ArchiveFebruary 2020

The drought, bushfires, floods and coronavirus have all impacted retail sales. Local independent gift shops are challenged. Through its specialty gift shop POS software, Tower Systems helps locally owned gift shops trade through and grow.

Here are some of the ways our gift shop POS software can do this.

By engaging with the marketing and management tools in the gift shop POS software, retailers can expect to cut costs, increase sales and drive bottom-line profit. Let’s take a moment to look at these…

• Cut costs.  Thanks to electronic invoicing, the cost of processing new stock is lower than with manual processes.  This can help cut your labour bill.
• Increase sales #1: reward customers.  A good loyalty program works.  Not like FlyBys which is of dubious financial value to customers.  No, a serious loyalty program which guides your customers to spend more money with you.  I have see stores grow sales by 10% on the back of a well constructed loyalty program,  a good POS software package will run this for you, points and all.
• Increase sales with buy now pay later.  Buy now pay later is flexible and loved. In our gift shop POS software it is integrated.
• Increase sales: market to your customers.  A coupon on your receipts, an email newsletter, a printed newsletter or up-sell script at the sales counter for staff – these are all ways you can use your point of sale system to help guide your existing customers to spend more money with you.
• Increase sales #5.  Connect with a local charity.  Use your gift POS shop software to make it easy for a local charity to promote your retail business shop and raise money for themselves at the same time.  Each sale earned for you by the charity can be tracked so that you are able to reward them with an accurate donation at the end of the campaign.
• Make better business decisions.  Bu buying only stock which works for you or seeing exactly what customers buy with what you are able to make business decisions which are more likely to drive better business results.
• Cut mistakes.  Mistakes in retail can be expensive.  By using smart retail management software, you can and should expect to cut mistakes.  This is because it takes fewer keystrokes per sale.  This reduces the opportunity for mistakes.  The saving could add as much as a full percentage point to your bottom line.
• Cut theft.  Theft in retail in Australia was running at between 3% and 5% of turnover.  Thanks to tight controls around employees and better tracking of stock theft, you can expect to cut the cost of theft.  Every $1 cut in theft is a $1 on your bottom line.

It is easy to get drawn to the doom and gloom of the times and through this to lose focus on your business.  This trap must be avoided at all costs … for the sake of the business and all who rely on the business from customers to employees to owners.

By using tools freely available in your gift shop POS software you can find sales, find time and find margin which may have eluded you to this point.

Here are our answers to part of a recent Q&A about our gift shop POS software.

Why focus on local gift shops?

They are unique, local specialist and appreciated. these businesses are important. They need software specific to their needs, software that helps them differentiate themselves from the retail noise. We like their level of specialisation and that we can specialise in tech for them.

Why focus on independent small businesses?

We like that by working with small businesses we work directly with the business owners every day. We like that this business is personal. We think that as a small business ourselves we are better placed to serve small businesses.

How many customers use your software?

3,000+ Operating on 10,000+ terminals and processing close to 900,000 transactions a day.

How many gift shops use your software?

More than 400.

What facilities do gift shop owners and staff  like are in your software?

1. Easy to use yet structured and professional Lay-By. Plus the opportunity to replace LayBy with buy now pay later.
2. Customer special orders with TXT message when stock arrives.
3. Professional gift cards with your logo and proper management of balance.
4. Easy to produce gift vouchers.
5. Gift receipts that can be wrapped with a gift (no pricing).
6. Intelligent receipts with product care information.
7. Easy handling of hampers and bundled offers.
8. Supplier performance comparison.
9. Employee performance management and rewards.
10. Importing electronic invoices from gift shop suppliers. We work with for you.
11. Linking to your website to manage a common stock file.
12. Loyalty options including traditional points as well as front end loyalty to drive infrequent shopper engagement.
13. Inventory management to guide you to a more efficient inventory level.
14. Theft reduction tools to reduce the opportunity of employee theft.
15. It’s easy to use.
16. It’s regularly updated based on user suggestions.

What do you think makes your gift shop software different to others?

We develop the software ourselves here in Australia in close consultation with gift shop owners and employees – as well as with gift shop suppliers. This is truly specialist software created for your type of business.

What makes Tower Systems different as a supplier of gift shop software?

Our service is personal, professional and accessible. You have access to the entire Tower Systems team to not only learn how to use our software but also to how to make more money in your business by using the software.

The gift shop POS software from Tower Systems runs in the cloud or oil the desktop. You choose what is right for your situation.

We offer a rental pricing option that makes our Gift shop POS  software available for $145.00 a month. For this you get…

1. Specialty Gift shop POS software developed in Australia.
2. Software updates as we release them.
3. Unlimited licences for your retail location. If you need an extra computer, there is no extra software cost.
4. Shopify / Magento / Woo link. Easily sell online from your POS software.
5. Xero link. Easing bookkeeping costs and streamlining accounting.
6. Our OzBiz link – connect to MYOB and Quicken through OzBiz.
7. Tyro link – safe, fast and easy EFTPOS link for streamlined sales.
8. PC Eftpos link – easy EFTPOS processing for the major banks.
9. Easy buy now pay later thanks to Zip Pay and Humm – that Boomers, Gen Y, Gen X and others are using more and more.
10. Support – help desk access, unlimited training, updates and more.
11. User documentation. Access to our searchable knowledge base.

