newsXpress stores are making the most of the Back to School opportunity by including products like the Cheeki drink bottles in key traffic locations – as shown in the photo from newsXpress Riverlink in Queensland.  This placement attracts impulse purchases of the safe Cheeki water bottles – adding nice margin dollars to a back to school purchase.

newsXpress supports this engagement not only with Cheeki water bottles but also other products for the BTS season from newsXpress preferred suppliers.

newsXpress Riverlink is promoting Back to School in a big and bold product-focused display in-store. The display gives the impression that no matter what you could need, they would have it in stock. The store looks wonderful and filled. They have  connected with the newsXpress collateral blackboard theme and used this elsewhere to promote their Back to School range.

The result of the big and bold Back to School display at newsXpress Riverlink? Sales are up more than 400%.  This is excellent and there is plenty of time left to run in the Back to School season.

part of the success is due to the non traditional Back to School products sourced by newsXpress for newsXpress members.

newsXpress stores across Australia have been busy setting up Back to School since right after Christmas.

We have members doing complete booklists for local schools through to others filling in needs for individual parents. Right across the board newsXpress is supporting members with access to the regular lines as well as basket-building impulse lines which will help school kids have a point of difference this year.

Beyond providing access to a wonderful range of products from preferred suppliers, newsXpress is supporting Back to School with professional promotion in-store through newsXpress Radio as well as with excellent marketing collateral.

newsXpress stores embracing the GNS $uper Stationery Sale are enjoying access to newsXpress branded collateral for the seasonal stationery sale.  Offering a range of branded stationery items at competitive prices, participating newsXpress members are using the sale to drive new customer traffic.  Deals like Reflex paper for $4.75, and four Faber Castell highlighters for $2.49 are seen by shoppers as excellent deals.

The 16 page $uper Stationery Sale catalogue is all about combating the consumer view that newsagencies are expensive.  It is proving to be an excellent opportunity for newsXpress members to promote their price offer and through this attract new shoppers.

newsXpress appreciates the opportunity of working with GNS on the promotion.

newsXpress Garbutt in Townsville has a terrific stationery department offering a broad range of product in an easily accessible layout.  Centred with strong newsXpress branding, the experience for customers is wonderful.  Being able to fund such an excellent range of stationery in regional Australia can be a challenge.  the team at newsXpress Garbutt brings to their town a shopping experience which would put many capital city based newsagentrs to shame.  Well done!

newsXpress Ballarat has a terrific Back to School season with excellent business as a result of their bold and wide ranging BTS display.

The Back to School display was well laid out, easy to shop, offering compelling pricing and backed by good product knowledge.

Well done to everyone involved at newsXpress Ballarat.

newsXpress stores across our group have reported good sales for Back to School 2011.  We are sure this will be a discussion point among members when they get together at our mini conferences starting next week.

newsXpress provides members with easy to use templates for creating professional shelf talkers and other visual merchandise materials.  These templates empower stores to set prices appropriate to their local situation but to do this in a way which represents the business as part of the national; newsXpress network.  The photo shows part of the stationery department at newsXpress Yarram in Victoria – they make excellent use of these resources by creating a professional looking stationery department.

Since opening their doors in Mid November, newsXpress Redcliffe in Brisbane’s Northern suburbs have embraced new suppliers and newsXpress plannograms.

The ‘Sorted’ range by hiPP.com.au allows newsXpress members to compete with other retailers in the home office/fashion stationery category, appealing to a large market with lever arch folders, notebooks, magazine files, storage boxes and much more.

As well as this impressive feature display in the front of the store, newsXpress Redcliffe have ranged the product into their permanent fixture utilising the plannogram developed jointly by hiPP.com.au and the newsXpress Merchandise team.

newsXpress Toronto have embraced the industry first newsXpress promotion which will give one lucky customer a brand new Toyotoa Yaris by strongly featuring the newsXpress marketing material at the front of their store as customers enter and exit.

In addition to the effort they are putting in to this newsXpress marketing event, The newsXpress Toronto team have also reported they are recording exceptional sales for the BTS SBG Spencil range of book coverings as introduced in this blog post.

One of the benefits of being a member of a pro-active newsagency group such as newsXpress is the access to professional promotional marketing materials and related product. newsXpress Wetherill Park perfectly illustrated the correct manner in which to both encourage sales and create an easy shopping experience for their customers by linking common merchandising principles and using the marketing materials supplied in both an in-store and outpost application.

