CategoryGarden centre software

The new normal for retail.

While the new normal is a cliche, it is true when considering retail for the back half of 2020 and beyond.

It is great news that businesses are reopening. However, the coronavirus is still there. This means that our retail businesses need to be safe. Our businesses need to be flexible in how we transact.

• Being easily found online is critical.
• Managing online sales efficiently and profitably are key.
• Offering click and collect is essential.
• Seamlessly connecting your physical shop and online is vital.
• Being able to sell from anywhere as you take the business to where people are situated through home delivery and more.
• Stocking what people want now matters.
• Setting opening hours and your roster to maximise revenue matters.

These things matter. 

In our experience, prior to this year many small business retailers went online because they thought they should – usually, without a plan or a specific focus.

Now, being online properly and with focus is as critical to a retail business as having the right staff and the right stock.

Being online is fundamental to business success. This is the new normal.

We develop, sell and support POS software. It’s made for specialty retail businesses in Australia and New Zealand: farm supply, produce, fishing, toy, garden, bike, jeweller, homewares, gift, firearms, newsagent and adult.

Our POS software works from the counter, the shop floor, the car, the truck. We have solutions to help you sell anywhere.

We also develop, sell and support POS software connected websites. We do our work in Shopify or Magento – depending on the needs of the businesses. We also link to WooCommerce.

Shopify and Magento are used by more small business retailers than any other platforms.

We can help you with the new normal.

Tower Systems is a local POS software company offering locally made POS software that is backed with local POS software support. Our focus is independent small business retail, serving these needs with commitment and passion, helping the businesses run efficiently, safely and toward maximising genuine value.

We serve in excess of 3,500 independent small business retailers with our Point of Sale software.

Here is a new video from  one of our tech experts demonstrating the ease of managing stock data using the Tower Systems POS software. The ease of manipulation, with appropriate security and management controls, delivers to small business retailers they appreciate from our POS software.

Join Tower CEO Mark Fletcher for a quick look at small business retail April 2020, into May and beyond in this new video from us:

Here’s a new video that we shot in the office yesterday…

A new video from us, about who we are and what we do. Shot in the office April 28, 2020.

We are often asked by small business retailers how our Point of Sale software compares to VEND POS software. We have not used VEND so we cannot comment from personal experience. What we can say is this:

1. Our POS software is made by us.
2. It is specialty in nature.
3. Our POS software is designed for specialty retailers.
4. It is feature rich, tailored to the specific needs of certain retail channels.
5. It is not designed to be for everyone.
6. It is not basic.
7. It is not the sort of software that would teach yourself.
8. It is regularly updated.
9. Our POS software connects with many suppliers for electronic invoices and supplier stock files.
10. Our POS software connects direct with Xero, Shopify, magenta, Woo, Tyro, PCEftpos and more.
11. It can be rented or bought outright.
12. It is updated regularly.
13. You control when nit is updated.
14. Our support is offered by humans. When you call us, which is easy, a human answers.
15. You can speak to the owner of our business.
16. We provide unlimited one-on-one free training.
17. People in our company use their real name.
18. We have a ton of user documentation if you like to read.
19. We enjoy what we do.
20. We’ve been in business since 1981.

That’s 20 points. We could go on.

We are proud of what we do, what we offer and that we are a different POS software company to those chasing the everyday marketplace. Our comfortable place is niche, specialty retail. We do it well and have done for many years. We walk away from more opportunities than we pitch to, because we are a specialty POS software company making and supporting POS software for certain specialty retailers.

We’re not for everyone, and that’s good. It helps us focus and that helps our customers focus.

Point of Sale software is critical for small business retailers. More important than that is the right POS software. Too often retailers think any POS software is good for them. Specialty retail needs specialty software and that is what Tower Systems develops, sells and supports – specialty POS software to serve the needs of specialty retailers in the retail channels we name in our website.

Here at Tower Systems we share business advice with our small business Point of Sale software users regularly through emails and other platforms, to help them run more successful and enjoyable businesses.

Recently, we have provided advice on addressing concerns about EFTPOS fees. As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, use of cards has risen considerably, adding a layer of cost to small business retailers that they cannot easily mitigate. We put together advice for small business retailers on how to deal with this, through their POS software and through key management decisions they can make.

Here is what we first sent to our customers over a month ago…

With the use of EFTPOS higher now, here are some tips to help insulate your business from a higher operating cost compared to cash.

1. Promote cash. Check advice from the Royal Australian Mint on handling cash during COVID19.
2. If you use Tyro, offer cash out as that cuts your fee to $0.00. We love Tyro EFTPOS – it’s fast, easy and safe.
3. 99c. Use 99c pricing wherever possible. Pricing psychology suggests that 75c, 90c, 95c and similar are seen as the same as 90c.
4. Price smart. We know from  pricing experts that $12.99 is seen the same as $13.99, that $16.99 is seen the same as $17.99, that $18.99 is seen as the same as $19.99, that $28.50 is seen the same as $29.99 … you get the drift..
5. Bundle. Package multiple items into an easy shop bundle. This makes price comparison harder and allows you to creep on price.
6. Have excellent impulse lines at the counter. An extra item or two I the basket drive purchase value beyond what the shopper may have approached the counter with. How do you know items are excellent? Their performance, trial and error.

