The POS Software Blog

The POS Software Blog

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

ArchiveApril 2019

Advice from our POS software co for high street brick and mortar retailers in competing with online businesses

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Our small business POS software company often provides general business advice to retailers, beyond our POS software specific advice. Here is one example – about competing with onlone.

Competing with online begins with your headspace, it begins with committing to getting the business right and relentlessly pursuing its success.

In practical terms, this means that every business decision is based on careful consideration of sound data. If the data does not support a business decision, you don’t do it. Simple.

Five ways you can compete with online

Here are five ways you can differentiate your business from online, ways that leverage personal, human, contact.

  1. Track every contact.Treat every contact as a customer. Know who they are. Explain that it’s part of your service – to offer advice and keep in touch. This will qualify them as a customer from their very first question. While it may scare some off, better that you do it early before you give away your expert advice.
  2. Give them a gift for listening to you.Every customer who spends time taking in your advice should be given a voucher for them to spend in-store in a purchase above a certain value. This shows that you value their attention. Presented well it can better connect them with you for the longer term.
  3. Subtly share stories about the risks of online shopping.There are documented stories you can find about people being ripped off – what they ordered is not what they received, credit card fraud and the like. Arm your team with these stories … maybe a story about a customer who bought from you following an expensive rip off online.
  4. Reward loyalty with a front-end approach.Ensure that every purchase over, say, $10, comes with a voucher offering a discount off the next purchase. Factor this into your mark-up model. Cash rewards showing on a receipt can be a powerful lure to bringing a shopper back.
  5. Personalise your service.Arm all sales staff with personal business cards. Place follow up calls or emails to shoppers spending over, say, $100. Host networking events in-store. Connect with and support local clubs. Add value through personal contact at every possible opportunity. Structure regular, value-adding, contact with your customer base.

The difference between a bricks and mortar shops and a website selling similar products is that your business, the bricks and mortar business, is real, it can be visited, it’s personal. Everything you say and do needs to reinforce this and build trust based on this.

Aussie POS software for gift shops helps them compete on the high street and online

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Local gift shops benefit from gift shop management software from Tower Systems through facilities and tools designed to support these businesses in efficiency, local focus, shopper engagement and business planning.

This is good Aussie developed and supported software for independent gift shops, software that is fit for purpose for these businesses regardless of location or niche in the gift retail space.

Our gift shop software is used by hundreds of specialty gift retailers today, facilitating stronger and more valuable businesses.

These promises are real. We are real. Tower Systems is a well-established Aussie POS software company with more than 3,500 small business retail customers in nine specific retail niche categories, like gift shops.

Here is what we think really matters about what we do and what we offer Australian gift shops like yours:

  1. This awesome gift shop software is developed in Australia.
  2. It has been designed specifically for gift shops.
  3. Our customer service team is Australian based. If you call, email, text, Facebook message or visit us, a human, with a real name, responds.
  4. Our software is regularly enhanced, based on user suggestions.
  5. You have access to unlimited one-on-one training.
  6. We offer business growth training, providing business context for cool things you can do with the software.
  7. Easy access to a fantastic knowledge base – like a searchable manual.
  8. Easily link with your website to sell online.
  9. Easily link to Xero – save time, cut mistakes and cut accounting costs.

Tower Systems offers gift shop retailers plenty…

  1. There is no additional travel cost for on site installation and training.
  2. There is no additional mandatory monthly support cost.
  3. There is no extra mandatory cost for software updates.
  4. There is no extra cost for extra registers or computers in your shop.
  5. There is no after-hours charge for after-hours support calls.
  6. There is no additional charge based on turnover.

Look at that list of things we will not charge for!

We have tried to make our offer for gift shops as cost-effective as possible while maintaining the high level of personal professional service for which we are known.

Tower Systems is proud to support small business gift retailers, for stronger local retail, especially in regional and rural locations.

Bike retailers connect bike shop software to bike exchange and bike

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The Tower Systems specialty bike shop software helps bike retailers sell online through direct connected Shopify and Magento websites as well as bike trading exchanges such as Bike Chaser and Bike Exchange. We have customers live and trading, helping these small business retailer to find new shoppers.

Using our specialty bike shop software, Tower Systems customers can do much more than connect to Bike Chaser and Bike Exchange. Our full service POS software helps bike retailers transact sales, manage loyalty, manage repairs, track warranties and much more. In terms of business management, the software provides valuable insights, cuts paperwork, feeds into Xero, easily managed eftpos and, most important, offers access to buy now pay later payments options such as Afterpay, ZipPay and Oxipay.

The Tower Systems bike shop software is robust, regularly enhanced and customer facing. It helps bike shops provide personal and local service, efficiently, accurately and with a view to a long term relationship.

In addition to traditional inventory data points such as item name, description, barcode, supplier stock code, images etc, you can record service and other information that reflects your own intellectual property – that is shared with shoppers when they purchase.

For each item in inventory you are able to record a serial number. Serial number tracking provides a level of control essential for those items with unique serial numbers – for your records, for the customer documents and for supplier reference should this ever be needed.

A comprehensive Lay-by facility is integrated with the inventory management tools, ensuring complete management of inventory assets even those held in Lay-by. You can set your own Lay-by terms and have these printed on customer Lay-by documents.

With only a few genuinely specialty retail solutions around for bike retailers, Tower Systems is proud to serve hundreds already in this marketplace, helping them to transact efficiently and with a vie to business growth.

We are committed to serving the needs of bike retailers, to helping them achieve their goals and helping them to help their customers love cycling in whatever form it takes for them. The Tower software is a solid part of the local cycling community.

Firearms dealer software helps firearms dealers meet community expectations

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The Tower Systems firearms dealer management software, helps firearms dealers fulfilled their regulatory obligations, collecting appropriate data and maintaining appropriate records relating to firearms and ammunition.

