The POS Software Blog

The POS Software Blog

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

CategoryGame shop software

Small business POS software Q&A

October 24, 2024
4 Min read
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Here are answers to questions we are often asked:

Are you Australian based? Yes.

Do you make your POS software? Yes.

How do I contact your help desk? By phone or email. Our help desk is Australian based with one team member working from New Zealand.

When can I contact you for help? Weekdays: 7am through 6PM AEST, Saturdays 7:30am through 3PM AEST. After hours for urgent calls: 24/7.

Do you have a knowledge base I can search? Yes.

Do you have training videos? Yes

How up to date are your training videos? Very – we add content regularly – many new videos in the last three months.

Can I ask support questions without having to speak to someone? Yes, we offer a closed network AI tool that relies solely on our own intellectual property. This is free and available 24/7.

What if I am unhappy with support? You can escalate to our Chief Operating Officer or our Managing Director – every customer is given their direct numbers and email addresses.

Can I run the software in the cloud? Yes.

Can I run the software on my desktop? Yes.

Can I backup to the cloud? Yes.

How long am I locked in with software rental? There is no lock-in. You can cancel rental at any time and billing stops immediately – once the current month is completed, there is no further charge.

Can we offer a special price to members of a club or some other group? Yes.

Can we market to members of clubs or teachers or schools? Yes.

Can we track sales to club or school members to rebate as a fundraising opportunity? Yes.

Can you pass on product care manuals and other documentation? Yes, you can load files, images, documents or PDFs for products (information sheets, advice, notices) and have them automatically included in emailed receipts.

Can we promote things on receipts? Yes.

Can we use the software to manage repairs? Yes. You can track jobs, parts and labour. Plus, communication with customers is streamlined.

Can we remind customers about servicing or similar? Yes.

Can we do this by text or email? Either, we support both.

Can we look-up historical servicing records for a specific customer? Yes.

Can we create a quote for a customer? Yes.

Can we track / manage quotes? Yes.

Can we track using parts from our shop and labour to make a product? Yes.

Can the software track special or one-off orders for customers? Yes, from the moment the order is placed.

Can we manage buying and selling second-hand items? Yes.

Can we group items together to sell in a pack or bundle? Yes, it’s easy to create packs using the software.

Does the software track product serial numbers? Yes. You have a couple of different ways you can do this.

Can we integrate the software with our suppliers? Yes. We have many customers importing stock files and invoices. If you want to provide a supplier a data feed of sales of their product, our software can do this too.

Does the software connect with our website? We partner with Shopify, Big Commerce, Magento and WooCommerce and offer direct links to these.

Can we email receipts? Yes.

Can we track where our customers come from? Yes.

Do we have to pay for software on additional computers in our business? No.

Does the software handle LayBys? Yes.

Can we connect with our EFTPOS terminal? Yes. We have a direct link to Tyro and through Linkly we connect to all major banks.

Can we use our existing hardware? Yes, as long as your hardware meets our minimum standards.

Can we use our existing data with the software? Yes. We’d like to check your data to be sure. We will advise what can be safely brought across.

Does it integrate with Xero? Yes.

Can the software age check on certain products? Yes.

Do you offer a business insights platform? Yes.

Can I use the software for a pop-up shop? Yes, our retailer Roam does this.

Do you offer a self checkout option? Yes.

Do you push software updates on me? No. You choose if and when to update.

Can I suggest changes for an update? Yes. Customers transparently vote on these.

These are some of the questions we have been asked by retailers considering our POS software. We hope our responses are helpful.

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Why Australian made and supported POS software is more useful for Australian retailers than software from an overseas company

August 13, 2024
2 Min read
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Local small business retailers are spoilt for choice when it comes to POS software. There are many software packages out there from which to choose. Plenty of these software packages are from overseas companies, companies with massive customer bases, companies with staff located in low labour cost countries.

Tower Systems is an Australian POS software company. Of course we pitch shop local. Shop local is good for the local Australian economy, it is good for us and our families. It is good for the families of those who work in local Australian retail.

If there is Aussie made and supported POS software that suits your type of business, go with that ahead of any software from an offshore company. The Aussie economy will thank you.

There are other reasons to choose software from a local POS software company:

Local support. They understand your situation better than someone in a cubicle in a low labour cost country given a couple of Aussie keywords to put about.

Local software. Local Aussie retail businesses do have local needs. A local Aussie POS software company is more likely to serve these in their software than an offshore software company with many times more customers.

Local understanding. Local real business is local. If being local is an important point of difference you will want to use software that understands the value of local and can help you leverage local.

Local connections. Local retail does not live in a vacuum. You have banking, supplier, community group and other connections. Local POS software is more likely to help you with these important local connections that software from offshore.

Tax. We suspect a local Aussie POS software company will pay more from every dollar they make in tax in Australia than any offshore POS software company. Tax paid in Australia to Australian governments funds local Aussie schools, hospitals, roads and education. It matters to us.

Australian made and supported POS software is more useful for Australian retailers than software from an overseas company because it serves the Australian community better and that should matter to anyone in local retail. It is what being local is all a bout after all.

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Free Insights Dashboard in Tower Systems small business POS software helps local retailers thrive

August 9, 2024
3 Min read
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The Insights Dashboard in our Tower Systems POS software for small business retailers instantly displays business performance insights and retailer will find valuable.

There is no report to run. No work to collate and interpret data. The insights are there, immediately, answering 6 key business questions:

1. What’s working?
2. What’s not working?
3. What am I missing out on?
4. Is theft an issue?
5. What sells with what?
6. When am I busiest?

This new video is a discussion between our CEO, COO and a senior customer service specialist. It’s a training video we made for our customers and shared free.

Seeing where you are making money, losing money, missing opportunities, experiencing theft and more can be easy money in the bank for any retailer. Packaging these insights in this way help time-poor retailers have better control over their business.

