CategoryEthics

The latest Victorian Covid related lockdown has shown, again, the important role small business retail front line team members play in our communities … especially the retail businesses that are open through lockdowns.

For people living alone or caring for someone at home, the interaction at the counter is important. Over recent weeks there have been several examples we have witnessed of this, where shoppers talk for a bit longer, soaking up the interaction. Local retail shops are hubs for this warmth.

Good retail team members spot the need and provide interaction that is encouraging and helps the customers feel better than when they arrived.

What’s been happening in  in Victoria over recent days is a reminder of the importance of local small business retail in communities, the role they (we) play, the support provided.

We are writing about local small business retail as it is in that setting that shoppers are more likely to have a personal and nurturing experience. The local small businesses we serve are less focussed on KPIs, interactions are more authentic than the corporate national retailer dictate of the five rules of every customer contact or whatever corporate rules the staff are told they must follow.

The warmth and genuineness of the interaction in a local high street shop setting is helping plenty of Victorians through this latest lockdown. Local small business retail channels can be proud of the role they play on the front line, the role they play in the mental health of so many who visit these local shops.

If only politicians would take a moment to see first-hand the role local small business retail plays in the community in situations like this. There are retailers in our channel who do more good in a week of customer interactions than a year of words press releases, announcements and doorstops from any politician, especially federal politicians who love a big announcement but fail at the action.

Kudos to all retailers in Victoria who have been open through the latest lockdown and who have provided extra care at the counter to customers keen for personal contact and support.

Many many years ago we were shown a function in POS software from another local software company that enabled a retailer using the software to take cash out of the business in a way that was difficult to detect.

Using a special password, anyone using the software could enter the amount they wanted to withdraw. the software adjusted records to hide the withdrawal, maintaining accounts records for any tax audit and a separate, hidden, set of records for the business owner.

We discovered the unique tax free cash accessing facility when we were asked many many years ago to add a similar facility in our software. The business owner wanted to remove $2,000 cash a week from their busy business. We refused. We lost that customer and some others who wanted such a facility.

Eventually, the knowledge of the facility in the other POS software reached state and federal government authorities. Several agencies from state and federal governments got together to look at the facilities. We were able to observe this first-hand. It was breathtaking. Their interest was in how a retailer was assisted in removing cash from a business without detection. This was demonstrated.

We have been asked since several times by some retailers to make it easy for them to remove cash undetected from the business. Our answer is as it has always been – you can’t do this with our software. To do so within the code of our software would be illegal, just as doing so in any retail business would be illegal.

With benchmarks and other data analysis tools, the federal government is especially well equipped today to detect such activity.

We have many ways we can lawfully help local retailers make more money in their businesses – through better decision making, faster decision making, tactical shop floor engagement, efficient online selling to shoppers they will never see. retail today is growing for many local retailers thanks to these and other engaging tools in smart POS software. This is where good business growth can be achieved and through which value can be cultivated to make a business worth more when it comes time for the owners to sell.

Bad business decisions can be a big burden in a retail business. make better business decisions and you can make more than any cash you may wish you could take form a business.

Product and service comparison websites are popular online. If you search for POS software, it is likely that an ad from a comparison website will be the top result. Indeed, depending on the time of day you search, the first three or four results will be be for comparison websites advertising POS software.

What’s wrong with advertising? Nothing, if the claims in the ad are accurate.

Based on our personal experience, comparison websites do not provide the service they suggest they offer. While online the comparison website we worked with claimed to have compared POS software in order to recommend the best, no such comparison was undertaken. Once we saw, first hand, what they were doing we ended our short relationship with them.

Does this mean all comparison websites operate this way, claiming they have compared products and services to bring you the best? No. we can only speak to what we experienced ourselves. However, that experience was enough for us to say, no thank you. We will not engage with sites that claim something they do not do.

We wish the ACCC, state based Consumer Affairs and other authorities would look into the operation of comparison websites, getting behind the scenes, looking at the contracts and understanding the evidence. we think they will find that some comparison websites are an ad platform plain and simple – claiming to compare when they in fact do no such comparison. Shoppers are duped in these situations, thinking they are being recommended the best fit, the best software … when, in fact, they are being pitched software the comparison website is paid to ‘recommend’.

We wish Google would look at this as well as they are making money from the comparison website game being played. these websites pay Google too appear ahead of natural search results. They are profiting from the game being played.

Here at Tower Systems we want our software to be installed by businesses that choose it based on their own research and active comparison with other possible solutions. We want to be authentically chosen for good business reasons and not because we paid to come up first in some fake best of the best search result online.

If you are searching for a product or service and a comparison website advertises to be a top result, our advice is beware, do your research … choose based on what you discover for yourself and not based on what a nameless and faceless website claims is the best of the best. Deep pockets for advertising doe not make a company or product the best.

There is a scam in the software business space where software companies are invited to pay to be put on lists of the top software.

Some lists are application specific like POS software while others are retail channel specific like gift shops, jewellers and similar. There is another list going around for top inventory management software and another for top retail software linking to accounting software.

Tower Systems has been approached five times in recent months to pay to be listed on such lists. In one case, the amount you paid determined your position on the list. The fee sought to be on such a faux list of the best has ranged from $2,500 to $15,000.  With between 8 and 15 companies on such a list and the promoters often creating 10+ lists every few months you can get a sense of the financial value, to them, of the scam.

In each case the invitation said they had assessed us and our POS software as being worthy. We checked them out and there had been no assessment whatsoever. Each approach was, in our view, a scam, a commercial operation designed to drive revenue for the business in control of the like by providing a fake ranking that the software companies listed could point to in their marketing – further promoting the fake.

