Rising costs push regional NSW shops to innovate

Caitlynn King was just 21 when she purchased the local newsagency in Gilgandra in western New South Wales. A sharp downturn in revenue due to the COVID pandemic in 2020 gave her a crash course in the challenges of running a small business in a rural town. So she decided to add a cafe and retail outlet to make sure her business remained viable. “Obviously, we had to keep the newsagency side as a service to the town, but the profit margins are incredibly low, so we had to diversify to survive,” she said. “If I only kept the newsagency…