The POS Software Blog

The POS Software Blog

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

ArchiveMarch 2017

Helping small business retailers deal with treatment by Tatts Group on capital expenditure demands

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Tower Systems has been helping small business newsagents deal with pressure from tatts Group on shop fit and new tech requirements through blog posts like this where we publicly serve our small business retailer customers in a confrontation with a major supplier:

Newsagents scared to confront Tatts re small business capital investment demands

While comments on my post yesterday and other posts here about the demands rom Tatts Group re capital investment in a new fit out as well as a new in store digital marketing platform have been minimal, my phone has been running hot.

yesterday alone I received calls from six newsagents about this issue. One was in tears for what the additional cost will mean to their business.

Each caller said they are not responding publicly because of how threatened and vulnerable they feel.

In two cases there is a mental health impact from the pressure they are under that has no business case backing.

My core concerns are, as stated by me many times here:

  1. The tech requirement is, in my opinion, outside the re-fit provisions of the Tatts agreement.
  2. Tatts has provided no financial support or justification for the re-fit capital expenditure.
  3. Tatts has provided no financial justification for the new tech requirements imposed on businesses.
  4. From what I can tell, the main tatts pitch is one of threats to put Tatts into a local competitor business.
  5. Tatts appears to have double standards. One only has to look at what One The Run in Adelaide or the supermarket chains are permitted to do.
  6. Tatts is competing with retailers online in a way that disadvantages small business retailers and disrespects the capex demanded of small business retailers.

What should newsagents do? In my opinion, they should take their case to state based authorities: small business commissioner, small business advocate, VCAT / QCAT / CTTT or anything similar. They should do this without fear of Tatts as those forums exist to hear this type of dispute.

If you can’t afford to do what Tatts demands, tell them, in writing, prove it to them. 

If your mental health is impaired because of the manner in which Tatts and its representatives are dealing with you, write to Tatts about this, explain how it is affecting you personally.

The more informed the company is the better the record of how this massive public company is harming small businesses and those who own them. Your stories will / should ultimately matter.

Small business POS software user meetings around Australia

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Tower Systems has announced details of its first series of face to face user meetings for 2017. This is the company putting itself in front of customers in key locations.

We have scheduled sessions for Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and Melbourne, starting March 27, 2017.

We will demonstrate the new look and feel of Retailer, our Shopify / Magento and Woo Commerce integrations, our Xero integration and much more. Plus there will be time for your questions. Free training. An opportunity to pitch your suggestions.

This is an excellent chance to leverage more from your relationship with us. Click here to book and see venue details. Yes, we will announce more dates soon.

This is an excellent opportunity to learn more about the software, discuss change requests and provide feedback on our services.

It is rare today that POS software companies offer sessions like this, except from Tower Systems – we do it regularly as a core customer service offering.

We ae grateful to our customers for their support.

Five free to implement marketing tips that will work for any small business retailer

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Each of these five small business marketing tips has worked in a variety of retail businesses. They are fast to implement, easy to implement and are cost free based on the success they generate for small business retailers.

We have developed these five ideas through our many years only serving small and independent retail businesses. They are the best, easiest and fastest to engage:

  1. Immediate rewards. On your receipts. $$$. This gets shoppers spending more per visit. With the right settings, over the counter pitch and policies you can expect double digit growth for little effort. This loyalty program is a game changer for independent small retail businesses in that big businesses will not follow you, they will not be able to match what you pitch. This sets you apart. It excites shoppers and that is what drives the value you get from the program. We have it running in many hundreds of small retail businesses.
  2. Email marketing. Capture email addresses and email shoppers to pitch offers tuned to their interests. With an average response of 30% to the right pitch you can drive repeat visits.
  3. Product knowledge. Share this in receipts, automatically served based on products in a purchase. Shoppers will appreciate your help and extra-mile assistance. This is a perfect way to pitch one of your points of difference.
  4. Change the price narrative. If you have a nearby competitor, make price comparison difficult through multi-buy or BOGO pricing. Both are supported in our software. Make price comparison hard and increase sales as a result, of a perception of value.
  5. Smart placement. Your existing data can indicate what is best placed with what in your business. Leverage this data, make better placement decisions and increase sales. The deep dive basket analysis data insights can change your approach to product placement and increase shopper efficiency as a result.

Tower systems serves only independent small retail businesses in selected product niches. This is our mission and we are grateful every day for the opportunity.

Not your average POS software company

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This video shows how Tower Systems is not your average POS software company. We are proud to serve our retail customers with practical advice and insights based on our own retail business management experiences:

Promoting Tyro broadband EFTPOS to small business retailers

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We have been promoting this special offer from our friends at Tyro for the last week or so:

Hi there,
For a limited time, if you switch to our partner Tyro from one of the Big 4, they will guarantee you a savings of $1000.
5 other reasons to switch
  1. Save time – Fully integrated with Tower for faster transactions with no more time wasted keying or fixing up errors
  2. No lock-ins – Tyro has no lock-in contracts which means if a solution isn’t working for you, you can cancel at any time
  3. 24/7 customer support – Australian-based business specialists on hand at all times
  4. 99.99% up-time – Tyro has the most amount of up-time compared to any other provider
  5. Lightning fast transactions – At just 1.6 secs per transaction, Tyro are the fastest provider on the market
If you’re an existing EFTPOS customer with one of the Big Four and are transacting between $1million and $3million every year, you’re eligible for this offer.
It’s valid until the end of March and is only available for the first 500 applicants – so get in fast!
 

