The POS Software Blog

The POS Software Blog

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

CategoryCustomer Service

Melbourne Cup day help desk coverage

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Many of us at Tower Systems have today off as we are based in Victoria and it is the Melbourne Cup (it’s a horse race, apparently) holiday. But fear not, our help desk is up and running, support is at hand. Call any of our office numbers if you need help. We are true to our motto … we’re here to help.

Training for retailers buying a business with the Tower Systems POS software already installed

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People buying a retail business have plenty to learn. Often, those sewing the retail business are not as thorough in their training as they could be. to help address this we offer personal training for those boys ng a business in which our POS software is situated.

We have packaged together two full days of new owner training. This is personal, one-on-one, training, tailored to the needs of that business, using the data from the business, ensuing that the training is relevant and appropriate.

This personal new owner training ensures that the new business owner knows the POS software and how it can be used to drive the business.

When we sell our POS software to a new business we always provide at least 2 days personal training. It makes sense that someone buying a business in which our POS software is already in use taps into at least 2 days of training. That is what this unique package of training  for new business owners is about.

This training is for new business owners. It reflects that our software is already installed and in use in the business … this makes the training different to what we would do for a fresh installation.

Through the training, we help new business owners develop their own business management processes relating to the POS software. We also can audit the prior use of the software and the data managed by the software, to help the new business owner make data-based decisions. We can also review the business practices of team members, to ensure they are focussed on proper use of the software.

This new owner training from Tower Systems is offered at a considerable discount for new business owners – to make it price appealing and thereby encourage them to make a decision that is good for business.

While new owners can learn the software through our knowledge base articles, our help desk services are priced on the basis that those using our software have been trained.

We know for sure that people who are trained love our software more.

We encourage all new business owners to undertake the new owner training package we offer. They will benefit and their business will benefit.

To find out the current cost of our discounted new owner training, please check out online shop.

Tower Systems releases free Covid contact training tool for small business retailers

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We have released to our POS software customers today a free contact tracing initiative through our website that enables our customers to easily collect the details of people entering their business in a format useful to health authorities should that be necessary.

We have done this because state and territory governments have not agreed on a consistent approach and because we think manual record keeping is not ideal in times when health authorities will want a fast response.

Using our approach, we collect and securely store customer details and allow our retailers, and only our retailers, to download these based on selection criteria you enter.

We generate a QR code unique to each business. Customers scan this and are taken to a page we create for each business where they enter their name and mobile number. They can optionally enter their email address. We tag this data with the date and time. That’s it. Their visit is tracked. If asked, retailers can show authorities that they have a process in place for collecting this data. For those without a phone, collect the data manually, on a clip-board.

As we gain use experience with this facility we expect to enhance it further.

We have also shared a template document to use at the front of a store, with the sample QR code replaced with the store’s QR code:

We have developed this free QR code based contract tracing tool to help our small business retailer community to be well equipped for helping health authorities should there be a Covid diagnosis that connects with the retail business in some way.

This is another way we can give something back to the small business retail community, a community that is so important to our business.

We have seen with Covid that the ability to quickly track those who may have had contact with someone who tests positive it critical to the public health response.

This contact tracing initiative from our POS software company could be a useful tool. From the outset, we knew we have to deliver this without cost to small business retailers.

We are grateful to those on our team who have brought this to life and our own retail stores where we tested this to ensure its practical usefulness.

With Covid here for a while longer, having tools like this for rapid response is critical for the economy, critical for our small business retail community.

Helping Victorian retailers reopen

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With the opening up of retail in Victoria as announced by the Victorian Premier this afternoon, we stand ready to help members of our small business retail community to be ready to open up.

Our help for Victorian retailers opening up includes data preparation, training catch-up, back-up checks and business process reviews.

With some shops having been closed for months, catch-up training is helpful.

We are doing this work without distracting from our work for the majority of our retail customers who are open and trading already.

Saturday POS software support

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Our office is open and we’re here providing assistance to retailers using our POS software today. This is a usual Saturday for us even though it is AFL Grand Final day.

AFL Grand Final public holiday

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Yes, that’s right, the delayed AFL Grand Final is set to play tomorrow. Here in Victoria, where we are headquartered, we have a public holiday today to ‘celebrate’. Our office is open, though, serving our customers.