We also talk about EFTPOS surcharges in retail and show how any retailer can apply an EFTPOS surcharge in their POS software for immediate effect. Importantly, we go into the why, explaining the decision making of some retailers.

In our POS software, retailers can apply an EFTPOS surcharge as a percentage, a fixed amount or auto-calculated based on the specific card presented by the customer. Best of all, the calculations are done quickly and seamlessly at the sales processing time.

Using our POS software, charging and EFTPOS surcharge is easy. We are proud to not charge our POS software customers based on transactions they do in their business.

By providing retailers with flexibility on EFTPOS surcharging we give retailers complete control. It’s their business after all.

These two topics – charging an EFTPOS surcharges and using the Insights dashboard are part of another in our series of customer service videos through which we seek to add value to our relationship with our small business retailer customers.

The two topics in this one video speak to our focus as a POS software company: helping small business retailers make better business decisions sooner and helping them run more valuable and reliable retail businesses.

Tower Systems is a small business focussed POS software company developing, and supporting POS software for niche specialty retailers. Jewellers, garden centres, bike shops, toy shops, produce businesses, farm supply businesses, fishing shops, pet shops, charity businesses, landscape gardening businesses, antique shops, sewing shops, haberdashery businesses, newsagents and more benefit from this software.

Find out more at www.towersystems.com.au

Our pricing is transparent: https://www.towersystems.com.au/pricing

Call 1300 662 957 or email sales@towersystems.com.au

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Hidden gems for independent retailers: Tower Systems’ Insights Dashboard Empowers Local Retailers

July 22, 2024
2 Min read
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Running a local retail business can feel isolating at times. It’s easy to get bogged down in daily tasks without a clear view of the bigger picture.

At Tower Systems, we understand this. That’s why we developed the Insights Dashboard, a powerful tool within our POS software designed specifically for independent retailers like you.

Actionable Insights, Delivered Simply

The Insights Dashboard caters to all levels of business experience. Regardless of your background in financial or management skills, the dashboard presents insights in a clear, visual format. We’ve done the hard work of extracting valuable data, so you can focus on making informed decisions.

Uncover What Matters Most

The dashboard provides a snapshot of key performance indicators (KPIs) critical to your business success, including:

  • Where You Stand Today: Get a quick overview of your current sales and liabilities.
  • Identifying Underperformers: Easily see which products aren’t selling well (dead stock). This empowers you to make strategic decisions, such as discounts or stock reductions, to free up tied-up capital.
  • Missed Opportunities: Pinpoint instances where popular items have sold out, potentially leading to lost sales.Restocking strategies based on these insights can ensure you capture future revenue.
  • Unlocking Upsell Potential: Gain valuable insights into customer basket analysis. See which products frequently sell together, allowing you to develop targeted upsell strategies, co-location opportunities, and promotions.
  • Addressing Theft Concerns: The dashboard provides a visual overview of staff audit logs, helping you identify potential theft or training issues that require attention.
  • Optimise Your Staffing: Understand your busiest and quietest times with visual data displayed by hour and week.This allows for optimised staff scheduling to ensure you’re adequately prepared for customer influxes.

Knowledge is Power: Unlocking Your Business Potential

The Tower Systems Insights Dashboard is proving to be a game-changer for local retailers. We consistently receive positive feedback, with users surprised by the depth of insights revealed. Our goal is to empower you with knowledge you may not have known existed, ultimately propelling your business forward.

Ready to take control and unlock the hidden gems within your business? Contact Tower Systems today to learn more about our innovative POS software solutions.

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Advice from Tower Systems on how to choose the right POS software for your business

May 27, 2024
3 Min read
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The best advice on choosing the right POS software for your retail business is that you do it yourself. This is not something to outsource, not something to use one of the comparison (marketing) websites for. Do your own research.

Choosing POS software is an important decision, a decision for the long term, a decision directly connected to the financial viability of your retail business.

Take your time.

Start with what you want and what you need. These are different things. Write lists. yes, write them down for the more organised you are the more likely you are to make the best decision for your retail business.

Choosing POS software is not something to rush. Beware of the POS software companies that put limited time deals in front of you. Those companies likely offer POS software that is not ideal and they try and make your choice about price so as to distract you from your lists of needs and wants.

The decision is about what you need and want and each of the POS software companies that you consider. It’s not about what representatives of those companies think about software from other companies. Asking them to comment on competition is not ideal. If you do ask though and if they bag a competitor, ask them how they know this, ask them for evidence.

Be sure to gather evidence in writing. If a representative of a POS software company makes a claim that they will do this or that or that their software does a specific thing you need be sure to describe your need fully and to get their response to this in writing – it could be you rely on this later.

If being local is an important part of what you pitch for your business, think about the local situation of POS software companies you consider. Find out how local a company you are considering is, how local their people are, think about whether their answers factor into your decision making.

See, don’t hear or read. See the software for yourself. Come to the demonstration with unique sales scenarios you see play out in your shop. See how the software handles these. Ask for a recoding of the demonstration so you can share it with others in your business who will use the software for if they feel they are part of your decision making they are more likely to support the decision you ultimately make.

No marketing company, so software comparison website, no consultant can substitute for what you invest in considering POS software for your retail business. Invest the time, your time, and it will reward you with the best decision for your business, you, people who work in the business and the customers of the business.

No software is perfect, and doubt anyone who claims it is. Software that is the best will not be perfect. best is good though. This is why controlling the consideration process yourself is vital, it helps you find what you decide is best.

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Free FindIt marketplace from Tower Systems helps local shoppers find local retailers

May 6, 2024
3 Min read
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In today’s world of online shopping giants, it’s easy to forget about the fantastic array of shops right on our doorstep.Supporting local businesses is about more than just convenience; it’s about investing in the lifeblood of our communities.That’s where FindIt, a free online marketplace from Tower Systems, steps in.

