The POS Software Blog

The POS Software Blog

News from Tower Systems about locally made POS software for specialty local retailers.

CategoryRetail Advice

Advice for local small business retailers: 8 ways to feel better about your shop

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Tower Systems helps local small business retailers run more enjoyable and successful retail businesses. Through this work, and our own retail shops, we have developed a kit of advice that local small business find helpful. In that kit are these 8 ways local retailers can feel better about their retail shop:

  1. Celebrate your achievements: Take time to celebrate your successes and the progress you have made as a small retail shop. This can help to boost your confidence and motivate you to continue working hard.
  2. Focus on your strengths: Identify and focus on the strengths of your small retail shop, such as your unique products, personalised service, or community connections. This can help you to differentiate yourself from larger, chain stores and capitalize on your competitive advantages.
  3. Seek support and advice: Reach out to other small business owners, industry experts, or local organisations for support and advice. This can help you to learn from others, gain new perspectives, and find solutions to challenges you may be facing.
  4. Invest in your employees: Invest in your employees by providing training, development opportunities, and a positive work environment. This can help to foster a sense of engagement and commitment among your staff, which can benefit your shop in the long term.
  5. Prioritise customer satisfaction: Make customer satisfaction a top priority and focus on providing exceptional service to your customers. This can help to build customer loyalty and positive word-of-mouth, which can be valuable for your small retail shop.
  6. Connect with your community: Build connections with members of your local community, such as other small business owners, community organisations, and local events. This can help to foster a sense of belonging and support for your small retail shop.
  7. Take care of yourself: Remember to take care of yourself and prioritise your own well-being. This can help you to maintain a positive outlook and stay motivated and energized in running your small retail shop.
  8. Stay positive and persistent: Keep a positive attitude and stay persistent in the face of challenges. This can help you to remain focused and determined, even when things are not going as planned.

This list is just the beginning. there are so many ways, so many opportunities to love your retail business. We are grateful for the opportunity to help through our POS software and through our advice.

Advice for small business retailers on encouraging better staff engagement in the business

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There are several steps you can take to encourage better staff engagement in your retail shop. Some strategies you may want to consider include:

  1. Communicate openly and regularly: Communicate openly and regularly with your staff about the goals and objectives of your shop, as well as any challenges or opportunities that may arise. This can help to keep your staff informed and engaged in the work of your shop. Openness is absolutely key as it builds trust.
  2. Provide opportunities for growth and development: Provide opportunities for your staff to grow and develop, both personally and professionally. This can include training, mentoring, and other forms of support that can help your staff to build their skills and knowledge. If people see they can grow with the business, they are more likely to support it.
  3. Recognise and reward achievements: Recognise and reward the achievements of your staff, both individually and as a team. This can include public recognition, awards, or other forms of recognition that can help to motivate and engage your staff. Being noticed is a valuable motivator.
  4. Encourage collaboration and teamwork: Encourage collaboration and teamwork among your staff, and provide opportunities for them to work together on projects or initiatives. This can help to foster a sense of community and belonging among your staff. Ask for ideas, listen to them, use them. This sits at the heart of employees owning the business goals.
  5. Create a positive work environment: Create a positive work environment that is supportive, inclusive, and respectful. This can help to foster a sense of engagement and commitment among your staff. Have fun, make sure coming to work is something to look forward to.

By implementing these strategies, you can encourage better staff engagement in your retail shop and create a more positive and productive work environment.

Tower Systems makes POS software for local small business retailers. Daily, we get to talk with retailers, listen to their challenges, and provide advice. We often do this based on our own experience owning and running our own shops. these are places we test our software, and where we put into practice the advice we provide others.

Small business retail advice: finding happiness

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2022 has been some year for sure, packed with challenges, things that can make your retail business less enjoyable than you hoped.

There’s the challenge of staffing, supply chain delays, changing regulations and more. While 2022 has been a good year for many, it has been a tough year, too, and finding happiness in a tough year can be hard for some.

Tower Systems serves thousands of local small business retailers with POS software. We see retail in many situations and, over time, have learnt from these businesses and the people in them.

There is no doubt for us about the value of being happy in retail. But, it’s not something you can decide to feel. It’s not a switch you can flick.

Finding happiness in retail takes planning and engagement throughout the business. While it does sound like work, it is also about respecting the business and that there will always be challenges, and knowing that being happy can help you get through them.

Here are our tips for finding, nurturing and managing happiness in a local retail shop:

Have good data. Yeah, we know this is a boring topic for many. But as a POS software company with decades of experience we know the value of good data. Good data is your rock. Build on a rock and life is, for sure, good. Good data will make you happier because your decisions will be better, and by better we mean you’ll make more money, and that will make you happier.

Be in control. Stop getting pushed around. If a supplier pushes something on your, use your data to deal in the facts. This, too, will make you happier. Facts matter. Any time someone says fro this or that ask for evidenced preferably in your business data. yes, we are still banking on about the value of good business data.

Price for margin. Maximise when you can.

Price for turn. You can’t bank a gross profit percentage until you sell something. So, price to turn, and bank dollars.

Lean on others. Spread the load, share the responsibility. Hire well. Train well. rely on the team to help you and this will make them happier, you happier and the business a happier place overall.

