The POS Software Blog

The POS Software Blog

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

ArchiveNovember 2018

POS software for Firearms retailers helps structure workflow and maintain excellent records

P

Thanks to advice and support from 29 firearms dealers and their staff in Australia, we have a software fine-tuned for your retail niche. This group provides us with guidance, advice and support as we continue to evolve our specialty firearms dealer POS software.

We do all the regular POS stuff you’d expect, and we serve firearms specialist requirements, like…

  1. Be their expert – in our specialty software you can leverage your expertise, local knowledge and other assets to differentiate your business to others. Our software offers easy ways to leverage touchpoints through which you can genuinely differentiate and provide appreciated service.
  1. Firearms Level Stock Control – Every stock item is managed. Automatically, reorder ammunition, track firearm movements, take orders and deposits for goods and track through to delivery.
  2. Serial Number Tracking – Record serial numbers from receipt through to sale.  All searchable at the touch of a button.
  3. Ammunition & Licence Tracking – Record customer licence details and report on sales of ammunition by customer or type of ammunition.
  4. Firearms Reporting – You’ll have some excellent reports at your fingertips including ammunition sales, stock by age, profitability by department and more.
  5. Repairs & Job Tracking – Accept firearm repairs and other jobs, track their progress in house or with third parties and notify customers when their items ready to be picked up.
  6. GP transparency – we had a firearms dealer who wanted to know product GP at the sales counter, so they could make informed pricing decisions live during a sale. We added this functionality as it was clearly useful in this specialty marketplace. We listen to our customers.
  7. Staff Tracking – Track all suspicious transactions, cancelled sales, discounted sales, deleted sales, quantity changes and more.
  8. Know Your Customers – Understand your customers’ needs better by viewing all their interactions with the business in one screen.
  9. Marketing– Keep in touch with your customers based on their firearm ownership, type of shooter, membership of clubs, birthdays and more.
  10. Offer Customer Loyalty – Move away from straight discounting (a race to the bottom) and implement a loyalty facility that encourages customers to spend higher amounts, more often with you.
  11. Gift Cards & VIP Cards – Our scanable cards speed up transactions and increase professionalism.
  12. Website Integration – Our software connects with Shopify, Magento & WooCommerce.  Have your accessories available for sale, and firearms available for enquiry without the need to do extra work.
  13. Accounting Integration – Have your sales and purchase information automatically flow into Xero, MYOB & Reckon.

Our training is one-on-one, in your business. Our help desk support is personal, based out of Melbourne, and personal too – because we know personal service matters in small business retail.

Our goal is to help you enjoy running a more successful and valuable business. We know that if we do this our business will benefit.

Talk to one of our experts about an obligation free personal demonstration: Please call our sales team at 1300 662 957 or email them at sales@towersystems.com.au.

Advice for small business retailers on POS software connected websites

A

In our Knowledge Base, we have articles on connecting your Tower Retailer software to Shopify, Magento and WooCommerce. A quick search will soon find these. All of our customers have access to our Knowledge Base.

We urge our small business POS software customers to read the article for the type of e-commerce platform you plan to connect with. Give the article to the people developing your site. Most questions we get from external web developers are answered in the articles.

We’d love to develop your website for you. We have a separate web team in our business who do this work. They are based out of our Melbourne Australia office. They have developed plenty of Retailer connected websites already. We think we offer a service that is beautifully tuned to the needs of local small business retailers and their customers – more so than web developers overseas.

Connecting our Retailer POS softwareto a website is technically easy. However, you are creating a hungry beast that needs to be fed. Here are some of our everyday POS software / webstore tips for getting started and managing the website efficiently:

  1. Get your inventory data right with product names, departments, categories, pricing and images. Retaileris in control of the data, always.
  2. Start with a small range of stock in the website first. Get that right and your prices right before you go further.
  3. Make decisions yourself on website look and feel and design. Expecting someone else to do all this usually leads to disappointment. Attention invested now will result in a website you like and that reflects you.
  4. Use real photos. Stock photos stand out. They look awful.
  5. Know that any website you launch today will need investment to refresh it within eighteen months. Web is a rapidly evolving environment. Not investing to keep up will see you fall behind.
  6. Whoever develops your website – make sure they are local. Offshore development is cheaper today but more expensive in the long run.
  7. Choose a platform that is appropriate. We are yet to see a retail business not satisfied with a Shopify or Magento site. Shopify is ideal for simpler needs and Magento works a treat for more complex and multi-store requirements.

Our focus on web development is absolute and thorough, as is our focus on delivering genuinely valuable small business POS software.

Added value for POS software customers who take up support

A

We have recently added more value to POS software support coverage we provide to our customers, making being covered by support more valuable than ever. In this work we have added access to services and facilities for which there used to be a separate, user pays, charge. These charges have been eliminated.