Only serving local independent retailers, Tower Systems has a track record of shining a light on this most vital of retail sectors. It’s work on FindIt drawn on decades of service and a community of 3,500+ retailers served.

FindIt bridges the gap between local stores and shoppers like. It’s a platform offering products from a wide range of independent retailers across Australia. Whether you’re after that perfect birthday gift, a unique piece of homeware, or something special for yourself, FindIt allows you to browse and discover hidden gems from local businesses, all from the comfort of your couch.

But what makes FindIt special is its focus on ease and accessibility. Here are some of the key benefits for both shoppers and retailers:

  • For Shoppers:

    • Support Local: FindIt makes it easy to find and support businesses in your area. You’ll be putting money back into your community and helping to create a vibrant local economy.
    • Diverse Range: Discover a treasure trove of unique products you won’t find on mainstream online retailers.From handcrafted jewellery to locally-sourced produce, FindIt offers something for everyone.
    • Convenience: Shop from the comfort of your home and choose between in-store pickup or home delivery (depending on the retailer).
    • Transparency: FindIt provides clear information about each retailer, including their location and contact details.

  • For Retailers:

    • Free Listing: Tower Systems POS software users can sign up for FindIt for absolutely no cost. This eliminates the need for expensive individual online stores, making it easier for smaller businesses to compete in the digital marketplace.
    • Wider Reach: FindIt exposes your products to a broader audience of potential customers who are actively seeking out local businesses.
    • Simplified Sales: The platform integrates seamlessly with Tower Systems POS, streamlining the sales process and reducing administrative headaches.

FindIt is a win-win situation for everyone involved. Shoppers get access to fantastic local products, while retailers gain a valuable platform to showcase their offerings and reach new customers. It’s a fantastic initiative that fosters a sense of community and strengthens the backbone of Aussie commerce – our independent retailers.

To have product data – text and images – flow to FindIt is easy thanks to the integration with the Tower Systems POS software. Tower helps retailers with advices training and support to get connected.

The goal really is to encourage more local shoppers to want through the front door of local retail businesses.

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Aussie made game shop software helps local game shops thrive

April 24, 2024
3 Min read
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The game store POS software from Tower Systems helps local game shops thrive by nurturing:

  • Connections with local clubs and local game players.
  • Helping to identify faster moving games.
  • Leveraging game knowledge is service of customers.
  • Better and more valuable business decisions.
  • Reducing dead stock.
  • Accurately and easily managing sales.
  • Bringing shoppers back sooner.
  • Guiding more items each purchased each visit.

Game shops are unique businesses, not your everyday retail. This game shop software helps game shops leverage their specialisation in service of game players, local game clubs and the makers of games, while at the same time running an efficient and successful local business.

This POS software made for game shops has facilities that go deep into the unique needs of game shops.

Here are some of the ways our game store POS software helps local game shops leverage their uniqueness:

  1. Rare visit loyalty.  We are told that customers visit a game shop infrequently. Our software offers subtle loyalty tools that encourage more value from each visit.
  2. Pre-orders. Easily manage selling products before you have them in-stock. Collectors love these facilities. It works really well for items that are hard to find.
  3. Buy Now Pay Later and LayBy. Through our software you can have both.
  4. Club / collector marketing and support. Leverage clubs and collectors with offers and pricing. Nurture the love of gaming and connecting to this community, and growing the size of the community. These facilities can also help the game shop raise funds for game clubs.
  5. Special orders. With some items ordered in for a customer request, managing these types of orders helps the business to manage opportunities and to capture revenue in advance.
  6. Consignment selling. For customers who ask you to sell their items, you can track this inventory and any sales.
  7. Sell online. It’s easy with our Shopify integration.

Our Australian made and supported game store POS software does much more than this.

We are grateful to the game shops already using our software for their advice and feedback is key to helping us to continue to evolve this game store POS software.

Of course, the game shop POS software from Tower Systems offers much more than this.

Customisable thanks to many user-selectable options, this software helps game shops differentiate from big box retailers. It helps retailers highlight their difference, leverage their specialty knowledge and compete in unique and proven valuable ways.

This POS software is not average POS software that you’d see widely used. It really has been made for local specialty retail, like game shops, to help them leverage being specialty.

Tower Systems offers personal customer support. Our Australian-based help desk is available by phone and email during business hours, with 24/7 support for urgent issues. We also provide up-to-date videos for training as well as access to an awesome knowledge base.

If you’re a game shop owner looking to streamline operations, build a stronger community, and focus on what matters most – creating an awesome gaming experience for your customers – then Tower Systems POS software is worth considering. Check us out here: https://www.towersystems.com.au/game-shop-software.html

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POS software from Tower Systems tracks product weight for easy online sales management

April 18, 2024
3 Min read
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Knowing what a product weighs is key to accurate calculation of freight costs for online businesses. It’s not been so important for brick and mortar businesses. But online, product weight is key. It can also inform the choice of the method of shipping an online order as some freight businesses may offer better services based on product weight parameters.

The Tower Systems POS software allows retailers to record product weight by product and it shares this information with the retail business website thanks to its integrations with Shopify, Big Commerce, Woo Commerce and Magento.

The recording of weight by product has been covered in the POS software from Tower Systems for years.

Unlike brick-and-mortar stores where customers handle products themselves, online businesses rely on freight services to deliver their goods. This is where product weight becomes a crucial factor, something that can have considerable financial benefits for a retail business.

Tracking weight in the POS software has a range of benefits for a retail business including:

  • Accurate Shipping Costs: Imagine a customer adding a seemingly lightweight product to their cart, only to be surprised by a hefty shipping fee at checkout. This can lead to cart abandonment and lost sales. By knowing the exact weight of your products, you can calculate accurate shipping costs upfront, setting clear expectations for your customers and avoiding unpleasant surprises.

