Join the Evolution
Membership for independent retailers who want a future beyond the traditional newsagency.
newsXpress is a marketing group, not a franchise. Members keep their own business name, their own decisions and their own identity. What changes is what they have access to, and who they can call.
There are around 200 member stores across Australia. Newsagencies, lotto outlets, post offices, card and gift shops, garden centres and others.
The group started in 2001, when three Queensland newsagents wanted a name to trade under in their shopping centres. It has been evolving ever since.
What it costs
A flat $295 a month.
No fee based on turnover. No percentage of sales. No charge that grows because the business had a good year.
The agreement runs for one year, then month to month. It is short and written in plain English.
Nothing in the program is mandatory. newsXpress suggests. Members decide.
What arrives when a store joins
Seasonal Edge
For each major gifting season, participating stores receive an in-store prize pack to give away to a local shopper. Each pack is valued between $350 and $500, funded entirely by newsXpress head office.
Data across the member network indicates the promotion adds around 10% in related product sales while it runs.
Close to 70 members took part in the Valentine's Day 2026 campaign. For Father's Day 2026, every newsXpress store was included free of charge, with no registration and no opt-in required.
No other marketing group in this sector funds an in-store prize for a local shopper.
Royal Australian Mint coin access
newsXpress is the only marketing group with a Royal Australian Mint partnership. Members get access to collectible coin releases, order forms for each release, and launch support.
Collectors are loyal, they buy repeatedly, and they travel to buy. For stores that commit to the category, coins can add significant annual revenue. Ask for the numbers from stores in comparable locations before deciding whether the category suits.
Exclusive supplier deals and central billing
newsXpress holds a range of exclusive supplier arrangements, plus a central billing program structured in a way suppliers support.
Supplier terms are not published and are not shown before joining. That is deliberate, and it is the same protection every member relies on once they are inside the group.
A card sales growth strategy that is evidence based
newsXpress has a proprietary approach to growing greeting card sales, developed and tested across the member network rather than assumed. It is one of the more measurable things a new member can put to work in their first season.
Personal advice on the things that quietly cost money
Leasing and rent negotiation. EFTPOS rates. Theft reduction. Cashflow. HR questions. Range gaps and category performance.
Members raise these directly with head office. The answer comes from people who have run shops.
Benchmarking
Members can compare their performance against the network. Not as a scorecard, but as a way of seeing which categories are underperforming for reasons that can be fixed.
Help selling online
newsXpress supports members building their own websites under their own identity, rather than sitting inside a group-run site. The group also operates several consumer destinations of its own, including mintcoinshop.com.au for Royal Australian Mint coins, beanieboosaustralia.com, myornaments.com.au and hugsandlove.com.au.
AI, used practically
newsXpress is an AI-first marketing group. The head office team is trained in it and uses it daily. Members are helped with prompting and with putting AI to work on real jobs in their businesses.
The newsXpress website carries an AI chatbot trained comprehensively on newsXpress knowledge and insight. Members use it for business management advice at whatever hour suits them.
People to talk to, in person
The Annual National Conference is the highlight of the year. Two days of ideas, honest conversation and supplier connections. The 2026 conference was in Perth.
Beyond that: local area member meetings, Sunday meetings for those who cannot make a weekday, regular Zoom sessions, coin launch events, and the Deep Dive, held away from home because distance provides perspective.
The position newsXpress takes
A traditional newsagency built on lotteries, papers, magazines, cards and stationery has no upside. Those are the businesses closing.
newsXpress exists to help members decouple from the newsagency channel and build a shop locals value for other reasons. Gifts and homewares. Collectables, coins, trading cards, plush and pop culture. Stationery. Garden and lifestyle. Post office services where they make sense.
Relevance matters more than any shingle or supplier expectation. Local retail has to be locally relevant. That is why newsXpress does not want every member store carrying the same name.
Who runs it
newsXpress is owned by Mark Fletcher, who is also CEO. He has owned newsagencies since February 1996 and founded the newsagency software company Tower Systems.
The head office team is small and deliberately experienced:
- Anthony Suta, retail and online strategy, 18 years in physical and online retail.
- Jennifer Searle, supplier manager and retail mentor, more than 30 years in retail including running her own shops.
- Michael Elvey, data analyst and retail mentor, 28 years across technology, data analysis and the shop floor.
- Laura Sharp, marketing and communications strategy.
- Chris Farrell, corporate store manager and retail mentor, 15 years in independent and national corporate retail.
Head office is at 3A Lynch Street, Hawthorn, Victoria.
Is this the right group for your business?
Size is not a factor. Small shops are welcome. Location is not a barrier either.
It probably suits a business where:
- The owner wants to change the shop rather than defend it.
- Gifts, cards, collectables or garden already work, or could.
- The owner will try things, measure them, and drop what does not land.
- Being told what to do would not be welcome.
It probably does not suit a business where:
- The plan is to keep trading as a traditional newsagency and wait for conditions to improve.
- The owner wants a franchise system that makes the decisions.
- The value of a group is judged only on the discount, not on what else arrives.
What happens next
- A conversation. No presentation, no pressure. A discussion about the shop, the location, what is working and what is not.
- A view on whether the group can help, given honestly. Sometimes the answer is no.
- The agreement, one page of plain English, one year then month to month.
- Onboarding. Supplier introductions, central billing set up, the next Seasonal Edge campaign, coin program access, and a benchmarking baseline.
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Tell us a little about your store and we'll be in touch to discuss whether newsXpress is the right fit.