Many of our customers now have lower costs per year.

This is good news. We are thrilled to have been able to deliver this for our customers, to offer them lower operating costs.

Our support pricing process is transparent, all of our customers are treated equal. This is fair for them. It is the only way we do business.

As part of the process of changes, we have stream limed customer access processes for add-on and now free benefits such as Xero, MYOB, Magento, Shopify and WooCommerce. This is self serve, easy and fast. It provides a better and more enjoyable customer service experience.

In our own situation, in terms of data management here, what we do in this area is streamlined, fast and requires less data handling for our customers.

So, in 2018, Tower Systems has increased the value of POS software support coverage, added more real value, eliminated some fees and increased touch point opportunities for small business retailer customers – helping to drive an even better return on investment for our customers.

This is good news, news we are proud and grateful to be in a position to share here. We shared this news weeks ago with our customers.

We think it is important to talk about this here as people get too hear it from us. This is always better than the spin you can get from a competitor who seeks to deflect by talking about us too much.

We are committed to driving value from total cost of ownership, helping our customers to achieve more for a fair price, a price that is transparent and a price they can trust as applying to all. here at Tower Systems we proudly serve all customers as equals.

Talk to one of our experts about an obligation free personal demonstration: Please call our sales team at 1300 662 957 or email them at sales@towersystems.com.au.

Our training is one-on-one, in your business. Our help desk support is personal, based out of Melbourne, and personal too – because we know personal service matters in small business retail.

Our goal is to help you enjoy a more successful and valuable business.

Repairs software for small business retailers streamlines the repairs process

R

Tower Systems has offered repairs software for many years. First developed for bike shops and jewellers, our repairs software has evolved over time to provide valuable solutions to businesses offering repairs services.

The repairs software sits within our specialty retail POS software as a valued and appreciated software module.

Like all of our software, the repairs facilities benefit from our commitment to constant improvement, based on active customer feedback.

Some of the functions our specialist retail software’s repair features are being used for include:

  1. In Jewellers: Jewellery and watch workshop repairs, dated manufacturing.
  2. In Bike Shops: Bicycle and tricycle repairs, warranty returns.
  3. In Garden Centres: Landscaping services management.
  4. In Firearms Stores: Gunsmithy and equipment repairs, warranty returns.
  5. In Pet Shops: Aquarium installations, maintenance and repair.

Our repairs management software is flexible, serving a range of needs outside managing the actual repairs themselves. The flexibility in the software enables it to be used in different businesses for different purposes – from job management, to workshop management and traditional repairs management.

We have customers who start off with our Point of sale software and once they have this working well for them they switch on repairs. We make it easy to phase in an installation, so that people working in a business are not overwhelmed.

Using our repairs management software, a business can track the labour and resources used from a billing and inventory management perspective. It also handles allocation of repairs or parts of a repair to venues outside the business (for contracting and supplier exchanges or repairs for warranty issues, for example) and tracks repair staff and couriers used in shipping repairs. Once the repair is ready for pick-up by the customer, the software finalises the billing and advises the customer by SMS or another preferred method. Payments are processed with the usual depth of our retail software’s point of sale functionality – customers can make multiple payments against a repair or a specialist manufacturing, pay through cash, EFTPOS, PayPal or other methods.

Tower Systems is thrilled to work in the repairs management space, to serve the needs of small business retailers in this niche and him lever customer service area.

Aussie software for produce and farm supply businesses

A

Tower Systems is proud to serve rural, farm supply and produce businesses software designed for these specific types of businesses.

Based on our core POS software and highly tailored to the needs of produce and farm supply businesses, our software. The tailoring has been done in consultation with owners and managers of rural farm supply and produce businesses. This work is on-going, as the needs of the businesses evolve. We are grateful to our customers for their guidance and suggestions that help us make better software.

Produce businesses come in many shapes and sizes. We hear them referred to as stockfeed businesses, farm supplies businesses, rural stores as well as produce businesses.

There are common needs in these businesses for software beyond what is usual in retail management software. This is what we do – create software for very specific retail business niches, like yours. We do the regular POS stuff you’d expect, and we serve produce requirements, like…

  1. Invoicing and account management – in our specialty software you can manage accounts in a way that is highly tailored to your business. You can produce picking slips, manage accounts, feed data to Xero and MYOB, accounting for freight and more.
  2. Pre-orders – We make it easy for you to pre-sell a delivery so that when the stock arrives you can manage distribution and billing efficiently.
  3. Bagging up feed – Using our software we manage you bagging up a bulk feed delivery into smaller, saleable lots, while keeping accurate stock on hand data.
  4. Making your own feed mix. We help you track managing bulk quantity ingredients and mixing these into saleable packs of your own brand of seed mix. What an awesome point of difference for your business!
  5. Special orders. You can bring product in for a specific customer or customers and have them notified automatically by email or text when the goods are in and ready. The software can even print a label with their details on it, to personalise the package.
  6. Pricing profiles.You can set pricing rules based on types of customers you serve in your business.
  7. Seasonal reordering.You can easily reorder inventory based on seasonal sales data managed by the software.