  • Competitive Shipping Options: Some freight companies offer tiered pricing based on weight. Knowing your product weights allows you to explore different shipping options and choose the most cost-effective service for each item.

  • Informed Shipping Decisions: Weight isn’t just about cost; it can also influence the shipping method you choose. For delicate or heavy items, you might prioritize slower but more secure shipping options. Lighter items might be suitable for faster, budget-friendly methods.

Tower Systems offers weight-aware POS software for retailers selling online and where freight is a factor on managing cost-effective online sales. Our point-of-sale software allows retailers to record the weight of each product directly within the system.

Tower Systems POS doesn’t operate in a silo. Thanks to its built-in integrations with popular e-commerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Magento, the product weight information you enter in the POS automatically syncs with your online store. This eliminates the need for manual data entry I the online side of the business, saving you valuable time and minimizing errors. Your customers will always see accurate shipping costs displayed at checkout, fostering a smooth and transparent buying experience.

By leveraging Tower Systems POS, online businesses can gain a significant edge in today’s competitive landscape. Accurate weight data translates to accurate shipping costs, informed shipping decisions, and ultimately, happier customers.

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POS software integration for international barcode lookup saves time for small business retailers

March 20, 2024
3 Min read
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Retailers are loving the international barcode lookup integration in our POS software. This connects with a respected worldwide database of product barcodes and provides excellent access to descriptions and much more: improving data accuracy, saving time and enhancing in-store and online product engagement.

Here is how we train our POS software customers on how to use the POS software integrated international barcode lookup facilities:

Like all of our POS software customer training videos, we also provide a transcript for those who prefer to read. It is time coded to match the video. here is an example:

0:00 My next favourite integration with Retailer is Barcode Lookup. Barcode Lookup is an online database of barcodes, their descriptions, their web descriptions or extended descriptions, images, classification information such as brand, manufacturer, dimensions.

0:15 It’s massive. Now over the time that we’ve integrated with Barcode Lookup, it’s grown from 100 million records right through to today at time of publication nearly a billion records.

0:26 That’s massive. So, what can it do? Well, Retailer can integrate with it and pull data down when you create a product or choose to update a product with data from that website.

0:37 Let’s have a look. The very first thing you’d want to know is how to sign up and how to get it working.

0:41 So, you should always read our knowledge base articles. Which will be linked to this video down below and it goes through the entire sign up process and how it works.

0:49 So, just follow the article and go from there. If you want to have a look at the website, we even have a link to the website and this is it here.

0:56 So, you can see right now 978 million people products exist on this site. to give you an example, I’ve got a few items here.

1:05 I’ve got a package of um electrical tape and a box of glasses cleaners to clean my glasses. I’ve done a little search on those and believe it or not, here’s my glasses cleaners and this is the description that it’s going to pull down from the site.

1:17 It will pull down the menu. Manufacturer information and it’ll also pull down this extended description and put that where I choose to put it.

1:25 There’s only one attribute to go with it, which is an MPN or a manufacturer’s product number. And these are all the images that it will pull down with it.

1:33 If we go look at this. The electrical tape pulls down this description one by three meter PVC electrical tape and has a much better description to explain what it comes what it’s all about no classification information with this one and then I’ve got my three pens so we’ve got the the blue tip which

Be sure to watch the video and check out the transcript to the right side of the page.

This video is another from our growing library of training videos for retailers using our POS software.

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POS software ChatGPT integration helps retailers generate awesome product descriptions to drive online sales

March 19, 2024
3 Min read
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Here’s an example of the awesome training videos we provide POS software customers. This one explains the ChatGPT POS software integration and shows how it can be used.

Now, if you’d rather read what is covered in the video: there is an awesome transcript provide on the righthand side. This is broken down by timing in the video. here’s an example:

0:01 Using ChatGPT to generate web store descriptions is by far my favorite tool in Retailer at the moment. It makes it really easy to get nice cool descriptions that work really well and you can even customize how it actually functions.

0:14 So first and foremost there’s going to be a link to the advice sheet on ChatGPT and using it. So here it is on the Tower Systems website.

0:22 I highly recommend you read it because it does change when there are things that occur with ChatGPT that change. For an example I will be addressing this particular point in this video where Yep.

0:33 Default model selected in Retailer doesn’t work, but long story short read the advice sheet, follow it. It’s going to be really good. 0:40 I’ll give you a brief rundown on doing it. So first you need to sign up to ChatGPT. I’ve already done that and then you need to create an API login key.

0:50 The next thing you should also do is make sure you do put in some payment details in there because it will not generate any API details if you don’t have payment details in there.

0:59 Why? Well they give you $5 worth of credit to start off with, um but they won’t actually generate anything if they’ve got nothing to pay.

1:05 Pay for later when you run out of that credit to top it up. So you’ve got to put some billing details in there. 1:11 Anyway, step one. Let’s get a API key. So we get to the chat GPT website and here on the left.

1:19 I’ve got API keys in here. If you can’t see it, just bring your mouse over to the very left side and API keys will be there and we need to create a new secret key. 1:26 So I’m just going to call this retailer. It’ll then ask you to verify that you’re a human and you just do a little puzzle.

1:33 It’s a nice fun one. Make the object here point in the direction of the hand. Love it. And you then have your key.

1:42 Now you get your key, you copy it and inside retailer, we go to setup API connection. Scroll on down to open AI.

1:53 Which is about halfway down and you put your key. In there. Save it. That’s step one of the steps in retailer.

On the page with the video you can see the whole transcript.

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Xero POS software helps retailers save time and cut mistakes

February 25, 2024
2 Min read
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The Tower Systems Xero POS software is POS software designed to integrate with the awesome Xero accounting software.