Set your narrative. In social media posts, stories you share in the business and in your marketing set the tone, set the narrative to be positive, happy and optimistic. This will encourage others to do this too. Own your narrative and own your happiness.

Of course, there is way more everyday practical stuff too: happy music paying, happy window displays, happy product displays, featuring happy products, samples, taste tests, games, fun events, giveaways, competitions … all these things and more can make the shop transactionally happy, which is good, too.

Happiness is good for business and all who interact with it.

Good luck. Now, get out there and smile. 😃

A mental health plan is important in local small business retail

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As employers, as retailers and as small business owners, mental health issues are often not far away from any small business retailer. The challenges confronting retail businesses today add to the challenges already there.

Sometimes, we don’t know we are experiencing a mental health challenge while other times it’s obvious and on show for all to see.

How we confront mental health challenges is important for us, our business and those presenting with issues.

While we are not trained professionals in the area, our years of working with small business owners confronted by challenges to their mental health have helped us develop some guiding principles.

  1. Mental health is not easily measured or understood. One’s health is not outwardly obvious.
  2. Judgement cannot be part of how mental health is viewed or dealt with.
  3. Action is essential to improve your situation for doing nothing will achieve nothing.
  4. While taking the first step to confront mental health challenges can be difficult, it is relieving and rewarding.

Your GP is an excellent person to speak with. Explain to them how you feel and how this impacts on your life. Ask them to prepare a Mental Health Treatment Plan. This is a government recognised plan. It can usually be prepared in a single double visit to the GP. This plan is the trigger to you gaining Medicare supported access to a psychologist for an initial number of visits, which can be extended depending on your situation.

Some people can feel a visit to a GP or psychologist is not warranted in their situation. While the medical professionals are the best to determine this, there are other resources you could explore:

Beyond Blue has published Heads Up a useful resource for small businesses on issues relating to mental health in the workplace. This is a good starting point for learning more. In the resource there are links to other resources that can help.

Finding mental health resources for small business owners dealing with mental health issues is not as easy as it is finding resources for managing the workplace for better mental health. It’s tough running any business and sometimes things can feel overwhelming. This is where networking can help as a first step, talking with others.

Small business owners feeling challenges within themselves need to treat themselves as employees and use the resources available such as:

We will help and support in any way possible. We would be glad to talk confidentially about individual situations.

7 free marketing tips for local indie small business retail to drive traffic and sales

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Shopping ought to be enjoyable and, preferably, fun. Often it is the experience itself which separates one retail store from another. This is why every retail business needs to devote management and front line attention to delivering a memorable and enjoyable experience.

The pandemic fundamentally changed retailing 2020. These changes prevail today. It’s time we re-awakened the inso-tore experience.

While Tower Systems its a POS software company, we offer retail management advice to our community of local indie small business retailers, advice beyond our POS software itself, advice designed to help our retailers thrive, and have fun.

One way to provide a memorable shopping experience is to have fun – among the sales team and with customers. Here are seven tips for having fun in any retail store:

  1. Theme days. Embrace an era which with interest your customers. For example, the 1970s. Dress the store and employees in keeping with the 1970s. Have a couple of items on sale at 1970s prices – to connect the theme with a commercial outcome. Get some stories from the 1970s related to products you sell and place these on display boards in the window. Consider a competition for the customer in the best 1970s costume. Other theme days include: school days, foreign country days where you wear traditional dress from a foreign country, crazy hair day and, of course, more theme days around key decades.
  2. Local sports competition. Fully embrace any major local sporting event, choose a team, dress in their colours and dress the store in their colours. Be unashamedly parochial and show your customers your local support.
  3. In-store buskers. Find some local musicians you enjoy and who have a repertoire which would connect with your customers and invite them in to play live for your customers. This would bring a vibrancy to the store and provide welcome entertainment for your customers as they shop. The local performers get to reach a new audience and you get to change up the feel of your business.
  4. Repurposing day. Host an event where customers compete for a prize for the most innovative repurposing of a product you sell. The idea would be that they take something you sell and demonstrate a use for it in a way which is completely different to what the manufacturer expected. There would need to be a rule that the new use is genuinely useful.
  5. The cutest baby. Invite your customers to bring in a photo of whey they were a baby, the older the better. Stick the photos on a wall and take votes on the best. You could change this up with two photos: as a baby and today and get customers to connect the two. Family members will come in to look at the photos and vote. A local store could get a real buzz with a promotion like this. While there is no obvious direct sales imperative, the traffic and word of mouth should drive good business.
  6. Stand up comedy in store. Invite local comedians to try out their stand up routines with your customers. While you would need to be careful about content, such an event would show the store supporting local artists and it could bring some fun to quiet retail times.
  7. Crazy tie day. While this has been done before plenty of times, you could kick it up with an amazing tie display – collect these from local Goodwill stores, invite customers to donate. As with the theme days idea, interact with customers and offer a prize for the best / worst. This tie day ist especially fun given that ties are a thing of the past in business today.

These seven ideas are the tip of the iceberg for in-store promotions. They are designed to kick start your own thinking on engagement ideas that could work well in your situation.

Retail is very much about the shopping experience, especially local indie small business retail. While good customer service and a friendly shopping experience are vital, sometimes it is the wonderful unexpected experience which can get people talking about a business.

Be bold and have fun.