The SBG Spencil book coverings, impulse highlighters and subsidiary product featured at this power end complement the binders, display folders, exercise books and sheet protectors merchandised in their outpost.

newsXpress Castle Towers have been able to negotiate a long standing agreement with their centre management to monopolise the expansive outpost area for major promotional seasons including Christmas and Back to School.

As the photo shows, customers are drawn to the compelling merchandising display through the clever use of newsXpress supplied marketing materials in conjunction with the store’s own banners.

The team at newsXpress Roselands take great advantage of the outpost opportunities afforded retailers in their large shopping centre. The image to the left shows an illustration of the range and quantity of stock they are able to merchandise to attract greater sales.

The old adage of ‘stack them high, watch the fly’ works in practice for Vinay and the team at newsXpress Roselands.

The team at newsXpress Macarthur Square are winding up their BTS promotion for another year and have enjoyed great success with their bulk merchandising and prominent use of the newsXpress supplied marketing materials.

They have in particular taken advantage of the busy Campbelltown shopping centre with their strong presentation of exercise books and writing pads as seen on the trestle table to the left.

Now that Christmas and New Year are over, many newsXpress locations are busy today creating excellent displays in support of their Back to School campaign.  We support the GNS Back to School campaign and supplement this with our own (GNS supported) newsXpress exclusive Back to School campaign.

Across both campaigns, newsXpress locations are set to enjoy tremendous success from Back to School 2010.  The brochures delivered to hundreds of thousands of homes and the excellent product deals will drive excellent traffic.

The planogram of quality Maped products is driving sales at our new newsXpress store at Knox City Shopping Centre.  Maped is a brand consumers trust.  Being a brand-focused business, as newsXpress is, it was natural that we support such a strong brand in our corportae store.  What makes the Maped range especially pop is the new fixturing from Interfit which enables more effiicient loading of product than on traditional slatwall.  We are able to easily expand or contract planograms as we may find we need based on sales.

More newsXpress locations are installing the Sorted range from hiPP.  There are three planogram sizes for this excellent home office / organisation product.  As the photo from one of our stores shows, the planogram looks professional and neatly fits a good range of product.

We like the Sorted range because it takes us into new product categories – yes, this range is about more than one product category.  Sorted  broadens the appeal of newsXpress locations and gives existing customers more products with which to extend their shopping.  This is a great basket efficiency story.

newsXpress is pleased to have introduced the Sorted range to the newsagency channel.

newsXpress gives its members the option of when they want their Back To School campaign kicks in. For some, that is about now. This is why we have provided back To School brochures and other collateral to these members. They are chasing orders for the 2010 year prior to the end of this year. Our Back To School catalogue continues the newsXpress commitment to brands with UHU, O’BON, Maped, Artline, uni, Post-it, Canson, Pentel and Crayola all well represented.

The newsXpress Back To School catalogue also offers twilight themed product – because we recognise that school is not all about work and no play.

The sorted range from hiPP has been introduced by newsXpress Leongatha to extend their home office / organisational products range. newsXpress is proud to be working closely with hiPP on the introduction of this new range of products to the newsagency channel.

Our merchandise team saw early on the value leading newsXpress members into a new product niche. newsXpress Leongatha, terrific business innovators, did not take much convincing to embrace the sorted range.

newsXpress locations introducing sorted from hiPP are doing so following a planogram developed to professionally and efficiently represent the whole range.

In another first, newsXpress is pleased to be participating in the national launch of sorted, a range of home office organisation products from hiPP.  Many months in the making, newsXpress has played a key role in bringing this product to market.  Planogrammed to tell a bold brand-based story in newsXpress and selected other retailers, sorted places newsXpress into a new niche which straddles stationery, office products and gifts.  As one customer said recently, this is Smiggle for adults.

Bringing sorted to market is another example of innovation from newsXpress and our proactive group of partner suppliers.  The good margin range will drive new traffic and extend the basket of shoppers.  It provides an excellent point of difference for newsXpress locations and newsXpress as a group.

newsXpress retailers are benefiting from proactive suppliers investing in the development and deployment of planograms which professionally represent their product.  The photo shows the UHU Glue Centre planogram at newsXpress Riverlink.  UHU has been terrific to work with in finessing the range and developing a planogram which is efficient in space use and proactive in pitching what sells easily in our type of retail situations.

newsXpress is proud to lead on this planogram initiative and thankful to have a great group of suppliers, like UHU, working with our Merchandise team to bring certain success to our retail network.  Planograms are new to newsagencies – they are key to our future success.