Made is Australia and supported by a wonderful and knowledgeable Australian help desk team, this POS software helps local retailers save time thanks to its Xero accounting software integration.

The Tower Systems POS software Xero integration reduces time spend on bookkeeping and accounting thanks to the seamless, neat and accurate data flow from the POS software to Xero. This also reduces the opportunity for employee fraud.

There is no additional cost for the Xero POS software integration from Tower Systems.

It is easy to get up and running thanks to a wonderful training video, excellent knowledge base articles as well as live, one-on-one support and more from the Tower Systems POS software crew. This content and support for easy use of Xero POS software is exclusive to Tower Systems.

Tower Systems developed this integration with Xero many years ago. It have been enhanced as the Tower software and as Xero have been enhanced – to ensure the software is current for the needs of today.

We use Xero ourselves in our own retail businesses, our advice comes from this place of personal experience. This enables us to provide practical advice on how to benefit the most from Xero and our POS software working together.

Connect the Tower Systems POS software with  Xero in minutes and keep everything in sync. Simply connect the tow and map your accounts. Our crew of retail experts can help;p you do this.

Once connected, your Tower systems POS software will upload your chosen key financial data to Xero – saving time on admin and cutting data mistakes.

This is an ideal local retail solution from Tower Systems that genuinely cuts keystrokes, saves time and protects retail businesses against fraud thanks to less touching of business data.

Tower Systems is a unique Australian based and supported POS software company. In addition to serving 3,500+ small business retailers, we own and operate several retail businesses as live test sites. Our in-house CPA manages the accounts for these retail businesses.

You’re welcome to see the Xero POS software link any time, to see if it could be a good solution for your business.

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Local small business retail advice: how to partner with local community groups to better serve the local community

February 22, 2024
3 Min read
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Talk about a win, win, win. This tip helps local retailers win new local customers, your customers save money and a local community group raise funds. Engagement is measurable, so you can assess the return on your investment.

Find a locally loved and trusted community group in need of funds, a group that has a reasonable number of members who do not currently shop with you.

Offer the community group a percentage from each purchase made by members of the group and their family members.

Offer each member a discount for each purchase.

The amounts offered need to be considered in the context of your business, your margin and the value of the anticipated additional purchases.

Consider a timeframe for the offer. For example, it may be useful to trial the offer for a limited period so you can assess engagement and then adjust as appropriate. It may also be an offer only open to certain days of the week, your quietest days.

Consider the products to be included in the campaign. It may be appropriate to exclude products categories where your margin is not enough to justify inclusion.

To manage the offer, see if your Point-of-Sale software can help. I know the software from my own software company can manage this. You give each community group a member a card, which when scanned ensures they get the discounted price and the donation to the community group is tracked.

The card becomes valuable itself, something talked about, sought after.

The commercial goal of this campaign has to be net new shopper traffic for the business delivering revenue the business would otherwise not have achieved. If this is the case, a discount off the usual margin achieved is acceptable as it is effectively a cost of acquiring the additional business.

Key to the success of this campaign is the active engagement of the community group in rallying members to visit the shop, to encourage them to support you so that you support the group they love.

Make an event of handing over the donation to the community group. Get photos. Talk on social media about being grateful for the local support that has enabled you to make the donation.

Share stories on social media about the activities of the group as your support of them can encourage their support of you.

We love the campaign outlined here as it represents the circular nature of the local community: people living locally, shopping locally, enabling local shops to thrive locally and support loved local community groups.

Tower Systems makes POS software for local retailers that helps facilitate what we have described here.

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Retailers loving the 1% EFTPOS fee rate offer

February 8, 2024
2 Min read
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Many of our local retail business POS software customers have jumped on the 1% EFTPOS fee rate. This is an optional rate with the choice entirely up to our POS software customers.

Here at Tower Systems we do not require our POS software customers to use any particular EFTPOS or payments platform. We leave the choice to them without any cost or penalty applied. This is a difference we are proud of, that we do not charge customers based on the EFTPOS platform they use. There is no penalty, no demand they use a particular platform.

The 1% EFTPOS cost offer for Tower Systems customers is another way we have sought to reduce operating costs for our small business retail customers.

Customers are loving it.

We also make it easy in our POS software for our customers to pass on actual EFTPOS costs to their customers, making EFTPOS cost them nothing at all in their businesses. That they are passing on a low cost is another way they can differentiate their business.

This 1% EFTPOS cost is for a solution integrated with our software. This means a bunch of benefits, such as:

  • Reduced keystrokes.
  • Reduced mistakes.
  • Reduced accounting and bookkeeping overhead.
  • Faster sales processing.
  • Better sales counter workflow.
  • Lower business costs.
  • Easy refund management.
  • Easier customer query handling.
  • Single point takings balancing for the beguines.
  • Reduced employee fraud.

There are plenty of benefits of this POS software integrated EFTPOS solutions beyond the low 1% EFTPOS cost to businesses.

Local retail business management benefits from integrated solutions. They do save time, and they reduce operating costs. That the financial costs are low is a loved benefit too.

We are proud to have been able to leverage this 1% EFTPOS fee rate for our Tower Systems customers, all of whom are local independent retail businesses, small businesses. It’s another way we have been able to help these small businesses get benefits that are often only available to big and national businesses.

Tower Systems is a small business focussed POS software company developing, and supporting POS software for niche specialty retailers. Jewellers, garden centres, bike shops, toy shops, produce businesses, farm supply businesses, fishing shops, pet shops, charity businesses, landscape gardening businesses, antique shops, sewing shops, haberdashery businesses, newsagents and more benefit from this software.