Tower Systems makes software for local specialty retailers, software designed to help you run more successful, valuable and enjoyable businesses. Along the way, we have collected plenty of management and marketing tips. We share them here and in our customer emails from time to time. We hope you find them useful.

Advice for local small business retailers: promoting to retirees

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The retiree (or seniors) marketplace can be lucrative for a local small business retail store. They tend to be loyal and engaged in word of mouth marketing about good retail experiences, experiences they value. They can also be flexible about when they shop and this is where a retail business can really leverage the opportunity.

Before you can market any retiree service or benefit you need offer what they want, offer what they value. Next, you need a plan. What products will be offered and at what special prices? The most common approach is to offer a flat discount to retirees, or seniors as they are called in some marketplaces. This discount is usually between 5% and 10%. Discounting is kind of lazy though.

Price is important to the seniors marketplace since they either have a fixed income or are living off finite savings.  They like businesses which help them save money. This is the value piece. It’s about value every day, every visit.

One option is to create your own retiree / seniors card, something like a club card, for use in promoting the business. These should be professionally designed and produced. Ensure that such a card is respectful and something these customers would proudly carry. Design the card so that it promotes the benefits you offer – so that it is an extension of your marketing program.

An approach we really like is partnering with local seniors organisations or retiree communities – helping members save and the group itself benefit. Mutual benefits like this – for individuals, a group and your shop – yes,  they are programs that work the best in nor experience. Plus, our POS software can manage this for you.

Local indie retailers, small business retailers, are well placed to connect with the retiree marketplace through these approaches. Where big businesses will tend to go the straight Seniors card discount route or similar, a more engaged and nuanced approach with a community benefit connection is more likely to drive a valuable Lebel of word of mouth.

Tower Systems provides this advice to local indie small business retailers because you are our community. We only engage with indie retailers. No big businesses. We want, and need, local indie retail to thrive.

To market a business to retirees consider these options:

  1. Train employees to offer the discount or other benefits to someone who looks eligible. While this could cause embarrassment, it could also extend the word of mouth around the offer.
  2. Promote to retirement villages in the local area.
  3. Advise local government authorities that you offer a benefit to retirees.
  4. Contact local clubs and organisations likely to connect with retirees.
  5. Promote the benefits in-store and in your business newsletter. You want to spread your offer as far and wide as possible, so that retirees beat a path to your door.
  6. Visit local retirement residences and offer assistance.
  7. Advertise in trailer parks.
  8. Look up clubs the Internet – there are plenty of groups, clubs and forums for older folks travelling around. They share tips about places they like.

The value of the retiree market to your retail store will depend on the value of the offer available to them and how widely you promote this. While some retailers see retirees as a chore others see a business opportunity.

Stop Letting Competitors Rent Free in Your Head: Tips to Get Ahead

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Do you find yourself constantly wondering what your competitors are doing? Are you always worried about what they might be planning next? If so, you’re not alone. Many business owners let their competitors occupy too much space in their heads. This can lead to a lot of wasted time and energy. In this blog post, we will discuss some tips that can help you get ahead of the competition and stay focused on your own business goals.

First, the most important focus for any local small business retailer is their business for it is only this over which you have control. It’s like the serenity prayer, sort of – control what you can control and worry less about that over which you have no control.

You can’t control your competitors. Who cares if they copy you, or offer something cheaper than you, or claim some unique thing? Who cares?

Control what you can control.

Second, it’s important to remember that your competitors are not your only focus. You should also be thinking about your customers and what they need and want. If you’re always worrying about what your competitors are doing, you’ll lose sight of what’s important. Keep your customer’s needs at the forefront of your mind, and you’ll be more likely to succeed.

Third, try to stay ahead of the competition by being proactive. rather than reactive. This means that you should be constantly innovating and looking for new ways to improve your business. Don’t wait for your competitors to make a move before you do something yourself. By being proactive, you can stay one step ahead of them at all times.

Finally, don’t let your competitors rent free space in your head. If you’re always thinking about them, you’re not focusing on your own business. Instead, focus on what you need to do to be successful. Keep your eye on the prize, and don’t let anything or anyone distract you from your goals.

If you can follow these tips, you’ll be well on your way to getting ahead of the competition. Just remember to keep your customer’s needs in mind, be proactive, and stay focused on your own goals. With a little hard work and dedication, you’ll be sure to succeed!

Doing regular check-ins with yourself will help ensure that competitors are not taking up too much space in your headspace. Checking-in allows you to recenter yourself and your business goals. It can be as simple as taking a few deep breaths, drinking some water, or going for a walk. Checking in with yourself will help ensure that you are staying focused on what’s important.

We hope that these tips have helped you and that you feel more prepared to get ahead of the competition. Just remember to keep your customer’s needs in mind, be proactive, stay focused on your own goals, and do regular check-ins with yourself. With a little hard work and dedication, you’ll be sure to succeed! Thanks for reading!

Retail business advice: how to setup and run a pop-up shop

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Tower Systems helps local retailers run pop-up shops with its Retailer Roam, cloud based go anywhere POS software, connected to its POS system.

Definition: a pop-up shop is a temporary shop, one that is open for a limited period of time, usually around a month, rarely more than three months.

We have assembled our pop-up shop advice and tips into key topic areas.

