newsXpress Melton at the Woodgrove Shopping Centre in Melton was a lucky place to shop last week.

The That’s Life! fairy visited newsXpress Melton and surprised one lucky customer with a chequer as part  of the Random Acts of Kindness campaign being run by the magazine.

newsXpress Melton is in a temporary location in the shopping centre at Melton pending the opening of a new, larger, shop in the centre.  If you live in Melton be sure to drop in to say g’day to Ian and the team.  They have great deals on ink, a fantastic range of cards and a magazine deal which will bring you back for more magazines.

In addition to being a lucky place to shop, newsXpress Melton is known for great customer service and great value.

newsXpress has appointed Michael Elvey to the role of Business Development Manager of Victoria and Tasmania.

Michael brings more than twelve years experience working in newsagencies in an operational capacity and helping newsagencies in a senior management role with Tower Systems.

“I have had the privilege of working with Michael in newsXpress newsagencies over the last two weeks in NSW and Victoria and have seen his expertise first-hand. His knowledge and approach to helping our members will help newsXpress grow in Victoria and Tasmania.” said Roger Bortfield, NSW/ACT Business Development Manager.

In the business development role, Michael will help newsXpress members develop more successful businesses around the exclusive strategies offered by newsXpress nationally through regular in-store meetings with newsXpress members.

“Michael has the knowledge and discipline necessary to helping newsXpress members and newsXpress as a company maintain its position as the strongest newsagency retail group in Australia. He is a welcome addition to our team.” said Graham Randall, Managing Director of newsXpress Pty Ltd.

Michael Elvey commenced his new role with newsXpress today.

newsXpress has shipped out twenty Nintendo Wii to newsXpress stores where customers won a Wii as part of our Back To School competition.  Entry was only through a specially developed facility on our corporate website.  We then randomly selected the winners and notified each along with details on how to collect the prize.  The full winner list was published in The Australian over a week ago.

The Nintendo Wii competition has made twenty customers very happy, participating members happy with a successful promotion and our web developer happy to bring so much extra traffic to our new website.

newsXpress is embracing the Internet in a range of ways to help our member newsagents more effectively connect with their communities and to find new customers.  Our back To School competition was part of a much larger strategy.

newsXpress supports its in-store training of newsagents with documentation in the form of advice sheets.  These are useful for newsagents to share with staff engaged in executing newsXpress strategies.  They act as a library of support materials for our members, documenting the newsXpress point of difference in many areas.

We review our advice sheets regularly and release new versions to reflect changes accordingly.  This commitment to constant review and improvement is important in any best-practice operation.

From the perspective of our members, they can rely on having access to up-to-date written advice for implementing key newsXpress offers and points of difference.

We rely on advice from our members as to topics they would like to see covered in future advice sheets.

Our first online members meeting for 2009 scheduled for next week is fully subscribed.  We will announce a second meeting for the following week - to give members unable to participate in the first session to work on their business in this innovative way with us.

The feedback facilities at our new newsXpress website are being enjoyed by customers and visitors.  Plenty are clicking on Contact Us and completing a simple to form to provide feedback on our offers and store-level experiences.  We respond to enery contact and involve specific newsXpress store members if appropriate. 

The contact us facilities on our new website are another way newsXpress is leading the newsagency channel on customer service and pursuing its for customers to experience the difference. 

Our website will continue to evolve with new facilities currently under development.

Booking to attend member meetings will be easier this year for newsXpress members.  Next week, we release an update to our new website and which delivers the ability for members to book online to attend a member’s meeting.  This saves newsXpress members having to fax or call. 

Booking though our website will be faster, cheaper and easier - benefits which demonstrate what newsXpress is about in its dealings with its members.  we are helping our members experience the difference.

Watch for more innovation from our new website over the coming months.

Our team is heading off early today to a well earned break with family and friends over Christmas.  Our offices will be closed from this afternoon until Monday December 29.  Our usual after-hours numbers are all available if any member or supplier needs to make urgent contact.

From our family to yours … have a wonderful Christmas!

Branding is important to the newsXpress family.  We seek to provide opportunities to brand beyond the traditional newsagency style branding, to promote our unique selling proposition.

We have completed art for posters for use in-store for locations yet to complete a newsXpress shopfit or to supplement existing in-store signage.  These A2 double sided colour posters are also useful when our members need to promote newsXpress outside their business.

We understand that change is important in retail and have committed to providing our members with fresh supplementary branding materials regularly. 

These new posters will be released early in 2009 and are further evidence of our commitment to help our members position their businesses for range, service and smiles.

The newsXpress national merchandise team has been on the road for almost two weeks meeting with members in three states who specialise in product categories we see as growth opportunities in 2009.  Meeting with newsXpress members in their stores has provided our back office team with store level insights which will be reflected in merchandise plans for 2009.

newsXpress appreciates the time given and valuable insights shared by our members in the meetings.  It is through co-operation such as this that we are able to better serve our members and help other members new to growth categories.

The newsXpress Things To Do Today pads developed by newsXpress for members to giveaway tto customers are proving to be a hit.  These pads are personalised to each newsXpress business including full contact details.  Members are reporting wonderful customer feedback when they provide the pad as a gift.  We have some members posting these with their end of year accounts and others handing them to customers over the counter. 