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If your shop is quiet this week here’s a perfect use of spare time: reduce the dead stock weighing you down

January 2, 2024
2 Min read
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We showed a retailer that more than 25% of the stock in their business was underperforming to the point that it was seriously loss making. There’s a tab on our insights dashboard that shows this.

This first week of the year is a good time to check it, to see if you have dead stock in your shop.

You don’t have to run a report or analyse data in any complex way. Click on the tab and it’s there for you, good or bad.

In the business mentioned above, the dead stock represented more than forty thousand dollars, $40,000, sitting, waiting, doing nothing, failing.

Tower Systems is not your usual POS software company. Sure, we show how to use the software. But, we also offer advice from a business management perspective – how to use the software to drive value for the business and its owners. We do this from the position of being retailers ourselves. We can speak to our experiences in our shops.

We own and run shops where we use our software ourselves.n We provide practical advice to our POS software customers based on our own experiences.

That’s what we do in this dead stock situation. Plus, we draw on decades of practical help to other retailers.

Our advice is to look at dead stock / the age of stock every 3 months. You soon learn the value of buying based on data evidence in the business and being cautious when exploring new product lines.

Your software can guide you to make decisions more likely to work, and less likely to result in dead stock.

We have been working with retailers for many years and continue to be surprised at the disinterest of many retailers in the extent and cost of dead stock in their businesses.

When we bought a retail business a few years back we had written into the contract a cascading discounts for existing stock based on its age beyond 6 months. In that business, more than half the stock had been there for 6 months.

Dead stock costs the business today, and when you come to sell.

In our POS software and thanks to our personal training we help retailers reduce the cost of dead stock in their businesses.

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Have you got stock hiding in boxes in your retail shop? It’s time to put it to work or let it go

December 7, 2023
3 Min read
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Have you got piles of stock tucked away in boxes, gathering dust in your garage or under shop tables? If so, you’re not alone. But if you’re serious about making a profit, you need to get that stock out on display where customers can see it.

It seems obvious to write, but some retailers still don’t understand this basic principle of business: stock that’s hidden away isn’t going to sell. If you’ve got stock sitting in boxes because you don’t have room to display it, it’s time to re-evaluate your purchasing decisions.

Think about it this way: every dollar you spend on stock is money you could be using to pay bills or invest in your business. So, before you buy any more stock, ask yourself:

Do I really need this stock?
Do I have room to display it?
Can I realistically sell it within a reasonable timeframe?
Is having this stock in my shop going to be valuable for the business?

If the answer to any of those questions is no, then don’t buy it.

Some retailers buy stock to impress sales reps or make their shops look busy. Others buy stock to make themselves feel better about their businesses. Some retailers buy stock because they are lonely. These are all the wrong reasons to buy stock.

There are even some sales reps who know they’re selling stock to businesses that don’t need it. Shame on them for putting their own financial gains ahead of the well-being of their customers.

If you don’t know the value of the stock in your business, it’s likely you have too much stock. A good but very basic rule of thumb or starting point of s=consideration at least is that stock should not be more than 20% of your total annual revenue from those products.

If you have boxes of stock that you haven’t opened in six months or more, you have too much stock. And if your back room, garage, or under-display table space is filled with boxes, you’ve got a big problem.

The best way to deal with an overstock of inventory is to stop buying new stock and focus on selling down what you already have. Don’t get emotional about it – just make a plan and stick to it.

If you don’t address the issue of overstocking, it will eventually overwhelm you and your business. Don’t let that happen. Take control of your inventory and watch your profits grow.

Yes, we’re a POS software company. We own and run shops, which is very rare for any of our competitors. Our daily experience in retail helps us better serve our customers in the software we make and the support we provide.

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Christmas marketing tips for local small business retailers

November 1, 2023
2 Min read
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It’s November 1. The countdown to Christmas is well and truly under way. The next 8 weeks are probably the most important weeks of trade for most retailers.

Here are some free tips to help you make the most of the opportunities, to help you separate your business from the Christmas noise.

Over the next 8 weeks most retailers will pound hard Christmas products, sales and opportunities. Many will be loud, screeching for people to look at them. In local retail businesses it’s hard to compete with the noise of national retailers.

The best advice we think we can give local retailers is to have fun, enjoy yourselves, help customers enjoy themselves.

In your social media posts, focus on having fun and sharing joyful stories.

In your window, be local, shine a light on local talents from kids to retirees. have your shop software people want to visit to see their friends and neighbours and themselves reflected.

In your shop be sure to keep it light, relaxed and fun.

We could give you a list of things to do. Not this year. This year we think you’ll get more value from a relaxed and fun-focussed Christmas season. let the others do the heavy lifting with Christmas noise. In your shop let people relax and catch their breath.

Being calm and relaxing will separate your shop, get it known for being this place rather than the shrill and bustle of Christmas retail elsewhere.

Make it easy, too. People often talk about how hard Christmas is. Be the business that makes it easy. The ways to do this are have bundled gifts ready to go, pre-bagged or wrapped, with some card selections that are relevant, offer easy payment options including buy now pay later, free wrapping, better shop floor help, guide buying advice or tips on perfect gifts no one else will think of. Consider making Christmas easy as being a key part of your messaging.

You could also help your shoppers help others. Setup a whiteboard or sheets of butcher’s paper, yes keep it simple. Get customers to write gift suggestions under different age/gender groups. For example: Girls 18 – 25, Boys 55+. Encourage your customers to help each other.

Stand out this Christmas by being different, calm, relaxed, fun. Shoppers will notice this, and appreciate what you have done.

Have an awesome run up to Christmas!

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Helping retailers quickly and easily load product images to their online store

September 26, 2023
1 Min read
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The free web app we created for retailers to facilitate fast and easy loading of product photos to our POS software and feeding these to Shopify, magenta, Woo and Big Commerce websites is being loved by our customers.