POS Software Development Manager Q&A

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We have announced to our customers a Q&A with our Software Development Manager for next week, on Wednesday.

This is an opportunity for retailers from our POS software customer community to speak directly with our Software Development Manager, to ask questions and provide feedback. It’s rare that software companies make opportunities like this available, but common for us as we embrace opportunities for free-flowing communication.

The session is available for any of our customers, with access details shared through our usual customer communications channels.

Competition for awesome POS software screen design

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This morning we announced a competition for our customers. We are looking for the best POS software screen designs with 6 bottles of awesome Champagne up for grabs. Using out POS software, our customers have excellent control over their POS software screen design. Here is what we announced:

Win a bottle of champagne.

Hey, Retailer 3 users, share your POS screen design to get in the running to win one of 6 bottles of Heidsieck And Co Monopole Gold Top 2010 champagne. We will choose 6 well-designed R3 POS screens as winners, each receiving a bottle.

To enter, post a photo of your POS screen on our private customer Facebook page. Or, email support@towersystems.com.au with the subject – POS Screen competition. We will post it to the private Facebook page for you. Now, if you want to play with your design, this video may help: https://vimeo.com/387825075

We will keep this competition open for a week, until 9am October 19, 2020. We will choose 6 POS screen designs as the winners and send a bottle of this champagne as a price.

Why are we running this competition? Because we are seeing some awesome POS software screen designs, designs that we think could inspire others to create better POS software screens. You have excellent flexibility in the software. We hope seeing the designs inspires you.

Here is what you could win: Heidsieck And Co Monopole Gold Top 2010. Qantas wine experts had this to say: Heidsieck and Co Monopole are one of the oldest Champagne houses in the Champagne region. Gold Top 2010 is balanced and pleasing with hints of roasted and dry fruits, hazelnut, reminiscent of honey with a gingerbread dominance. This is a nice drop.

It’s great to see small business retailers growing revenue in Covid impacted 2020

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Many small business retailers are enjoying double-digit growth in their businesses, in the middle of the challenges of Covid, contrary to the negative reports we are reading and hearing from plenty of media outlets.

We are heading about the growth from small business retailers using our POS software. Not all are growing, but many are.

The growth in small business retailers is happening in a range of retail channels: newsagents, garden centres, pet shops, toy shops, produce businesses and more.

The retail sales growth is especially evident in small business retailers located on the high street as well as in rural and regional locations. 

Shopping centre businesses are certainly challenged, due to traffic issues.

We mention this, again, today to reflect that there is plenty of good news in the small business retailer world right now, good news that speaks to businesses that are growing – some because of fortune, some because of good moves by the business owners and some that are a mixture of these two and other factors.

The challenge for retailers that are growing in the middle of Covid is whether they discuss this. Retailers we have spoken with are reluctant to speak about it because they do not want to come across as gloating about their good times compared to the awful times others are experiencing.

We’d love more retailers who are experiencing good times to share their good news stories as this could help show others paths that they could take. The good news could also push back against the news media narrative that is, we think, too much based on stories of doom and gloom.

There is no doubt that being online is key to success in this Covid world. Being online representing your existing business as well as representing new product opportunities through which you are seeking to attract shoppers you have not served previously through your business. This is the Covid pivot people speak of, the turn a business makes to attract people they have not attracted previously.

Tower Systems itself has evolved trough Covid, working online more, being more connected through Zoom, Microsoft teams, using our CRM system and leveraging other commercial tech. platforms through which we can be with our customers every day in ways that are useful for them, serving their needs in a timely and professional manner.

Our POS software doesn’t care about your feelings, it cares about the facts and what they can mean for you and your retail business

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No, our POS software does not care abut your feelings.

Not now, not ever.

Feelings in business can divert your attention from important decisions, decisions that matter, decisions based in facts.

Our software cares about the facts.

Facts matter.

Data matter.

Our POS software collects and cultivates data on which you can make business decisions. Fact based business decisions are more likely to better serve your needs and the needs of your family and those who rely on your business for food and shelter.

No, our POS software does not care about your feelings.

  • If a supplier is under performing, our software will reveal this.
  • If a certain hour of the day is dead, we will show you.
  • If a product is not working, not selling, our software will show you.
  • If a customer is not valuable, we will show it.
  • If a staff member is stealing, our software has the tools to reveal this.
  • If one customer is worth more to you than another, we will show it.
  • If your GP% from one supplier is less than a competitor, we will show it.
  • If stock turn for products from one supplier is less than from another supplier, we will show it.

