Some POS software companies are offering retailers thousands of dollars off computer hardware to run their software. One current pitch offers $7,000 off.
It sounds too good to be true. In Tower Systems’ experience, deals that sound too good to be true usually are.
Nothing is free. A software company giving away or heavily discounting hardware is recovering that money somewhere, because it has to. Sometimes it is buried in a higher monthly fee. Sometimes it sits in a long lock-in contract with painful exit terms. Sometimes it hides in payment processing arrangements that quietly clip every sale. Tower Systems has seen free or heavily discounted hardware become a genuine burden on a retail business, one that outlasts the shine of the deal by years.
So the advice is simple. Beware. Read the contract carefully, the whole contract, and be sure the business is happy with every clause before signing. What is the total cost over the full term? What does it cost to leave? What happens to the hardware, and the data, if the retailer wants out? A deal that cannot survive those questions was never a deal.
Better still, start with the software. That’s what we recommend – not because we are a software company but because we know software is where the real advances are made long after you commit. Hardware is static, software is not.
Hardware is a commodity. Screens, printers and scanners can be bought anywhere, at honest prices. The software is what the retailer will live with every trading day. Make sure it fits the needs of the business first, because good software can save a retailer thousands of dollars every year, honestly and repeatedly, through better margins, better rosters and better decisions. That saving compounds. A one-off hardware discount does not.
A retailer choosing POS software is choosing a long-term business partner. The right question is never “who is giving the most away?” It is “which software genuinely fits this business, and which company will still be answering the phone in five years?”
Tower Systems develops and supports POS software for local specialty retailers in Australia and New Zealand, serving only indie retailers, not franchises or chains.
Start with the software at www.towersystems.com.au.
At Tower Systems, we’re here: 1300 662 957 or sales@towersystems.com.au. If you’re in NZ, call 0800 444 367. Contacting a human is easy.
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