This list of product business software functionality is not complete. We share it today to provide an isight into some of our specialisation in this business niche.

We do much more in these businesses, every day.

Talk to one of our experts about an obligation free personal demonstration: Please call our sales team at 1300 662 957 or email them at sales@towersystems.com.au.

Our training is one-on-one, in your business. Our help desk support is personal, based out of Melbourne, and personal too – because we know personal service matters in small business retail.

Our goal is to help you enjoy a more successful and valuable business.

Everyday management advice for small business retailers

E

The help and advice we provide to small business retailers often reaches beyond our POS software and into areas of small business management. We are grateful of opportunities to help small business retailers, to provide them with advice and assistance beyond what is usual for POS software companies.

As retail business owners and operators ourselves with more than 20 years experience in that area, on top of our 38 years in POS software, we have experience and knowledge on which we can draw.

In the interests of helping new retailers and retail shop mangers, here is a checklist of basic retail business advice, headlines mainly – not too much detail, just enough to remind you of key areas which need attention to build a stronger and more profitable retail business.

This checklist has been developed over the years of us supporting plenty of start-up small business retailers. The list is based on things we often see them neglect or forget.

Hiring, training and managing employees

  1. Create an employee manual with all employee terms and conditions.
  2. Hire the best employees available.
  3. Train your employees well. Do this by working with them, taking them into your confidence about the business, what it stands for and what you expect of them.
  4. Pay employees in a way which respects your faith in them.
  5. Share the rewards you make from the business.
  6. Remember, you are more responsible for employee performance than anyone since it is usually you who hire, train, manage and fire them.

Cash

  1. Cash is king in retail. An unprofitable business with a good cash flow can weather a storm.  A profitable business with poor cash flow can fail.
  2. Have a strong cash management policy.
  3. Bank regularly.
  4. Keep little cash on the premises.
  5. Never let one single employee control the cash. Have checks and balances.
  6. Keep expenses to an absolute minimum.
  7. Watch your product margins, make the most from each product you sell that you can without hurting sales.

Inventory

  1. Buy what sells.
  2. Use your software to determine replenishment stock.
  3. Never sell anything without tracking it.

Marketing

  1. Use all the free touchpoints: receipts, customer display and more in your software.
  2. Use social media, daily.

Operating costs

  1. Be frugal.
  2. Know dead stock as this is too often a big overhead.

Your time

  1. Automate as much as you can.
  2. Know how to get data to guide decisions.
  3. Delegate, with rules.

Too often new retailers and retail store managers look for advice to react to situations.  Consider the headline advice in this article early on and revisit it regularly to ensure that you have a strong and healthy business.

The value of office based POS software support on weekends

T

It has been another business day at the office today, Saturday, helping customers with queries.

Like the majority of our help desk calls, today was about providing training on how to, helping with net connection issues and troubleshooting hardware.

Being here, being accessible, is a real assist for our customers and that is our goal, to deliver comfort and support.

While we have our after hours mobile phone based help desk service, it is the office based service on Saturdays that people love because of the tools available to that team for helping our customers.

Personal and engaged human based support based out of our own offices in Australia is critical for the businesses we serve. We are grateful to our customers for their support.

Beware this email scam

B

A client received this email recently…

Hello!

I’m a programmer who cracked your email and device a few months ago.
You entered a pass on one of the sites you visited, and I intercepted it.
This is your password from  xxx@xxx.com on moment of hack:
XXXXX

Of course you can will change it, or already changed it.
But it doesn’t matter, my malware updated it every time.

Do not try to contact me or find me, it is impossible (in ‘from address’ is
a random contact).

Through your email, I uploaded malicious code to your Operation System.
I saved all of your contacts with friends, colleagues, relatives and a
complete history of visits to the Internet resources.
Also I installed a Trojan on your device and long tome spying for you.

You are not my only victim, I usually lock computers and ask for a ransom.
But I was struck by the sites of intimate content that you often visit.

I am in shock of your fantasies! I’ve never seen anything like this!

So, when you had fun on piquant sites (you know what I mean!) I made
screenshot with using my program from your camera of yours device.
After that, I combined them to the content of the currently viewed site.

There will be laughter when I send these photos to your contacts!
BUT I’m sure you don’t want it.