 

Fresh toy shop software helps small business toy retailers compete with the big boys

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Tower Systems is thrilled to be releasing fresh toy shop software at the Melbourne Toy Fair, which starts this coming weekend.

On show at this terrific trade show will be new software, developed specifically for Aussie toy shops.

Only on the Tower Systems stand.

Using our Toy Shop Software small business toy retailers can easily, consistently and profitably handle a vast range of toy shop specific functions.

This software has been developed with toy shops in Australia. It is already in wide use and the new release will see that reach extended further.

Check out some of the toy shop specific facilities you can see this weekend at the Toy Fair:

  1. Customer special orders.
  2. Gift Cards – professional plastic cards with your branding. These are an excellent business driver.
  3. Gift vouchers – printed by the software with no production cost.
  4. Hampers / packs / bundles.
  5. Lay-Bys. Easy. Accurate. fast. To your standards.
  6. Catalogues. Seasonal. Special. Group-wide. Unique to your business.  You are in control.
  7. Pre-sell of hot licence items – get revenue before
  8. Next generation shopper loyalty – $$$ off the next purchase based on rules you set. This type of loyalty is a game changer.
  9. Shopper loyalty – points.
  10. Importing electronic invoices and stock files from suppliers.
  11. Reordering based on accurate data – reducing the cost of dead stock.
  12. BOGO: handling Buy One get One Free offers.
  13. MultiBuy – like a coffee card, free product over time.
  14. Xero accounting interface – cut your bookkeeping time and costs.
  15. Magento and Shopify website interfaces – connect to your website.
  16. EFTPOS integration – save on a phone line costs and cut mistakes.
  17. Easy and accurate stock taking.
  18. Professional receipts with your logo.
  19. Serial number tracking.
  20. Age checking for items with a minimum age requirement.
  21. Upsell prompts for staff.

The software helps you personalise the shopping experience such that price and other comparisons with national retailers is difficult.

We help you shine a light on your point of difference.

For example, you can have product use and care information included automatically on receipts. This can be information you have written that sets your business apart from others.

You can use smart reports in the software to quickly gain a view of business performance:

  1. By supplier.
  2. By season.
  3. By product licence such as Star Wars, Batman etc.
  4. Comparing trading periods.
  5. By employee performance.
  6. By customer value.
  7. By day of week.

Good data easily accessed guides better business decisions – we see this every day in our work with small business retailers.

We would love to show you the latest Toy Shop software, obligation free and to hear from you about the needs of your business.

Sharing retail trends insights with small business retailers

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The one constant in retail is change. already in 2017 we see more evidence of that. Amazon opening in Australia, growth in online, the launch of several disruptor models targeting specialist retail channels … these are some of the challenges we have read about in the last few weeks.

It is easy to read of what big businesses are doing and feel demotivated for one’s small business. This can be as true for your business as it is for my small software company.

As small businesses the biggest advantage is our ability to move faster. While we made not have the budget or press attention, we can move faster, we can change faster.

Here at Tower Systems, change starts with understanding trends. Already this year we have had team members have attended five international trade shows – Atlanta Gift Fair, Paperworld in Frankfurt, Toy Fair in Nuremberg, Spring Fair in Birmingham and the National Retail Federation annual conference in New York. Each conference / trade show has provided insights we will leverage.

A couple of trends stand out.

  • The first is the greater blurring of lines in retail niches. The bike shop is not a bike shop only, the jeweller is not a jewellery business only, the garden centre is not a garden centre. Being flexible beyond your traditional shingle is important.
  • The second trend is about being local. Big businesses are structuring being local in a systemised way to capture shoppers who like local … even though the big businesses are not as local as locally owned small businesses. Now more than ever you need to leverage ways in your software to demonstrate you are local. Yes, Retailer helps you do this.

As we see it, goals for any small retail business this year have to include:

  1. Traffic. Finding new shoppers.
  2. Shopper value. Using every touch point possible to increase value of existing traffic.
  3. Efficiency. To eliminate out of date time wasting practices.
  4. Performance. To make decisions based on data facts and not gut .. cutting mistakes.
  5. Experimenting. The borders of specialty retail are gone. Play outside what’s been usual.

The biggest mistake we see made in small business retail is a lack of regard for accurate data. Customers of ours who respect data, reorder based on business, data, roster based on business data and plan based on business data usually have more successful businesses.

Online businesses, like of Amazon, are coming for high street retail. Being strong is crucial. Being smart is even more important … because Amazon and those in their league are smart.

In 2016 we released new facilities to help in some of these areas. In 2017 we have more coming. However, what you can achieve in your business in a marketplace driven by change depends on your business data.

If you want better data than you have today, we can help. We’d be glad to have the opportunity. It starts with you putting your hand up for help.

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