These data points and more are revealed by our software as it works through your data, looking at the performance of your business, offering up access to the results in a way on which you can bank the results, for the benefit of the business and those it serves.

This is why we say that our software does not care about your feelings. No, it reports on the facts because the facts are supported by the evidence and it is evidence that matters tremendously as you work through the decisions that are necessary in your business.

Good data = good decisions. That is how it should flow. It is how we focus on business needs, work on what we can top for businesses to improve their situations.

Here at Tower Systems we help you cultivate good data in your busies through our POS software, training, support and business advice to any who seek it. We will work with you through opportunities, every day, in pursuit of emotion-free business decisions.

It’s Saturday and we’re helping small business retailers

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It’s pouring rain in Melbourne and snowing in Canberra right now. In this kind of weather it’s good being inside, and warm. Oh, and safe, being safe at this point in 2020 is good. In fact, it’s fantastic.

But … we’re focused on what matters to our customers. Today is a business as usual Saturday. We are providing live support for our small business retail POS software customers. Offering help, advice and training.

Like all Saturdays, we’re here, working from home, but here providing the services we promise.

Small business support through COVID-19 from our POS software co.

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Tower Systems is grateful to be able to continue to help Australian and New Zealand small business retailers through COVID-19.

For us, it has been business as usual with no interruption to software development, support and POS software user training.

We continue to offer a full service POS software help desk service, releasing POS software updates and delivering our much-loves free one-on-one training to our retail business owners and their staff.

In offering business as usual, our customers have continuity of service. This helps them have what they need to work on their businesses … as that is what plenty of small business retailers have been doing through COVID-19, working on their businesses, re-calibrating, adjusting and, for some, pivoting. Indeed, we have helped some exciting pivots and we are grateful to have seen this and been part of it.

We are grateful to our own team of software developers, help desk experts, POS software trainers and our back office infrastructure support in that it is this group of people that has delivered for your customers through COVID-19 every day.

With small business retail at the forefront of community support through COVID-19, helloing them serve and grow is important to our customers and to us.

Our customers continue to haver access to a range of opportunities and benefits to help them best run their businesses in this situation.

  1. Free licences for home software access.
  2. Free unlimited training.
  3. No surcharge credit card use.
  4. Free access anywhere reporting tools.
  5. Pivot advice.
  6. Capped price low cost Shopify sites.
  7. Business performance analysis help.

So, here at Tower Systems, it is business as usual and, through this, we are helping our POS software customers achieve a business as usual experience. We know this is comforting to our customers, helpful for their business planning and operations.

But back to the pivot opportunity. We see plenty of this in a range of retail channels. By see we mean in business data. data show pivot opportunities and we can help our retail partners to explore these and consider whether they are useful. 2020 is a terrific year for a pivot and having the right software with flexibility can be helpful.

We hope your 2020 is going well too.

Live training workshops for POS software users

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We are hosting another series of live POS software training workshops for our small business retail customers. These sessions are run through our secure commercial Zoom account and are recorded and packaged for easy 24/7 access by thine unable to make the sessions.

Here is the schedule:

  • Friday, August 21 @ 10am. XchangeIT data fails. How you can avoid these, save money and stop physical returns. This is a newsagent specific session.
  • Monday, August 24, @ 10am. How to identify dead stock – taking a fresh look at this smart report.
  • Tuesday, August 25 @ 10am. How to restructure your stock file to drive better value for you. With stock manager, this is easy if you know how. We will show you.
  • Wednesday, August 26 @ 10am. Shopify / Woo website sync. What to check if you have an issue.
  • Thursday, August 27 @ 10am. How to setup discount vouchers. And how to use them to differentiate your business.

All Tower Systems customers have free access to this training. each session will include Q&A time on any topic.

8 reasons we’re happy this Monday morning

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We love Monday mornings at our POS software company for these reasons and more:

  1. There is the excitement for a new week.
  2. We get to hear good stories from the weekend from our team members and customers.
  3. We set the agenda for the week in terms of deliverables for our customers.
  4. We have a team meeting and catch-cups are always fun.
  5. We welcome our first new customers of the week.
  6. We look for opportunities of change.
  7. Our latest software update is being well received.
  8. Especially today, we have a new team member joining our help desk.