We have never participated in these scams at Tower Systems. We have not and will not pay to have our POS software listed in a list that says we are one of the best.

The only assessment we trust is that of each of our POS software user small business retail customers. The toy shop owners, farm supply business owners, jewellers, garden centre owners, landscapers, pool repairers, newsagents, bike shop owners … these small business owners matter to us.

Paying to be on a list reflects poorly on the software companies on the list in our view. It demonstrates that the software and services provided by any company on such a list were not a factor in determining place.

The next time you see a software company promoting that they are on a list, ask them how they got there, ask them if they paid anything to the creators or promoters of the list. You will not see our Tower Systems POS software there, and for that we are grateful.

Shoppers are keen for Australian made – more so now than at any time we can recall. Our advice to suppliers and retailers is consistent: If your products are Australian made, make sure you are bold in pitching that on the products.

Since COVID hit and more so in recent weeks as tensions with China have escalated in Australia and in recent weeks as democracy in Hong Kong has come under attack from Beijing, shoppers and retailers are more wary of China sourced product. And more recent still is the attack on the international student business.

Is sourcing products from China a long term concern? It’s hard to say. It is, however, enough of a concern in our view that we expect some suppliers are actively working on adjustments to their supply chain so as to not be impacted by anti China sentiments.

We have been discussing the situation internally and with our retailer partners and we feel that it is Beijing’s moves against Hong Kong and the recent war of words from China against Australia that represent the most significant risk to the commercial viability of China sourced products.

Does this mean retailers don’t want to source products from China? No. However, it does mean that it is on the minds of retailers and that they do talk about it with us.

In our own retail businesses, yes, we are a POS software company with our own shops selling gifts and homewares as test sites for our software, we are concerned about the source of what we sell. Where possible we preference locally made, ethically sourced.

What’s happening in Hong Kong showcases suppression of democracy and at some point we anticipate the world will respond to that. What’s being published by state owned news outlets in China against Australia also indicates the challenges and risks ahead for the supply chain.

These are reasons why we hope suppliers have alternatives in development so that supply is not impacted.

As a POS software company we became involved in our customer businesses in many ways. We have written about this topic today as it has come up in several retailer forums we have hosted.

Shop local is a common pitch from small business retailers. You see it on social media as well as on signs in front of shops. It’;s usually an emotive pitch without substance.

We think such pitches, while well intentioned, fall flat as they offer little evidence of what shop local looks like.

Small business retailers who pitch shop local need to, themselves, look at where they shop for products and for infrastructure. The shop local pitch can fall flat if the business clearly sells products primarily sourced from overseas.

For businesses sourcing products locally, we can help in our POS software with opportunities and tools through which the local Australian made message can be pitched and reinforced, to help shoppers see and feel the local connection at the transaction and product level.

In our Australian made and supported POS software we can help small business local retailers practically and consistently advise customers about locally made products – in-store as well as online. We can help retailers to do this in a way that demonstrates their actions speaking louder than words. We think this approach will have more valuable impact than a social media post calling for people to shop locally.

Sharing information on receipts and through other platforms about locally made product can be the difference in winning a sale or not. Doing it with consistency across the inventory fleet is critical. It can be systemised for consistency of delivery and of wording itself. This is where our Aussie POS software can help small business retailers be smart in their shop local and buy Australian pitch.

We’d love to see more retailers being smarter in their shop local pitches. Of course, it is locally made and supported software that will do best at this for Aussie small business retailers. Our goals are more likely to be your goals when it comes to what is good for Australia and Australians. Yes, this is out pitch to you for POS software – buy locally made and ask what it can do for you to pitch shop local and shop Australian.

Here at Tower Systems we can help with this. Indeed, we’d love to help you with this. We live and breathe shop local.

The more we work together the strong our local communities, the stronger our country.

We are running this donation offer in the shops we own and run. We’ve been doing it since the start of this week.

It costs our customers nothing. The donation comes 100% from us.

The federal government passed ;legislation a while back making it illegal for POS software companies to offer tools that facilitate the hiding of business income for the purpose of reducing your taxation obligation.

Here at Tower Systems we have never offered such tools.

We think it is wrong for any business to hide income for purposes of reducing taxation obligation.

We have participated in several panels with the Australian Taxation Office on matters related to POS software including this area of software compliance so as to not facilitate tax avoidance. We are grateful for the opportunity to be part of the conversation that led to tighter rules in this area.

Years ago, we had a competitor that did this, a competitor that facilitated the avoidance of tax by retailers using their software. They promoted it. It was common knowledge in retailer circles at the time. We saw live how a secret facility in their POS software was used to avoid tax. Once we saw it ourselves, we reported the matter to the Australian Federal Police and other authorities. The tax avoidance tools in the software were demonstrated too the authorities.

That experience is not the only time we have seen this. It frustrated us that tax avoidance facilities were being promoted as a differentiator to our software. For sure, it cost us revenue. I sucked then and still sucks today. Those perpetrating the tax avoidance scheme within the software company should have been jailed in our view.

However, we move on.

Today, the message for retailers is that the ATO has a range of tools, benchmarks and more at their disposal that enable the discovery of tax avoidance. Trying to avoid tax is a mugs game.

Retailers are better served focussing on smart engagement and operation, using their software to builds stronger and more successful businesses. This can be done if you use smart software that focusses on new traffic and new opportunities for a brighter future. that is, software that is backed by business advice and professionalism to help retailers achieve excellent results.

Tower Systems helps small business retailers beyond the software to ethically build stronger and more successful businesses. As retailers ourselves it is what we do, with pride and pleasure.