The $145.00 is charged per 30 days, in advance. Access can be cancelled at any time. You can also choose to purchase the software outright.

We have a structured and personalised on-boarding process, done in your business. The up-front on-boarding fee is $2,999.00 (inc. GST). This includes:

1. A pre-installation training and information pack to help you be ready in your business and with hardware.
2. Pre-installation planning. A structured phone meeting to plan the installation and to go over the training, ensuring we cover what matters to you and your team.
3. On-site installation and training. On-site installation of and training in the Tower software anywhere in Australia for up to two days incl. travel.
4. Data conversion. Conversion of all data possible (within reasonable time constraints). This is a two-step process:
   1. Pre-conversion. With your permission we extract data to be checked for layout and consistency.
   2. The conversion itself. This is done as part of software installation.
5. Personal priority support. New user priority support through a specialist area of the new customer help desk.
6. Personal post-installation follow-up. A separate structured call to check knowledge and use processes.
7. All travel costs to and from the installation.

Save $1,000.  You are welcome to have the installation done remotely, with our installation expert located at one of our offices and working with you over the phone. This would reduce the on-boarding fee by $1,000.00 (Inc. GST).

Here are some of the benefits people in businesses like yours tell us they love:

1. Say goodbye to LayBy With our buy now pay later options.
2. Customers will love your product use and care instructions on receipts.
3. Make more money offering special orders that you can easily track from the counter and notify shoppers by email or text when the goods arrive.
4. Get one-time-only shoppers spending more with an awesome and differentiating loyalty facility.
5. Sell online easily, direct from your POS software.
6. Bring customers back with reminders on dates important to them.
7. Save money on bookkeeping by integrating with accounting software.
8. Make more money from the one time only shoppers.
9. Save time, load electronic invoices from suppliers.

We are local. Tower Systems serves 3,500+ specialty businesses.

The gift shop POS software from Tower Systems is made for local gift shops. It is rich in benefits that are bankable for these businesses.

Being locally made for local businesses, this gift shop POS software is focussed on delivering to local needs. We are proud of this, and proud that the software continues to evolve. No standing still here.

Here is a list of some of the benefits of our gift shop POS software:

• Get one-time-only shoppers spending more thanks to an easy to pitch loyalty system embedded in the software.
• Leverage you. If you believe your knowledge is a differentiator, offer it through structured opportunities in the software.
• Encourage customer happiness by serving product care info. on receipts.
• Say goodbye to LayBy – with integrated buy now pay later options.
• Easily handle special customer orders. Bring product in for a specific customer and have them notified automatically by email or text when the goods are in and ready.
• Easily sell online with a direct to Shopify / Magento or WooCommerce link from your POS software – including image flow.
• Go cashless if that is your goal – we make it easy and affordable.
• Save time with electronic invoices from suppliers.
• Use tags to get a fresh perspective, side-view, on stock performance.
• Bundle items together to make price comparisons harder and thereby increase sales.
• Business differentiating loyalty. Stand out from the crowd. Have customers coming back to you for this.
• Trade and club pricing profiles. Set pricing rules based on customer type.
• Make money from pre-orders – Easily pre-sell a delivery so that when the stock arrives you can manage distribution and billing efficiently.
• Differentiate with informative receipts. These can include product care, use and safety information based on what customers buy.
• Track who sold what.

This gift shop POS software works for you in so many ways, on so many levels. It can help you differentiate your business easily and consistently.

We only sell this software to independent retailers as we are a small business focussed POS software company serving already more than 3,000 retailers.

We’d love to help you run a more enjoyable and more successful gift shop.

The gift shop POS software from Tower Systems is benefits rich helping indie gift shop owners run more successful retail businesses. It is made for this. Made in Australia. Made for local gift shops that serve local communities. Made to help these local small businesses connect with local shoppers for in-store and online sales.

The gift shop POS software from Tower Systems is already used by hundreds of gift retailers. here is what they tell us they love.

• Easy selling. From the sales counter. From the shop floor. From local markets. From parties in homes. From online. This software helps you wherever you sell, whenever you sell. Flexibility is key here.
• Easy payments. By integrating with EFTPOS as well as buy now pay later, shoppers have choice and this makes selling easy, accurate and fast. In retail, getting paid is critical. We make that easy for you.
• Encouraging more purchases. This is what shopper loyalty is all about right?! … getting shoppers to buy more. The Tower gift shop POS software guides this through cool and unique loyalty tools that shoppers love. And, we have data to back this up, data that can guide deeper engagement by you to drive better results.
• Guiding consistency. The more efficient a retail business the more profitable it is. Our purpose built gift shop POS software helps you run a for consistent business, even when you cannot be there yourself. Customers love consistency. Staff members, too, as it guides them in workflow.
• Competing. We all hate big businesses right?! Well, most big businesses at least. Our gift shop POS software helps you compete by differentiating your business from the big businesses. We help you set yourself apart in clever and appreciated ways.
• Being local. here it is. here is what matters most to indie local retail businesses. being local is challenging yet it is everything. For many of us who own local retailers, shops, being local really does matter. In our gift shop POS software you can pitch local in clever and consistent ways, differentiating ways.

Tower Systems offers awesome gift shop POS software made specifically for gift shops. We can help you run a more successful, valuable and enjoyable local gift shop. We can help you build a brighter future for your business and all who rely on it.