WHY?!

Like any business decision, a decision to open a pop-up retail location needs to be based on good research and the business itself needs to have a purpose. So, before you begin, think about why.

Here are some reasons to do a pop-up shop:

  1. To test new product categories.
  2. To supplement your income.
  3. To help quit slow moving stock.
  4. To enhance your retail experience.
  5. To experiment with a plan b where you might land if you close your main shop.
  6. To engage in targeted, temporary, competition.
  7. To compete with yourself.

LOCATION.

With a pop-up shop you don’t have time to find your customers. The location needs to already have good traffic passing daily, traffic you can easily leverage. Even more so than in fixed-location retail, location is critical.

The best locations are shops that have good passing traffic that is of interest to you and that have been vacant for a while where a landlord might be happy with something rather than nothing.

OCCUPANCY COST.

Negotiate the lowest rent cost possible. Some landlords see pop-up offers as a reason to charge a premium. Only sign up for a price you are 100% happy with. If it is expensive and does not work financially, don’t sign hoping it works out, because in retail it rarely does work out better. In a pop-up business you have less time to see if it works out. Also, preferably, no contingency deposit.

LABOUR COST.

Staff the business with a lean roster. This shop is about selling. that means, products placed for a price proposition rather than beautiful displays that take time to maintain. Every staff member is there to sell and maximise revenue from every shopper visit. There is no room in the roster for fat.

FIXTURES AND FITTINGS.

Don’t spend a cent on fixtures and fittings. That needs to be your starting position. It’s a pop-up shop. People expect it to be  efficient, cost-effective. Using tables and boxes adds to the feel of the shop feeling low-cost and that can help drive sales. Suppliers can be a good source for loaned fixtures.

INVENTORY.

Ask suppliers to offer consignment stock or special clearance deals they’d like to move fast. Go for items that can be sold out of a box, to make display and ranging easier. In-box displays of particularly cheap items can work very well.

PRICING MODEL.

Price to sell. This means being below usual retail. Price to understandable price points. For example, you might have a $10 table, a $20 table and so on. Consider bundling items into packs, which make price comparison difficult.

PROMOTION.

Don’t spend money on sign writing or marketing. Use social media and bargain websites and anywhere similar where you can list the store and its products.

Host an opening party. List this as a local event on Facebook.

MANAGEMENT MINDSET.

Your mindset in managing the pop-up shop needs to be different to a fixed-location retail situation. Pop-up shops are about low cost, low overheads, low prices. Be ready to do deals. Whoever manages  the pop-up shop needs to be different to how they would be in the fixed-location retail business.

SPEED.

You need to move fast. From the moment you sign a lease or agreement, the clock is ticking. Ideally, you’d open within 24 hours and when you are done, closing and clearing out the shop is done in 24 hours or less. This is all about maximising the time for income-production.

TRACK PERFORMANCE.

Cultivate good data that can guide business decisions for your next moves.

 

Is a pop-up shop worth doing? Only you can determine that. We have seen plenty of pop-up shops work well for the retailers, contribute good GP, help move slow stock and help open to the owners category opportunities not previously considered.

Do the planning and you should expect to benefit.

Inspiring indie retail in Cold Spring, New York.

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I got back Friday last week from a leading a group of Aussie indie retailers on a retail study tour to New York and Los Angeles. We primarily focussed on local indie retail, retail relevant to our local indie retail businesses here in Australia.

We spent a day in Cold Spring, in upstate New York. Today, I shot a short video in which I share some takeaways from this visit to one of the best local retail towns in the US. Scroll down to see the video, or use this link: https://youtu.be/Gu1_W64rzCU

My name is Mark Fletcher. I own Tower Systems. We make POS software for local specialty retail. We also run and operate 4 shops in Melbourne in the gift / homewares / collectibles spaces as well as 7 online shops. We understand the challenges of being small and local, and we have built into our software tools to help you thrive.

Cheers,
Mark Fletcher
M | 0418 321 338 E | mark@towersystems.com.au
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-fletcher-tower/

Retail business advice: 10 free and easy to implement marketing tips for local small business retailers

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We are grateful to discover many innovative marketing ideas running in local retail businesses. Here is a list of 10 marketing ideas we love. they are free to implement, easy toitmplemnent. And, they are likely to work in just about any type of retail business.

These ideas are a gift from our small business focussed POS software company to you:

