now, both of those things require the same response.

4 likes
Newsagency management

Where is the best place to buy greeting cards in Australia?

The local newsagency near to you is likely to be the best place to buy greeting cards in Australia and here is why:

  1. Range. Typically the local newsagency will have a better range of cards for a deeper range of captions. The bigger the range the more options you have for find the card you will love giving and they will love receiving.
  2. Ease of shopping. The local newsagency will typically offer more space for comfortable shopping. You can browse easily, take your time and not get pushed by people in the aisles.
  3. Customer service. In the local newsagency, human delivered customer service is not far away. You know the owner of the shop has curated the range for local shoppers – not some office person in another state, or overseas.
  4. More likely Australian made. Local Australian newsagents are more likely to stock locally made cards. If local jobs matter to you, this is important. Locally made cards not only support local jobs, they reflect Australian words and sentiments more so than any card designed and made overseas.
  5. Local. Shop in the local newsagency and more of what you spend stays in the local community and if you live in the local community this will matter to you.
  6. Loyalty. Many local Australian newsagencies offer a loyalty program that helps you save money on cards. Ask and find out if there are loyalty options that suit you.

While you could consider buying cards from a discount shop, supermarket or big department store, it is the local newsagency where you will find more satisfaction we think and we say this as newsagents ourselves. We take pride in the cards we choose for the shop, how they are displayed and the value they offer our customers.

So, when you need a greeting card for a birthday or some other occasion, shop at a local Australian newsagency and see for yourself the difference available to you. And, if you’re not happy, let them know, so they can improve their card offer for local shoppers.

Plenty of newsagents will offer you a pen for writing on the card and even sell you a stamp to make posting the card easy.

4 likes
Uncategorized

Advice for retailers on navigating the Winter “valley of death”

Mother’s Day has almost passed and another tradition begins, the valley of death for too many retailers. I’ve call June, July, and August the “Valley of Death” for small retail businesses for years. These three months lack a major seasonal peak. There is no Easter, Mother’s Day, or Father’s Day to drive organic foot traffic.

The quiet of winter is not new information. We know it happens every year. However, knowing it is coming is different from being prepared for it. This period is where businesses either thrive or struggle. You still have rent to pay. Your staff costs remain. Overheads do not stop just because the shop is quiet.

In a new short video from me (https://youtu.be/-Zf6L4EtlZ8), I discuss how to stay proactive during this desert. You can watch it here:

Which Retailers are at Most Risk During the “Valley of Death”?
Retailers who rely own the major seasons (Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day) are the ones at most risk, the retailers who rely on these seasons to bring people through the door. Think gift shops and home decor shops that don’t stand for something outside of the seasons. Okay, some of these retailers will say they do stand for something, only shopper traffic can prove that.

Another way to consider this question is through listening to the retailers who complain the most about how slow business is after Mother’s Day. They are the retailers at risk IMHO.

While it may come off as offensive, if a retailer complains about how quiet trade is, ask what they are doing about it. They can fix it, it may take some time and creativity is all.

Stop the “Busy Season” Hangover: How to Attract Shoppers to Your Shop When It’s Quiet
It is tempting to relax after a busy season. You might feel you deserve a break. However, retail requires constant momentum. You must have a plan to lift traffic to your store and your website.

Fresh Eyes, Fresh Shop
Your front window must be your best asset. Change it every week. At a minimum, change it every fortnight. The front third of your shop needs a regular refresh. Customers looking through the door should see something different every time they pass.

The Power of Simple Events
Many retailers avoid events because they seem like hard work. Do not let laziness dictate your success. Events do not need to be complex or expensive.

Consider a “favourite greeting card” wall. Ask customers to bring in a card they have kept for years. This shows the emotional value of physical cards. It highlights the difference between a card and a text message.

Alternatively, try a “colour block” event. Choose a bright colour like orange or yellow. Group every product of that colour in a front-of-store display. Partner with a local bakery for themed cupcakes. It is a simple way to bring vibrancy to a grey winter day. This idea is easy to implement and a favourite because each time I do the colour block I discover things, and my customer do too.

Taking Action Now
Plan the next three months. Run an event every two or three weeks. Give locals a reason to visit. A vibrant shop is a successful shop. Do not get stuck in the valley. Take action today to ensure your business remains viable and engaging.

Or Play the Victim
I know of retailers who will complain through winter, about how quiet it is, how tough things are. If they put as much energy into working on attracting people to their shop as they complain it’s possible they’d have nothing to complain about.

We all get to make a choice this winter. My advice is that you make the choice to do some things you have never done before. My hope is that these things help you achieve good results for your business that excite you.

…
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.

19 likes
Newsagency management

An unfair and smart advantage: AI tools built for independent retail

newsXpress has deploying purpose-built AI tools to help member businesses make faster, smarter decisions — without needing a consultant or an IT team.

Margins are tighter than ever, consumer expectations keep rising, and the big chains have access to data and technology that most small operators can only dream about.

It can feel lonely and stressful when you see what others are doing to be more competitive.

I think that gap should close for indie retailers, especially newsagents. It’s why I have why I have invested in a suite of AI-powered tools — built specifically for newsXpress member businesses — that put professional-grade analysis and strategic thinking directly in the hands of small business retailers.

These are not generic chatbots. They are purpose-built AI skills, each trained to handle a specific challenge that independent retailers face every day.

It’s taken months of assessment of different LLMs, consideration of prompting options and the capacity for niche retail channel training. Then it took time for deep testing, refining, and more testing.

The result is an initial kit of AI skills that make expert insights far more readily available for our channel.

“The same quality of strategic advice that used to require a consultant and a five-figure fee is now available to every newsXpress member.”