The pads are a low cost high reward mechanism for showing appreciation for custom through the year.  They are exclusive to newsXpress - we designed and executed this project in-house.  The pad project is another way newsXpress helps member newsagents show apprecaition of customers and thereby take another step to building a stronger business.

newsXpress is a big picture newsagency marketing group with plenty of micro focus in execution.  While the pads in themselves are not big picture marketing, they represent a small and vital step in a big picture approach to exceptional customer service and apprecaition.

Roger and Lesley Bortfield are in Darwin this week working with local newsXpress members – providing training and in-store support around newsXpress strategies. 

The visits are provided as part of the newsXpress commitment to provide stock in-store support for our members and their employees.  This in-store face to face contact is vital in reinforcing the newsXpress difference, a difference which we know results in good financial benefits for members.

Thanks to their years of experience owning and operating newsagencies, Roger and Lesley provide excellent practical assistance which enhances the newsXpress offer.

We held our final members meeting for the year yesterday in Brisbane. Even though our stores are well into Christmas it was a good opportunity to talk about the first quarter of 2009 and have an open forum with our Brisbane based members. We also outlined our activity around compliance behind the newsXpress brand and the importance of this for member businesses and our group as a whole.

Having a group which can commit nationally to suppliers and to deliver consistent marketing, in-store presence and ranging is a poi t of difference newsXpress cultivates.

We had an excellent members meeting in Perth yesterday where we reviewed 2008 and discussed plans for 2009.  We shared details of several exclusive and valuable offers and discussed the details of forthcoming marketing initiatives.  Western Australia is a strong market for newsXpress.  Newsagents are welcoming our newsagency marketing group offer given the point of difference it provides.

Representing newsXpress yesterday was our National Sales Manager, Karen Sutton, our National Merchandise Manager, Ben Kay, our Card specialist Ron Thorpe and our Directors Graham Randall and Mark Fletcher.  The depth of this team demonstrates our commitment to the West Australian marketplace.

In another first for the newsagency channel, newsXpress hosted the first of a series of Greeting Card training workshops yesterday in Melbourne. The Making Money from Greeting Cards workshop was run by Ron Thorpe, one of the most experienced greeting card professionals in Australia. This workshop now moves to Brisbane later this week.

Packed with practical advice, this session provided attendees with a clear action-plan for greeting cards in their newsagencies. Part of this action-plan was developed through two interactive sessions with newsagents sharing ideas with others.

Too often, newsagents leave greeting cards to be managed by their card company. Over the course of half a day, Ron shared practical strategies which newsXpress members can use to work this category to greater commercial advantage. His advice was drawn from decades of experience with Hallmark and a thorough knowledge of worldwide best practice in greeting card retail.

newsXpress has developed this workshop as another way the group helps members achieve a better return from their businesses and thereby improve the sale value when it comes time to exit from the business.

newsXpress newsagents can expect to achieve more from the Greeting Card category than an average newsagency. This is, in part, thanks to having Ron Thorpe on our team and delivering training like the workshop yesterday.

newsXpress has set its final round of member meetings for 2008.  Following today’s Victoria member meeting, Graham Randall, Mark Fletcher, Ben Kay and local newsXpress team members will host member meetings in Brisbane (Nov. 11), Sydney (Nov. 13) and Perth (Nov. 18).  These member meetings will recap some content from our National Conference, preview Christmas 2008 and Back To School, discuss several new supplier offers and provide training is some exclusive newsXpress intellectual property which we know will drive good business outcomes.

Our member meetings are open to newsXpress members as well as to newsagents seriously considering joining the growing newsXpress community.  They are a great way to assess the value of newsXpress to a business and to experience the transparency of the group first-hand.

Belinda Adshead, our new Queensland based Business Development Manager has been on the road for the last two weeks, meeting newsXpress members and getting to know their businesses. Pictured in the photo with Belinda (right) and Vanessa and Nia from newsXpress Lowood.

Our Business Development Managers play an integral on-the-ground role with our members developing business strategies, acting ads a sounding board and helping implement newsXpress initiatives. Belinda is well equipped to help in this thanks to her years working a busy newsXpress newsagency.

Armed with newsXpress exclusive strategies and backed by Head Office resources in a range of areas, our on-the-road team plays a key road in the performance of newsXpress newsagencies.

We are proud to have hosted our first online newsXpress members meeting today.  Ben Kay, our National Merchandise Manager, presented our Back To School and Christmas campaigns to members participating from their own businesses around the country.  He also took questions about these and other merchandise initiatives from the group. Being online, people can participate in these meetings from anywhere.  While online member meetings will never replace our face to face meetings, they are an excellent supplement for people who cannot attend or for businesses owners to involve employees without a high travel and time cost.

newsXpress is proud to be the first newsagent marketing group to host an online members meeting. This industry-first will be held tomorrow, Thursday, at 10am. The meeting will cover:

• newsXpress Back to School
• newsXpress Christmas Promotion
• Open forum for questions and comments from members regarding the Back to School and Christmas Promotions

We will bring together members from across the country who would otherwise have to travel some distance to participate in a members meeting. Hosting this and future online events is another way newsXpress is showing leadership by helping newsagents build better businesses.

We are following up our National Conference with member meetings in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. These will recap conference highlights, outline back to school and other forthcoming campaigns and preview several key initiatives. They will also provide an excellent opportunity for member dialogue with the newsXpress Directors and senior staff.

The first members meeting will be in Melbourne on October 16. Any newsagent considering joining newsXpress is most welcome to attend – it is a good opportunity to see the group in action and hear about our plans for an exciting 2009.