  1. Promote you. At every possible touch point, automatically show off your point of difference by promoting your knowledge, especially your local knowledge as it relates to the use of the products you sell. Good POS software makes this easy – allowing you to share knowledge in a way that is helpful for your customers, so they rem ember you, and recommend you.
  2. Stop copying. There is so much copying in business. Loyalty points programs are a good example. They have been copied so much that people don’t understand what points are worth. In our POS software you can use discount vouchers are a fresh and loved differentiator. Customers accrue actual currency in dollars and cents that they can spend. there is no confusion. Everywhere this is used, we see retailers and customers love it.
  3. Bring customers back. Recall them with a reminder for a free service, a free check, an anniversary reminder or similar. Just as optometrists recall customers for their annual eye check-up, you can recall customers for a reason relevant to your business and relevant to what your shoppers purchase from you. This can be tailored based on shopper purchases.
  4. Connect with community groups and their members. Seize opportunities to connect with local community groups offering support for their projects.  In turn, they will talk positively about your business through their own network.  See 20 Ideas For Building a Better, Stronger and More Valuable Community Connection. There are smart win-win-win ways you can do this with the Tower Systems POS software.
  5. Host an event. Host a local VIP shoppers night, a 24 hour Celebration Sale or a special event night. Create some theatre around any seasonal opportunity. Maybe do with other shops in your area. Offering free photos is a good way to draw in families. Promote that this night is for local VIPs – because you care about your local customers.
  6. Have volume purchase offers. Offer discounts for the more customers buy. For example, you could have a single item priced at $24.95, two prices at $44.95 and three priced at $59.95. If you bought the stock well, the $59.95 price for three should provide at least 50% margin yet customers see themselves as getting a great deal. Great software can easily manage this for you.
  7. Prompt for an up-sell. POS software can flash up on the screen prompts which relate to what a customer has purchased. The promotional script appears on the screen without blocking the sale.
  8. Leverage your data. Track what sells with what. Once you know this you can make much better product placement decisions.
  9. Sell online. It’s a no-brainer, but it is often ignored because it’s considered too hard. Choose POS software that makes it easy.

There are many more ways in which retailers can market their businesses using Point of Sale software for little or no cost.

Small business retail advice: make every day your pay day

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This is advice we first shared many years ago. We have updated it, made it more 2022 and beyond relevant.

Not wanting to be too proud, we think this is the best advice we could give any local small business retailer as it focuses you on what matters most – nurturing daily value from your business for today, and for when you decide to sell the business.

Everyday in local retail it can feel challenging, busy, attention distracting and demanding. Local small business retail is tough, competitive and consuming.

Our advice for local small business retailers in this article is practice, everyday, straightforward. It is advice any local small business retailer could follow without needing a business degree, bags of spare capital or a huge team to manage execution in-store.

This is fundamental advice, code advice. It’s like getting out of bed in the morning, showering, brushing your teeth, getting dressed. this advice is as basic and fundamental as eating and treating. And, while that sounds dramatic, it is what it is, good advice that every local small business retailer could benefit from.

So, here it is:

Retail business advice: make every day your pay day.

There was a time when small business retailers could rely on selling their business for a handsome increase on the price they paid thereby providing a good pay day, when businesses sold for a good multiple of net earnings. This was a time when retailers would focus on the sale of their business being their payday.

No more. Today, the best way to extract value from local retail businesses is to make every day your pay day, to not rely on your pay day being the day you sell the business.

By this we mean make the most you can today, so that tomorrow is valuable. It’s a small target approach. A narrow approach. That’s at the heart of this … that today is what matters most to you today. In every decision, every action. It’s why this is about making every day you payday. because it is an every day thing. Like we said at the start, like eating and breathing.

The challenge is how do you do this?

It starts with the mindset of every day being your pay day. Every decision needs to be considered in this context.

Here are some suggestions for making every day your pay day:

  1. Find new customers. New customers are the future lifeblood of any retail business. if you are not attracting new shoppers, you are treading water. Every day there should be an action designed to reach people who do not currently shop with you. It could be a social media post, a stunning front window display or engagement with a local event. Do something, have it planned as part of a regular action. Always, every day, chase new customers.
  2. Charge more every time you can. Look at what you see and your approach to mark-up. Consider why people buy from you, and not somewhere else. If there is a factor, such as convenience, that enables you to charge a little more. Considering what you charge is not a blanket approach, not something you rush at. Take your time. Look at part of the business in fine detail and consider whether a small increase could help you achieve more. Also, loyalty programs such as discount vouchers, bundling into hampers, multi buys such as 2 for 3 and other opportunities enable you to do this by blocking price comparison. You can stop price being a consideration.
  3. Get people buying more each visit. What you place with what can encourage people to buy more than what they intended. Unpacking and pricing new goods on the shop floor can get people noticing and buying things they did not visit today to buy. Look in your data at what sells with what. Often that can reveal opportunities. Too often, retailers think placing things at the counter drives a deeper basket and while it does, there are other things you can do in-store to drive this.
  4. Run with the leanest roster possible. Just about every retail business we review has capacity to lower labour costs. Trimming the roster can come at a cost for the owners – putting in more hours. There are other ways to enable trimming the roster. Be smarter. If there are things you can cost-effectively automate, do that. If you can adjust opening hours to better fit when sales occur, and same some labour costs, do that. If you can save an hour a day with owner time on the shop floor, do that.
  5. Stock what sells. This may sound obvious, because it is. But, in many retail businesses we look at, they do not stock what sells. Analyse your business data. Know not only the products that sells, but the types of products. If you think something is a success, go to the evidence to see if it is. Too often we can’t find evidence supporting a feeling that something is successful. Your data can guide your buying so that you stock more of what sells.
  6. Bring people back sooner with a thoughtfully calibrated loyalty offer that funds itself, and drives value. Every retail business needs a core action designed to bring people back. A timed loyalty offer, which expires, is a good way to do this.
  7. Have your best people working the floor, helping customers spend more. Today, retail is not about may I help you. Rather, it is about engaging with the products and subtly showing them off, like theatre.
  8. Have stunning displays that attract people from outside the shop. Stunning displays are the unexpected, the must-see, the magnets that people notice and stop. Anyone can create these. It starts with thinking about what could be unexpected and then being bold with that seed of an idea.
  9. Have compelling displays in-store that encourage people to browse beyond their destination purchase. In-store displays need to be about showing people what they can engage with. these displays are for people to see themselves or those they are buying for.
  10. Always have impulse offers at high traffic locations.
  11. Buy as best you can. Take settlement discounts where possible. Pick up supplier offers. never pass on your better buying to customers, unless it suits for some event you are running. Oh, and with this advice about buying – only do it for items you know you will sell for buying product at a discount and having it on the shelves too long is too much of a cost for the business.
  12. De-clutter. Sometimes the best way to be able to see your business and what it can do is for you to have less to look at. This means getting rid of dead stock, dead fixtures, dead corners of the shop. Always be trimming, cleaning and looking.
  13. Change. Every day in your shop change something. Get known as the shop that is never the same. This can be a reason to visit for some shoppers. If you run a set-and-forget business that rarely changes, you give people a reason to walk on by. So, everyday, make a change or two. Encourage your team members to suggest changes. By moving a small stand from one part of the business to another could get it noticed and boost sales.
  14. Stop all busy work. It is easy in a local small business retail setting to get caught up in back office work and while some office work is vital, too often it can be work for the same of work. For example, one retailer used ton take their daily numbers and enter them in a spreadsheet for analysis when, in fact, their POS software provided even better reporting than the spreadsheet offered – they have never thought to use that. In another case, the business owner banked everyday as they liked the walk. but, it took an hour by they time they chatted to people and while sometimes it was good for them to do it, doing it every day, 5 hours a week, came at a cost to the business.
  15. Be cleverly frugal. When you are considering spending money, think on it, think about the value for the business from the spend. The money you spend has a cost. today and in the future. Think about the return you could get and the speed of the return. Have some checks and balances in spending decisions to slow them down.