Therefore, I expect payment from you for my silence.
I think $868 is an acceptable price for it!

Pay via Bitcoin.
My BTC wallet: XXXX

If you do not know how to do this – enter into Google “how to transfer money
to a bitcoin wallet”. It is not difficult.
After receiving the specified amount, all your data will be immediately
destroyed automatically. My virus will also remove itself from your
operating system.

My Trojan have auto alert, after this email is read, I will be know it!

I give you 2 days (48 hours) to make a payment.
If this does not happen – all your contacts will get crazy shots from your
dark secret life!
And so that you do not obstruct, your device will be blocked (also after 48
hours)

Do not be silly!
Police or friends won’t help you for sure …

p.s. I can give you advice for the future. Do not enter your passwords on
unsafe sites.

I hope for your prudence.
Farewell.

This email is a scam. It was mentioned by the federal government recently as a scam, too. The best protection is to ensure you have your data backed up in the cloud, that you change passwords regularly and that you do not pay the ransom.

Note: we have removed identifying details from the email.

FREE ONLINE POS SOFTWARE TRAINING WORKSHOP: FREE UP CASH IN YOUR BUSINESS.

F

Wednesday November 7 @ 2pm. Free up cash in your retail business.

Each time we run this session attendees say they get plenty out of it. Our goal is to share insights, opportunities and ideas around how you can free cash in your business using the data and facilities of our POS software. We bring to the discussion years of experience ourselves in retail and try and help you look at your data as an opportunity for unlocking value without having to spend more money.

 Click here to sign up.

How Tower Systems helps small business retailers with omni channel retail.

H

Omni channel retail has been all the rage in business for a few years. Consultants like to talk about it, to boost their fees. Tech companies like to talk about it too, to bedazzle you with excitement.

Omni channel is nothing new. It is about selling from your business through multiple facings, multiple routes to the shopper.

Today, Omni channel, if you want to call it that, is about selling online and in-store and blending both so customers can act as they want. For example, they can buy online and pick up in store. They can buy in-store and return online. They can buy online for delivery to another location. They can pre-order online for pickup when a product is released.

Thanks to our POS software connecting beautifully to Magento, Shopify and WordPress (WooCommerce), we a4re able to deliver wonderful and useful omni channel solutions to small business retailers, making it easier, faster and more valuable for shoppers and for small business retailers serving those shoppers.

Tower Systems offers small business retailers several omni channel solutions based on our POS software and the web platforms to which we connect. We can show these live in plenty of retail businesses in different retail channels. Small business retailers can see live what we are talking about, they can see the results of our tech software development and web integration.

We have bene delivering omni channel solutions to retail businesses for years now and while we mock and do not like the buzz word, we are in the space, serving the need, delivering online and in-store connected solutions for businesses, helping them capture revenue where shoppers are.

In developing solutions for retail business customers in this area we find out about the needs, fully understanding them before we start off as it is vital we do fully understand. We have been in situations where a customer uses a buzzword with an understanding o9f a meaning that is not the same as ours. Hence, we ask questions, lots of questions. It is like measure three times and cut once for carpenters. We like to get it right. So, we talk, deter mine needs and then proceed to create a solution for our customers.

Why there is no such thing as Australia’s fastest POS software.

W

If you see a POS software company saying they have the fastest POS software we suggest you approach them with scepticism. If they say their software is faster than other software, ask them for the basis of their claim, ask them to prove it to you. They will most likely obfuscate or engage in smoke and mirrors. But ask them to prove their claim.

What does fast mean anyway?

The speed of software is a function of hardware=. Good current hardware can many any software fast.

What should really matter is software design. You want software designed for efficiency, good workflow, reduced keystrokes, accurate data collection, accurate data management. These are all speed related factors, they can all feed into an understanding and appreciation of speed of the software.

This is why we think it could be good to compare software on a table, compare two systems by function and see which is the mo9st time efficient for your business. This will help you reach your own conclusion about speed with a sales person telling you something they will either be unable to prove or will not want to prove with a desktop comparison with a competitor.

The most important aspect of speed of software is workflow. This is why a live in-person demonstration is best as you can learn the most about how to use the software from an expert, become an expert yourself and them make a truly informed decision about the most time efficient and best software solution for your specific business.

What is fast for one may not be fast for another given the differences available in how software might be used.

In conducting a speed and operational efficiency test of POS software, choose a function that is important =to your business. Load the systems you are comparing with your business data. Then, use them, put them through their paces. See for yourself how they perform. Measure them. Assess them. Gather your own data and be guided by your own, lived, experience. This will help you make the best decision for your business, it will help you draw your own conclusion about speed of the software.

The POS Software Blog

Categories

Categories

Categories

Recent Comments

Monthly Archives