While 2020 is an unusual year, we’re grateful for what it is bringing to us.

New hire for POS software help desk

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We are pleased to have been successful in hiring another person to join our help desk. This is a second net new position for the customer facing side of our business in the last two months. It is a testament to growth in rooftops that we are expanding our head count in times that are seeing reductions elsewhere.

We are glad to welcome new experience and skills that Eric and Matt a month ago bring to our team in service of small business retailers.

Busy day on the POS software help desk

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We had extra people working on our POS software help desk today. It’s a crazy busy time for us, in a good way, as small business retailers are working on their businesses. Add to this plenty of new customers joining our POS software user community and people going live with new websites from us … it makes us busy. So, to manage this we added to our usual Saturday team and it paid off.

We are greatful to our help desk team members who worked today their service was appreciated by our customers and by the rest of the Tower Systems team.

Even on the middle of stage 4 lockdown in Melbourne, our service of small business retailers continued, unimpeded. We are glad to have our customers.

Tower Systems head office remains open through stage 4 lockdown in Victoria

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Working in a permitted industry and fulfilling Permitted Roles enables us to maintain our head office in Hawthorn, a suburb of inner Melbourne, open for business.

While we operate the head office with minimal staff in a Covid Safe operation, being open here at the office allows us to provide an enhanced level of service.

The majority of our team members are working from home and have been dong so since March thanks to our VoIP phone tech and our other platforms including a secure commercial Zoom account, a secret commercial Teams account and more.

Given the businesses operating in a hosted environment through data centres we facilitate and other services we provide, some out of our head office, we meet several points of criteria laid down by Justice Victoria. For our customers and the businesses they run, we are here, delivering business as usual services.

To be sure, we have completed the appropriate Department of Justice paperwork. We also have a visible and adhered Covid Safe plan for the office as well as protocols for those who do attend the office.

Here at Tower Systems it is 100% business as usual.

Helping essential retailers retailers serve customers through COVID-19

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As a core business software partner of retailers designated by government as being essential, Tower Systems is proud to be of service to these retailers, ensuring uptime for their POS software and other software we have provided for business management use.

In addition to our POS software, we offer other infrastructure opportunities and services in service of essential small business retailers. This includes cloud hosting, C2B and B2B online transactions, theft mitigation, food chain inventory management and more.

Our POS and other software are at the core of the operations of plenty of specialty retailers classed by governments as essential. Our role in their essential operations is important, something of which we are sincerely proud.

While most of our operation is remote and has been for months through 2020, some services, from time to time, we are office based as needed for infrastructure support and use.

Essential retailers are providing vital and essential services for communities and that is where we play a role as many essential services rely on core infrastructure providers to ensure that their essential services businesses can continue to trade through.

2020 is an odd year with plenty off challenges confronted already and plenty more to come. Here at Tower Systems we have rolled with the challenges, embracing those we can and managing our response as needed to help our customers and help others who rely on us.

Being flexible has been key in the first 7 months of this year and most recent challenges in Australia especially have been complex to confront.

Having customers across all Australian states and territories has helped as has having customers in New Zealand. This along with our placement of Tower Systems team members working across Australia and New Zealand has helped us be balanced in our work and service, especially of essential businesses.

Being a broad-based business that serves locally owned and run independent specialty retail; businesses helps us serve in 2020 in ways that matter not only to these businesses but to those served by these businesses. This is especially true in local and regional communities.

Serving essential businesses is a responsibility we take seriously and with sincere appreciation.

Covid resources for small business retailers

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We first shared these resources with our POS software customers in one of our daily update emails.

  • Click here for the SafeWork Australia Covid resource page.
  • Click here for a No Mask No Entry sign.
  • Click here for a range of poster from the federal department of health relating to covid.
  • Create your own action plan should your business be designated non essential and required to close for a while.
    • Know how to access the software from home.
    • Have a list of what to take from the shop.
    • Re-check your backup arrangements.
    • Run a trial so you can see what works and what does not work – you want to discover this in advance.

Adding to our help desk team

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Today, we welcomed a new help desk team member to our business to fill an additional role. It feels odd to be expanding our workforce while many businesses are contracting theirs. To be cliché, it is what it is.