Be responsible for the profitability of your business. Don’t blame your suppliers, your landlord, your employees or some other external factor … it all comes down to you – the decisions you make and the actions you take.

By making every day your payday you bring focus on what matters today and whatwnll matter when you’d decide to sell your business.

If you relentlessly pursue profit with a clear focus you are likely to see profit grow. That’s better than waiting to make money when you sell because that’s less likely to happen in this market.

Doing all this relies on your measuring the performance of your business. The Tower Systems POS software helps with this. It is easy.

My name is Mark Fletcher. I am the owner of Tower Systems. I also own 4 retail shops and several online businesses. Every day here at Tower Systems we live what we say, in our software company and in our shops. We make mistakes, and learn from them. It’s some of those mistakes that got us thinking about this, about the approach of making every day your payday.

While our core mission is to grow the customer base for Tower Systems, we know that key to achieving this helping retailers. Plenty of the help we provide is not software related. While, for sure, our software can play a role, the real focus is on how, when and where local retail; business decisions are made, and that is a reason we share this and other advice at this POS Software News Blog.

In sharing this advice we demonstrate a care for local small business retail and a transparency as to the advice and help we provide.

Today is August 1. It’s a new month. A good day to start on this mission of making every day your payday.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-fletcher-tower/

Local retail business advice: being unique attracts shoppers no matter how small your shop

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In his 1960 book, Reality in Advertising, Rosser Reeves, a respected US advertising executive, introduced the world to the concept of the Unique Selling Proposition, USP for short.

Reeves defined USP in an advertising context:

  1. Each advertisement must make a proposition to the consumer: buy this product and you will get this benefit.
  2. The proposition must be one that the competition either cannot or does not
  3. The proposition must be so strong that it changes consumer behaviour.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the concept of a unique selling proposition evolved from being essential to advertising to being essential in business. Finding your business USP was considered mission critical to businesses, retailers especially. Businesses drifted however and forgot about the importance of a USP.

Jack Trout told us just a few years ago that it was as relevant today. In 2000, he said that a Unique Selling Proposition was mission critical in business in his aptly titled book Differentiate or Die.

Differentiate of Die. There is no doubt about the call to action in the title, no doubt about the consequences of inaction.

Yet many retailers, for the most part, have remained still in the face of an onslaught of competition.

Retail is tough, especially small business retail, local retail, indie retail. The differences between competitors are fewer – there is a lot of follow the leader / innovator. Retailers are surrounded by competition and it grows by the day. Yet many have copied others, and not done anything to stand out.

Smart retailers are re-acquainting themselves with the writings of Reeves and Trout and leaning about the mission critical imperative of having a Unique Selling Proposition.

Differentiation could be service, products or location or a combination of these. Differentiation will most likely not be price as anyone can match this easily. Price is, after all, the last line of defense in any business battle. That said, there are some major price-focused success stories – Walmart for example. It is rare in an independent retail situation.

To develop your USP, engage with your employees and other stakeholders. Take your time. Determine what you and your business stand for. Following open and honest discussion and debate, the USP around which everyone in the business can willingly congregate will emerge.

A good USP will not require an advertising campaign to communicate. It will become obvious through actions and decisions. By living the USP in every facet of the business you soon become seen as unique by shoppers and this can drive excellent word of mouth and success for the business.

While differentiation in retail is more important today than ever thanks to today’s economic conditions, the approach to the challenge is the same as in the 1960s.