Three tools making a real difference.

Why this matters for your business

Independent retailers have always competed on service and community connection. AI doesn’t change that. What it does is remove the bottleneck of time and expertise when it comes to analysis, strategy, and planning.

A financial health report that once took days — and a trusted accountant — can now be generated in minutes. A rebrand strategy that required a branding agency can be explored instantly. A website audit that demanded specialist knowledge is now a URL away. These are just some of the examples.

This is not about replacing good judgement. It’s about giving you better information to act on — faster.

What’s next

These tools are live and available to newsXpress members now. There is no cost. We’re continuing to build out the suite based on member feedback, with more category-specific and seasonal tools coming throughout 2026.

No gimmick, this is practical use of AI

While there are plenty of AI gimmicks out there, including in our channel, what I am sharing here is real. These tools have already delivered commercial value to newsXpress members. They are making a difference at a time when that matters.

Oh, and I have used these tools to help newsagents not in newsXpress.

…

Here’s the pitch

These tools are just one part of what newsXpress offers independent retailers across Australia. Members also gain access to preferred suppliers, marketing support, seasonal campaigns, and a network of like-minded business owners. If you’re running a newsagency, gift shop, or garden centre and want a genuine edge, it’s worth a conversation. Visit newsxpress.com.au to find out more.

4 likes
Newsagency marketing group

Why some newsagents will outperform others this Mother’s Day

Major seasons are important in newsagencies and card shops. Customer traffic spikes as infrequent card shoppers visit for their seasonal card. Mother’s Day is the second best season of the year.

This year, some newsagents will do better than others. I say that based on the sales data I have seen from major card seasons over the last two years.

Businesses running an appealing in-store competition with good collateral and backed by social media content will be the winners. This video speaks to the newsXpress Seasonal Edge program and it shows why it works: https://youtu.be/Ll3rrtT6WSs

So, it’s the curated gift pack, in-store promotion, social media support and backend management advice. All of this comes together supporting 10%, 15% and 20% sales lift of cards for the season. There is plenty to this that makes it hard to copy.

It’s free for the retailers. Hassle-free, too.

Yes, I’m pitching newsXpress here. No other marketing group offers anything like this local in-store activation program. I’m doing so because I want to see more newsagencies thrive.

newsXpress handles the curation, the supplier relationships, and the logistics, so newsXpress members can focus on what they do best: serving their customers. Watch to see the newsXpress difference in action and learn how we empower independent retailers to achieve extraordinary results.

Since everyone gets the same prize pack, there is an opportunity to compare engagement, compete on the best display, drive the best commercial outcome. members also provide feedback on future promotions.

The Seasonal Edge program drives foot traffic and increases card sales, a high-margin category for traditional newsagencies and gift retailers.

newsXpress Provides participating members with professionally curated prize packs for major events like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day, and Christmas. These packs, which retail for up to $500, are provided to members at no cost, allowing them to run high-impact competitions that excite their local community.

The Father’s Day prize has already been announced and it is the best yet.

Ultimately, the newsXpress Seasonal Edge program is more than just a marketing tool; it is a testament to how independent retailers can level the playing field through collaboration and innovation. By removing the logistical hurdles of sourcing and setup, we empower our members to deliver high-impact, community-focused experiences that drive 15% to 20% category growth.

Whether it is through luxury curated prizes or the seamless “strut card” system, newsXpress ensures that local stores can stop worrying about the “how” and start focusing on the “who”, their customers.

Does Seasonal Edge save a newsagency? No, not of itself. But, it is a piece of a broader jigsaw that provide a business with opportunities through which they can thrive, and that;’s got to be the focus of 2026 – thriving, for sure!

6 likes
newsagency marketing

Thinking of Buying a Newsagency? Here is Your Due Diligence Checklist

Buying a newsagency or any retail shop is a big step. The channel offers both opportunities and challenges right now. You must ensure the price is justifiable.

It should not be an emotional decision. You are investing your hard-earned money. You need a return on that investment.

When I assess a business, I want specific evidence. If a seller cannot provide this, I remain sceptical.

Here’s a new video from me about this:

Here is the kit of information you should request, as covered in the video.

The Financial Evidence

Demand the profit and loss (P&L) statements for the last three years. These should come directly from their accounting software. Do not accept “ad-backs” or “magical” broker adjustments at face value [00:39].

Match this with sales data from their point of sale (POS) system. I also suggest asking for their tax returns for the same period [00:55]. You are looking for a consistent narrative between what they tell the tax office and what they tell you.

Stock and Staff

Check the current stock on hand. I also want to know the age of that stock. I will not pay full wholesale for items older than six months [01:34]. That is not your problem to fix.

Review the roster and employee details. Understand their long service leave and other legal obligations. You need to know exactly what you are taking on [01:48].

Assessing the Risks

Consider how much the business depends on external factors. Lotteries are migrating online [03:45]. Newspapers and magazines are seeing annual declines [03:50]. Factor these risks into your valuation.

Determining the Price

A business is only worth what someone is prepared to pay. Do not focus on the asking price. Focus on what the evidence tells you it is worth [04:44].

Some owners hold out for high prices based on what they paid years ago. That is their issue to process, not yours. Your goal is to pay the least amount possible for a viable future [06:18].

Final Advice

Ask for all this information to be delivered at once. Avoid being drip-fed data [07:28]. Take your time. Be thoughtful.

New owners are the future of this industry, no matter what we call our businesses. I want to see you start on the best possible terms.

…
Mark Fletcher founded newsagency software company Tower Systems and is the CEO of newsXpress, a marketing group serving innovative independent retailers 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
buying a newsagency
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