Here at Tower Systems, the is is that we are grateful to service a diverse and strong mix of marketplaces that are essential every day. Produce, farm, pet, garden, fitness cycling, news … these are all sectors people rely on every day, pandemic or not.

So, today, we welcomes Matt to our help desk team in a new role. He’ll be off the grid for a couple of months learning the software and our processes.

Personal local support key to Aussie retailers in POS software selection

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Here at Tower Systems, our POS software help desk is Australian based, serving retailers in Australia. We are proud to be local, to offer local support that is delivered by people who live here and understand local business.

Too many POS software companies selling to Aussie retailers do not have local help desk support.

With Aussie retailers pitching buy local to their local communities, we are grateful to be in the position of delivering local service and support to our local retail community.

We support shop local as a company and encourage retailers and others in business to shop local. This is why we pitch today that when you talk with our help desk you are talking with an Aussie, someone who knows local business, local retail and can speak to local needs. Yes, local really does matter.

To keep jobs in Australia and help the Aussie economy to come out the other side of the coronavirus pandemic, shopping local matters. This is why we urge retailers to ask the question abut the location of POS software help desk personnel. While we feel for call centre staff in India, Pakistan and elsewhere, now is the time when local matters.

Now, we do have one caveat for this. We have a help desk team member, an Aussie, living and working in New Zealand. But that’s okay as we have a ton of customers in New Zealand. And, hey, we consider Aussies to be Kiwis and Kiwis to be Aussies

If you are in a local retail business and considering POS software for the business, check out where there trainers and help desk team members are located. Make sure that the company you are considering doing business with is supporting the local economy as much as you want your local economy to support your business. These things matter in terms of the truth of your own shop local pitch.

Shop local and support the local economy. It ripples out from your business to the town to the state and to the country. That is how we see it an how we try and live our lives here at Tower Systems, a proud local Aussie POS software company.

POS software co – business as usual

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We are installing our software for new customers, delivering POS software training, taking support calls, publishing new advice to our knowledge base and bringing more small business retailers online with POS software connected websites.

Here at Tower Systems we are grateful to our customers and our team members for a business as usual experience in a disjointed and strange world.

We have all hands on deck, albeit working at home and safe.

We are thrilled with the beta roll ut of our innovative R3 product as well as the other initiatives launched in recent weeks for our customers. These are busy and exciting times in our world and we appreciate the engagement from our customer community for helping this happen.

Have a wonderful Easter all. We are here on our usual numbers and socials…

Small business retail advice: using POS software to leverage low margin products

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This advice is for businesses that are traffic and margin poor businesses. Such businesses face high-risk businesses as most low margin products and services are delivering less traffic year on year … and therefore face high-risk of financial failure.

In addition to low margin products and services experiencing traffic decline year on year, minimal or no retail price movement see a decline in margin in real terms. Further, too often we see the percentage cut by suppliers for selfish reasons, further diluting the value to the retailer.

In our POS software user community we have access to wonderful advice and inspiration, from a broad range of retailers. We draw on that today, to put together the advice in the article for you.

But it is not all bad news with low margin products and services. If they are generating good traffic, the opportunity is to be proactive in leveraging that traffic. Here is a list of five must-do things to leverage this low value traffic in your business.

  1. Place at least one offer / stand at the door facing people as they leave. If you have room, have one stand / offer either side. Make sure the offer is easily understood and relevant.
  2. Use a portable table for pricing stock and other stock work and place this with a staff member doing the work during busy periods between the door and the destination for most traffic.
  3. For the highest traffic low-margin items, always pitch other products such that these destination shoppers see the other products.
  4. Always have an offer at the counter unrelated to the low margin destination purchase. Get creative as to how you pitch this at the lottery counter if you have Tatts.
  5. Establish a floor unit to guide counter traffic. the right type of unit is best used for holing products people are likely to purchase on impulse while standing in line to make their destination purchase. All sorts of retailers do this, even if they do not have the shopper to warrant such a floor unit.

Our advice is do all five of these things. If you don’t do some or all you are most likely only benefiting from destination business from low-margin high-traffic products and services and there is no upside in that.

For the record, margin poor products and services are those with a GP percentage of less than 50% in our view.

In our indie retail POS software we have awesome tools to help low margin high volume retailers. We’d be glad to help with practical advice.

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