Our Tower Systems POS software offers opportunities to be unique, easy and quick ways through which any retail business can present as being unique. We help retailers stand out, be noticed, be remembered, and be more successful.

Good POS software can help local small business retailers deal with the challenge of finding and retaining employees

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Finding employees is challenging for local small business retail. It’s a problem here in Australia and around the world.

Using our POS software, retailers can offer retail employees skills development, which helps people develop their careers. Through our structures self-paced as well as personal one-on-one training, retail employees not only learn the software, they learn business, and this can help them find a future pathway they enjoy.

Good POS software plays a vital role in hiring and retaining employees.

Our trainers and our POS software help desk trim members provide resources and services that can help retail employees contribute more, enjoy their work more and develop more valuable skills.

We love work with retail employees who want to learn more and who have the backing of their employer to do so – we are careful yo respect the wishes of our clients in terms of the extent of employee training and insights we provide and there are some settings where this needs to be limited.

Our CEO was recently in the US looking at retail and noticed the challenges confronting retailers on finding employees. We share this today to reflect the broader view we have of retail, beyond the POS software itself …

The retail job shortage has retailers changing-up their approach to recruiting.

The challenge of hiring and retailing retail workers is worldwide. It is causing retailers to go to extraordinary lengths.

In a small US town I was in a few days ago, of the 25 shops on the Main Street, 21 were advertising vacancies in their front window.

In a Taco Bell that I visited (don’t judge me) 3 days ago, every place where this chain restaurant location would usually promote meal options and deals, they were advertising for people.

The moment you step into Taco Bell, you see this table.

Four of the windows had these signs facing inside and out.

The front window had sign writing, too:

Above the registers and at the self-service tech screens they had signs too.

But back to the table inside the front door. They had collateral pitching employee benefits:

On top of all this visual noise is the pitch at the counter. Yes, they were asking some (but not all) customers if they knew of anyone looking for a job.

In this Taco Bell outlet, looking for new staff was more important than promoting what they sell.

Apple responded to their staffing challenges with an announcement a couple of days ago. Apple is increasing the pay of retail employees by 10%.

Apple Inc. is raising salaries for retail workers in the US by 10% or more and upping its global companywide compensation budget as it faces a tight labor market and unionization efforts.

The company is hiking hourly pay for retail staff to at least $22 per hour, up from a previous $20 minimum, the company told employees on Wednesday. The move follows a pay bump in February after inflation grew more severe and some staffers complained about working conditions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Apple and Taco Bell are not alone.

During the trip to the US I got to speak with a broad range of business owners and managers. Staffing is their top of mind challenge. Some are taking the Apple approach and increasing pay rates. Others are offering signing bonuses and new employee referral bonuses. Others are ensuring they run companies people enjoy working for.

The staffing problem exists across all sectors in all settings. Bigger businesses are more likely to use money to address the challenge. In small businesses we have more flexibility in terms of our response. But respond we must, otherwise, we will struggle to retail people let along hire new people when we need.

I am not suggesting we follow the Taco Bell approach. I think that approach is more rooted in decades of minimum wages and challenges in terms of the grind of the work in the business. I shared the Taco Bell story because I saw it first-hand.

Local small business retailers in Australia will need to address the staffing challenge in the way that is most appropriate to their situation and settings. If I was to offer any advice on this it would be be sure to have a plan, because you don’t want to react when facing a staffing shortage that is negatively impacting the business.

Let’s talk for a moment about why there is a job shortage.

More people are able to work from anywhere than ever before;. They can find good jobs, well-paying jobs, working from home. For plenty, this has enabled them to break free from minimum wage and jobs with a high commute cost.

There’s more gig economy work, too. This offers flexibility for people with other demands on their time.

I don’t see these things as temporary.

How the Tower Systems POS software helps local retailers be frugal, and run more valuable businesses

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2022 is proving to be a challenging year for retailers. Covid continues to disrupt product supply and labour access. It is also impacting shopper behaviour.

The retailers doing best are those managing their business data, leveraging data for insights that guide business decisions. There is where the Tower Systems POS software helps local retailers.

Using our POS software, local retailers are able to be more frugal. Being frugal is a local retail business is beneficial, if it is done based on data, with a focus of driving overall business value. Being frugal is a good thing if done thoughtfully and well.

Let’s be clear though, there is a difference between being frugal and being cheap.

Being frugal is about being careful. Spending based on evidence when nit comes to labour costs and inventory costs.

Too often we see retailers over-index with labour, eating unnecessarily into business profits. Likewise, too often, we see businesses buying poorly, not based on evidence, and negatively impacting on the profits of the business.

Our POS software helps local retailers in these two areas and more, we help them be frugal in their approach to rostering and frugal in their approach to buying … with the goal of adding measurable value to the business. This matters.

The stronger the financial base for a business, the lower its operational overheads, the lower poor performing inventory volume, the better for the business. This is where being frugal matters. Done properly, it provides the business with capacity to weather economic challenges, to actually make the business stronger in its financial foundations. Our POS software helps local retailers do this.

There is a gloss and excitement to owning your own shop. The real gloss, and value, comes from running the business well. This is one of our goals here at Tower Systems – to make POS software and back it with support that helps small business retailers run their businesses well.