At the heart of the firearms retail management software is facilities that serve state and territory regulations as advised to us by firearms dealers.

As regulations change, we will change the firearms dealer management software to ensure that community expectations are met, that firearms retailers can comply with the law.

We appreciate the close relationships we have with firearms retailers. Their support and guidance, along with that from industry associations and other bodies helps us to deliver practical, lawful and community beneficial solutions.

In our Firearms retail management software, dealers can rely on accurate record keeping, security over data, good business accounting and tight staff management. These and other management tools feed into each other ton provide good business solutions offering valuable benefits for these local small businesses.

In a recent interview, we were asked background questions about our firearms dealer management software. here we share some of the answers, to take you behind the scenes with what we do and how we do it for firearms dealers:

Can I track firearms licence number by customer?

Yes, easily.

Can I track sales by serial number?

Yes, easily.

Can I track sales to a particular customer?

Yes, easily.

Can I market to customers based on their purchase history?

Yes, easily.

Can I sell items by colour, size and style?

Yes, easily.

What are the most significant benefits of the system?

Accurate selling, tight stock control, reordering based on real data, less dead stock, greater shopper contact efficiency through upselling and overall easier running of the business thanks to your rules and processes encoded through the software time saved by eliminating manual processes such as accounting system data entry and more.

Like any business tool, the benefits you get from using our firearms business software reflect what you put in.

Tower Systems approaches the opportunity as a long-term relationship.

We will do everything possible to help you succeed.

Can I sell bundled items like a firearm, ammunition and a sight?

Yes, this is easy. You can have a bundled price as well as single prices for each if you wish. Creating bundles is easy as is retreating from bundles back to single items, maintaining the integrity of stock on hand data at all steps along the way.

Can I unbundle items from a pack back to single items?

Yes, easily.

Can I sell items by weight?

Yes, easily. We thought this was an odd question for a firearm business but we have a good answer.

Can I sell gift cards?

Yes, easily.

Can I manage repairs for customers?

Yes, the software has a repairs facility through which you can track repairs, inventory used in repairs, time spent on repairs and outside resources used. It also notifies customers when a repaired item is ready to be collected.

Can I easily handle LayBys in the software?

Yes, you can establish your own rules and have these managed through the software.

Can I share care and maintenance instructions for goods purchased on receipts?

Yes, this is easily setup and changed.

Can I setup different pricing for members of a local club?

Yes.

Can I sell items at a multi-buy price where the per unit price decreases as the number purchased increases?

Yes, this is part of our catalogue offer in the software.

Tower Systems launches new newsagency sales benchmark study

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This morning, we launched a new sales benchmark study for Australian newsagents. Here are the details from the announcement:

Q1 2019 NEWSAGENCY SALES BENCHMARK STUDY.
I invite you to provide data for the Q1 2019 newsagency sales performance benchmark study. The benchmark provides data against which you can compare your business performance. Click here for my last report.

How to participate.

  1. Please run a Monthly Sales Comparison Report for 01/01/2019 – 31/03/2019 compared to 01/01/2018 – 31/03/2018.
  2. Tick the category box. IMPORTANT.
  3. Tick to exclude home delivery and sub agent data.
  4. DO NOT tick the supplier box.
  5. Preview the report on the screen. Save as a PDF and email this to me at mark@towersystems.com.au.
  6. Read the report yourself and see what it shows you about your business.

I will email the results to all participating newsagents and publish the results on theAustralian Newsagency Blog as a service for all newsagents.

My work with this channel goes back to 1981 when I wrote newsagency software to manage newspaper home deliveries. That software evolved into Point of Sale software and has been rewritten as software technology has changed. 

I own and run three newsagencies. Over the years I have had three others. I own newsXpress, the newsagency marketing group.

Tower Systems serves 1,750+ newsagents with best practice newsagency software, We are thrilled to note that our customer base is growing. Overall, Tower Systems serves in excess of 3,500 small business retailers.

Help for MYOB Retail Manager POS software users

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As Retail Manager from MYOB reaches what we have been told is end of life – that is, no future enhancement development planned, Tower Systems has been helping small business retailers switch from Retail Manager to the Tower Systems POS software.

We have terrific, extensive, marketplace specific, experience migrating retail businesses from Retail Manager to our POS software. This includes converting data, providing training face to face in-store, backing this with easy to access help desk support and regularly updating the software based on customer suggestions.

In our work we take time to assess the needs and ensure that what we offer is well covered, that it is a genuine solution compared to what they are using today.

There is no pressure, no inducements. At the heart of what we do is software truth. That is, what we actually do and deliver for our small business specialty retail customers. we prefer to show. hence, our offer to visit any business and put our software on the table next to any other, so people can see it for themselves and compare, live.

We are an Australian POS software company. We have software developed specifically for garden centres, jewellers, bike shops, pet shops, toy shops, garden centres, produce businesses, farm supply businesses, firearms business, newsagencies and adult shops.

Our MYOB Retail Manager alternative is well established. We have terrific reference sites who can share their experiences from switching to the Tower software. We gladly share these with prospective customers.

Each version of our software is highly tailored to that marketplace.

With more than 3,000 customers we are well established.

Our software integrates with MYOB and Xero.We also link to Oxipay and Zip Pay, offering buy now pay later service. We also link to Tyro as well as all the major banks for EFTPOS. Plus, for easy and direct website connection, we integrate with Shopify, Magento and WooCommerce.

The software runs in the cloud or on a desktop. You can buy, rent or lease.

Talk to one of our experts about migrating from MYOB Retail Manager please call our sales team on 1300 662 957 or email them at sales@towersystems.com.au.

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