Using this free tool our customers open their phone, take a photo, check that it looks okay and click to share it. The back end software does the rest, including removing the background of the image if you like.

This is another time saving tool created by Tower Systems to help local retailers more easily get new products online.

The photo management and upload app is 100% our tech, designed to serve our 3,000+ local retail customers. we created it once we understood the frustration of retailers at how long it took to take photos, remove the background and upload them to the software. Removing plan ty of steps and making it a 2 or 3 click quick process is helping local retailers get more products online in a time efficient way.

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Game store POS software helps local game shops thrive

August 21, 2023
3 Min read
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The game store POS software from Tower Systems helps local game shops thrive by nurturing:

  • Better and more valuable business decisions.
  • Connecting with and serving local clubs.
  • Reducing dead stock.
  • Accurately and easily managing sales.
  • Bringing shoppers back sooner.
  • Guiding more items each purchased each visit.

This POS software made for game shops has facilities that go deep into the unique needs of game shops.

Game shops are unique and special businesses. Here are some of the ways our game store POS software helps local game shops leverage their uniqueness:

  1. Rare visit loyalty.  We are told that customers visit a game shop infrequently. Our software offers subtle loyalty tools that encourage more value from each visit.
  2. Pre-orders. Easily manage selling products before you have them in-stock. Collectors love these facilities. It works really well for items that are hard to find.
  3. Buy Now Pay Later and LayBy. Through our software you can have both.
  4. Club / collector marketing and support. Leverage clubs and collectors with offers and pricing. Nurture the love of gaming and connecting to this community, and growing the size of the community.
  5. Special orders. With some items ordered in for a customer request, managing these types of orders helps the business to manage opportunities and to capture revenue in advance.
  6. Consignment selling. For customers who ask you to sell their items, you can track this inventory and any sales.
  7. Sell online. It’s easy with our Shopify integration.

Our Australian made and supported game store POS software does much more than this.

We are grateful to the game shops already using our software for their advice and feedback is key to helping us to continue to evolve this game store POS software.

Here’s what’s included in the monthly rental cost: software licences for unlimited computers in the location, help desk support (by phone or email) 6 days a week (including Saturday), access to a comprehensive support knowledge base, after hours support call access for urgent system down queries, access to our Shopify, Xero and other integrations, access to our supplier invoice import tools.

Of course, the game shop POS software from Tower Systems offers much more than this.

Customisable thanks to many user-selectable options, this software helps game shops differentiate from big box retailers. It helps retailers highlight their difference, leverage their specialty knowledge and compete in unique and proven valuable ways.

This POS software is not average POS software that you’d see widely used. It really has been made for local specialty retail, like game shops, to help them leverage being specialty.

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Advice for small business retailers on the best value approach to decision making

July 24, 2023
3 Min read
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How decisions are made in local independent retail businesses can determine the value of those decisions, the consequences on those decisions.

Too often in our work with small business retailers we have seen decisions based on emotion rather than evidence.

The POS software we make for specialty small business retail collects and curates business data that can inform decisions. New have seen wonderful and valuable success flow in retail businesses that make decisions based on evidence is this data.

A common situation of poor decision making is buying stock. Too often we see small business retailers buying because they like a sales rep or because they like the look of something when their own business data indicate that buying that stock is not the right move for their retail business.

In our POS software we make it easy for local retailers to access this data about stock performance, we make it easy for them to have the evidence of their own data to better inform decisions they are considering. retailers who do this, who rely on the evidence in their own business data, tend to run more successful and valuable retail businesses. They tend to enjoy their businesses more too.

Buying stock has to be black and white: will this decision make money for the business in the time that the business needs? As a retail business trades using POS software like ours it builds up knowledge in its trading, knowledge that can be accessed, analysed and understood by the POS software itself to make it easy to see the right stock buying decisions to make.

We upset a retailer a while back when they happened to mention that products from a supplier were not working for them. They were unhappy when we showed them their own data that disagreed with their opinion. It turns out that their opinion was based on a dislike of the manager of the supplier business. They were letting their emotion get in the way of facts. The situation turned out well, the business made more money as a result.

If you are in retail to be successful, we urge you to make decisions based on your business evidence. Our POS software can help. We back its facilities with terrific training and customer support materials that are easily accessible.

We love helping local small business retailers make good decisions. It’s something that makes us feel good.

…

We are grateful to serve more than 3,000 local and independent small business retailers here at Tower Systems. Our POS software community is diverse and very much appreciated by us for their support and feedback.

The advice we share here comes from our years of engagement with them and our own experience as engaged retailers ourselves.

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It’s stocktake season and Tower Systems is helping small business retailers be ready

June 22, 2023
1 Min read
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Our advice to retailers re stocktake is first and foremost: never pay an outside party to do your stocktake and never do a stocktake outside of your POS software.

The most accurate stocktake result for any retail business is doing it yourself, using your POS software. The Tower Systems POS software offers easy to use and reliable stock facilities and workflow.

Last year (2022), we got together with one of the stocktake experts at Tower Systems to discuss this and answer common stocktake questions we are asked. Here’s the video.

Our help goes beyond this. We have written advice, and we offer personal training. We make stocktaking easy and reliable for local samall business retailers.

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Advice for local small business retailers confronted by big business competitors

June 14, 2023
4 Min read
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Small and independent retailers can sometimes feel helpless when a big national retailer opens up nearby. There is no match for their range, buying power, advertising coverage or even news coverage.

The sheer size of a national competitor is what scares many smaller retailers. It can feel overwhelming.

Here at Tower Systems, all of our customers are local small business retailers, indie retailers, because that is the community we seek out.