Being frugal is good for business and good for all in the business who rely on it. Our POS software provides insights as well as mechanisms for being frugal, for driving the value of and for the business.

Retail insights: making shopping happy benefits everyone

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We shot this video in which we look at a wonderful local suburban pet shop in the US over a month ago. The video is all about retail and what we discovered visiting the awesome Rosie Bunny Bean shop in Los Angeles.

We’re more than a POS software company. We love good retail.

Free stocktake training for POS software customers

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Tower Systems started offering its 2022 free stocktake training for retailers using its POS software several weeks ago.

The training available is in video as well as written form. It covers a full stocktake as well as partial stocktake and theft mitigation stocktakes.

By providing baseline video based training, the company offers a consistent starting pout to all retailers, covering everything everyone needs to know.

Every Tower Systems POS software customer has access to the stocktake training, without cost, without any financial commitment requirement. By making access free and easy, the company is ensuring that all customers have the same opportunity to get accurate stock on hand data for their business.

We shot the baseline stocktake training video a few weeks. This shows best practice stocktake advice relevant to 2022. It leverages pas advice and presents it fresh, with content relevant to this year.

Here is some of the advice we published to ur POS software customers previously re stocktake. It reflects more practical advice advice, operational advice.

Take the technology to the stock and not your stock to your technology.

For the process to be as easy as possible you will need a wireless network – vital for OH&S reasons.

The best way to do a stocktake in your business is by using a laptop (or laptops) or tablet computer with a scanner attached. This enables you to do the stocktake live with no impact on sales and absolute integrity of your stock on hand data.

While using a laptop (or laptops) or tablet computer may seem cumbersome, it is our best practice advice for speed, data integrity and the ability to address data issues you may encounter on the shop floor. It enables you to do management work to ensure completely accurate data.

The alternative is to use a PDE. The challenges with this are the many different PDEs and it is challenging to be expert in all plus the PDE counts at that time and you load the data at a later time – meaning a gap in time in which sales could have been done. While PDE software is available for live to data updates, we have seen this be problematic and so we do not use it.

Given the advances in technology, our best practice recommendation is either a laptop of tablet computer as either offers a better solution than a PDE.

We suggest you setup a Laptop or tablet and use Team Viewer or the like to connect in and count this way. This approach means you do not need to purchase an additional software licence for the laptop. Team Viewer is easy to setup. If you do need our help on this there would be a support cost.

For the physical stocktake, we suggest you approach the business aisle by aisle, counting and rearranging stock as you go.

Local retail business advice: sell online but not as you sell in your physical shop

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We were recently asked to write an article for a magazine for Aussie newsagents about selling online. The advice we included in that article for local retail newsagents applies equally to any local retailer. We share the article we wrote here to offer advice for local small business retailers contemplating selling online:

Sell online, but not as your shop today.

When people shop online they shop for an outcome. They search for the product or purpose. They do not search for a masthead.

This is a valuable insight for any newsagent considering a website for their business for putting your newsagency online with what you sell today could be an expensive mistake.

Tower Systems has built many websites for newsagents and most are not sites that represent the newsagency shop online. Rather, they present as a different business, focussed on a niche category and leveraging the shop infrastructure to help the business expand.

This is the smart move for any retailer selling online – using it as a start-up opportunity that makes use of space and labour in the shop but not relying on products in the shop.

In one case, a newsagency business has grown online to where it is more financially valuable than the shop within which it was incubated.

In another case a newsagent tested a category online, hit gold and expanded the shop to offer this, hitting more gold.

Engaging with Tower Systems to create a POS software connected website provides newsagents with access to comprehensive online sales data through deep Google results research. This can help newsagents discover opportunities not previously on their radar.

By tapping into current keyword search data using respected commercial tools, Tower Systems is able to show newsagents pathway opportunities into new product areas online. These can be opportunities tapped into with a minimal capital investment, an opportunity for expansion with a modest budget.

While I understand the push to take the shop online, in my years of experience owning newsagencies and running successful and failed websites connected to the shops, my advice is to leverage the website opportunity as if it is a start-up, playing in a space you have not played in before, with the goal of it leading you on a path of discovery.

Tower Systems is better placed to support this greenfield approach than a local web developer … we have found local web developers more likely to replicate online what you have in. the shop and that, my friends, is unlikely to attract for you the volume of new shoppers you might hope for.

Being online is critical for every business. Doing it right, in an approach appropriate for 2022 and beyond is key.

Take your time. Do your research. Make sure that what you choose can be maintained by you. And, only sign for a fixed price website build.

UPDATE: 5 things every retailer should know about their retail business but are usually not told by POS software

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3 weeks ago we published this video: 5 things every retailer should know about their retail business but are usually not told by POS software. Across several platforms it’s had 1,000 views, for which we are grateful.

When our CEO made the video, it was spur of the moment, based on a comment made in a conversation at the Sydney gift fair in April. While the video was spur of the moment and not scripted, it drew on years of experience, years of service of local small business retailers.

We appreciate the feedback we have received, the appreciation.

To us, the video represents something different about Tower Systems. It presents that we want you to cultivate and harvest value from your business through the use of our POS software.

This is the difference of value.

Long after you start using our software, appreciating genuine value from its use.

Thank you for watching. Wr hope you found the video useful.

The POS Software Blog

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