Here are 5 practical tips for small businesses on how to face and deal with a national retailer moving into the area:

1. Don’t compete. By not talking about the competitor, pricing against them or pitching your business in any way, you separate yourself. While they may have similar products, it is unlikely that they are targeting your specific business so why target them? Focus instead on your own business. Not competing should include not advertising price comparisons, not focusing on the competitor at staff meetings, not expanding your range to sell more of what they sell and not obsessing about them.

Know why you are different and lean more into that, and, it’s likely that price is not a significant difference in your mind.

If you know why customers shop with you, you have the opportunity of not giving up margin out of fear.

2. Run a better business. From the moment you hear about a new national retailer coming to town, look at every aspect of your business for opportunities for improvement. From the back room to the front counter fine tune your processes, employee training, stock buying and the look of the business. Dramatically improve your business from the inside out. This will improve your business health and help you weather challenges which may lie ahead.

Too often, independent retailers wait until the national retailer is open to react. This is probably a year or two too late.

3. Be unique. Look for ways to make your business unique. It could be on product range, operating hours, add-on services or something else. Embrace any opportunity to make your business unique.

Even a unique niche range of products can give you traffic a big competitor will not chase. Try and focus on products which require a level of retail skill and knowledge to sell – national retailers have challenges hiring and retaining retail employees with specialist knowledge and skills.

4. Engage the community. Like, really engage. Support local groups, speak at functions, get known as someone and a business who care deeply about the local community. Subtly make the connection that you are fortunate to be able to help because of your local business.

Being smaller and independent you are better able to personally engage with the community. You and your team are the business whereas a national chain will always be the corporate. They can throw money around locally, you can throw time, knowledge and more flexible assistance.

5. Tell your stories. Your retail narrative, your stories, connect you with the local community. Tell these through the people you contact, your own blog, a Facebook page and in the pages of the local newspaper. Tell human stories about your business, the people who work in it and the local stories which connect with it.

Your stories could be about local community connection, convenience of shopping, commitment to range, personal customer service, product niche knowledge … there are many different narratives with which an independent retailer can connect. It is important that one you have your narrative you stick to is, that it inhabits your decisions, marketing and public presentation.

Local indie retailers can compete against with any big business by not acting as a big business would. This is the key. Be yourself. Have faith in yourself. Sell yourself.

Now, why is a POS software company sharing something like this? That’s easy – we care about our customers, we care about local indie retail. We’ll embrace any opportunity to help local indie retailers shine.

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5 ways retailers can use the POS software from Tower Systems to pitch value to shoppers

May 9, 2023
3 Min read
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Plenty is being written about the economy at the moment and it is negatively impacting consumer confidence. There are things you can do with the Tower Systems POS software to show your business offering value to shoppers, and thereby nurturing more value for you.

And here in this post, value means the value shoppers perceive in dealing with your business. You could also use the term savings.

While value can be about price, it is often not as straightforward as that. Something could cost more but it could last longer or you might get more pieces than if you pay a lower price or there may be some other add-on that drives value.

While our POS software offers many ways retailers can pitch value to shoppers, here are 5 ways retailers can use the POS software from Tower Systems to pitch value to shoppers:

  1. Discount vouchers in Retailer are a perfect way to pitch value. A dollar amount discount is better understood than points. You can set the vouchers up in a way so costs are covered by benefits. Show your shoppers what they can save.
  2. Offer to fund raise for local charities, community groups and clubs. They could give their members a card that gets them, say, a 5% discount off purchasing from you while also earning for the charity a 5% donation. The goal here is to bring new shoppers into your business.
  3. Offering a coffee card type discount of, say, buy 9 and get your 10th free for habit-based purchases, like coffee, pet food, cards, magazines, fertilizer etc. can help nurture shopper stickiness to your business.
  4. Bundling products together into something that only your business offers can pitch a value proposition unique to your business.
  5. Volume pricing, where the cost of an item decreases as the quantity purchased increases, can help shoppers save and you sell more.

Your software offers more ways of pitching value to shoppers than these, and it helps you systemise pitching value. Being consistent about this is key to it working for you.

Consider this list of 5 a starting point, a jumping off point for exploring other ways for your business.

Tower Systems offers business management advice like this to all of its POS software customers, taking the POS software help desk experience beyond the technical and onto the shop floor, to help our local small business retailer customers to themselves get more value from their use of our POS software.

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Free POS software

March 28, 2023
3 Min read
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If you are looking for free POS software, Tower Systems is not the right company for you.

We don’t offer free POS software.

Typically, free POS software comes with payment made in other ways, such as being required to use a particular EFTPOS platform or service or being committed to some other cost in the business.

So, you can see, free is not really free. There is no such thing as free POS software.

What any retail business really wants / needs is the best POS software for their business. The best POS software will provide benefits in time and money that make the POS software truly valuable for the retail business.

Now, to be clear, we don’t know if our Tower Systems POS software is the best POS software for your needs. Only you can know that by comparing what our software does to what it is you need from POS software.

Our message today is buyer beware. Don’t get suckered in by a claim of free POS software because, for sure, it will not be free, and it may not be best for you.

We mention this today as we see many retailers in Australia searching for free POS software. It is worrying because every bad experience someone has with POS software.

Here at Tower Systems we want relationships with value at the core. We want to partner with customers we value, and who value us. This mutual respect helps both businesses prosper and if we do prosper then it’s the classic win win. That can’t happen with free as the starting point.

Software developers and help desk professionals cost money. And, you want that because you want good outcomes for your business. These good outcomes flow from good POS software that ids backed by good customer service.

If you look at it from a retail business perspective, you want people in your shop prepared to pay money for what you have on offer. If they don’t have money they are not customers you want. If their wage growth is flat their capacity to spend more is non existent.

All of this feeds into what is a circular economy.

But on price, we are fair, with a modest cost, which has not changed since 2019. So even though we do charge for our POS software, it’s modest and reflective of what we think the good businesses in our target marketplaces can afford.

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