Practical advice like this is common from us as we serve our small business retailer POS software users with ways they can work on their businesses to improve return as well as business enjoyment. It is advice that comes from our own well of us running ships ourselves, from using our own POS software in our own shops. It helps us walk in the shoes of our customers.

Tower Systems has been helping retailers with advice and support elating to COVID-19 since late January, when we realised that the coronavirus outbreak was going to significantly impact SME retail around the world, especially in areas where we serve.

In a practical sense we have helped by eliminating some fees, making some add-on modules to our software free, offering free home licences and freezing software support fees at 2018 price levels.

We have also maintained full capacity on our help desk – to ensure our SME retail customers have access to the POS software support they need. Call traffic has continued at pre-COVID-19 levels. However, the nature of the calls has changed, which is interesting. retailers are spending more time woking on their businesses. It is terrific to see and we are grateful to the able to help them do this.

We have also recalibrated our web development team to ensure we quickly serve the needs of current and new custommeersd seeking our help to bring their businesses online.

We have also been hosting free online training sessions as well as retail business owner connectivity sessions – helping retailers have a place where they can talk with and support each other. This has been important in encouraging good mental health.

While COVID-19 is challenging for SMEs, Tower Systems is helping retailers to efficiently  and safely serve their customers. That our retailers can offer contactless retail has been a real boost for their businesses and a terrific comfort to their customers. Having our product in the marketplace years before COVID-19 helped is have an established and beneficial solution that retailers can leverage to their benefit as they themselves navigate the pandemic.

There is a silver lining in all this. retailers, especially SME retailers are developing stronger businesses, businesses that are evolving rapidly to the new world, a changed world and we are grateful to be part of these transformations. With many being data driven we are there. With some switching retail channels, we are there. As a specialty retail POS software company we understand niche and are grateful to be able to help.

Tower Systems serves in excess of 3,000 small business retailers in Australia and New Zealand.

Oh, welcome to May 2020!

We are grateful for the opportunity to help small business retailers sell online through our Shopify connected POS software.

Thanks to the seamless connection between our POS software and Shopify, Magento and WooCommerce and our awesome in-house and local web development team, we are able to share personal experiences in these workshops for small business retailers keen to sell online:

Let’s research some of your competitors, popular keywords and more as part of understanding what selling online could look like. Come armed with questions and details of your competitors you’d like us to stalk.

2 sessions: Apr 23, and 24 2020 10:00 AM Melbourne time.
https://zoom.us/j/96727738375?pwd=ZUprQzJKRDAxL3Z2YXNWTE80c2ZOQT09
Meeting ID: 967 2773 8375 Password: 004633

Small business retailers are getting stuff done in this COVID-19 world. rather than sitting on their hands or staying home, many are in their businesses, working on their businesses and prepping for life on the other side.

Here are some of the things we are seeing retailers in our POS software user community doing in these COVI(D-19 impacted days. each of these ideas presents what we call a covid pivot opportunity.:

1. Getting online – connecting the POS software to an online store. We seamlessly connect to Shopify, Magento and WooCommerce. It’s fast, k easy and safe. Product descriptions, price and images flow easily to online.
2. Stock take. Getting it done now and out of the way for the year. We offer multiple approaches to serve a variety of needs.
3. Doing a Marie Kondo of data – getting rid of data that no longer sparks joy. Decluttering data is refreshing and commercially valuable for retailers.
4. Culling suppliers. Taking a deep dive into supplier performance data and paring back. Suppliers not pulling their weight have no place in a retail business.
5. Using the software. Finally going beyond using it as a cash register, unleashing the power! This makes us happy.

Of course, there are plenty of retailers in our community of 3,000+ not affected by COVID-198. Indeed, we have retailers trading up with some as much as 30% up year on year.

Working on your business and to in it has been a mantra for ages. It’s cliche, yet true. The opportunity right now to get stuff done is present and wonderful and the payback for small business retailers is excellent.

Tower Systems is helping retailers to work on their businesses with unlimited free training. This can be done in a group or one on one. Making training and guidance this accessible is key to helping the Tower Systems,ms small business POS software community make the most of the COVID-19 situation, to make the other side look even better.

We are grateful to our customers for embracing the opportunity to turn the challenge of COVID-19 into a learning and productive opportunity in so many independent and small retail businesses.

This is good news, a silver lining, and we are grateful to be able to be part of this.

We are grateful to be helping many Australian small business retailers access the JobKeeper support package released by the Australian government as well as practical and appreciated rent relief from retail tenancy landlords.

Through our POS software we report on business performance in a consistent and safe way that authorities can trust. We deliver to our retail business partners access to reports that can be audited if need be, proven to offer accurate and unadulterated data on which the tax office, other government departments and landlords can make decisions.

As was proven in the 1990s and the early 2000, the data managed by our software is safe, secure and tamper proof. We do not provide retailers with a back door through which they can manipulate data to serve a narrative they prefer, which may differ from the truth. We are grateful to the ATO for the work we did with them on this during a fraud investigation of another. As tech advisors we helped and gained a terrific insight.

Our retailers can trust that through our software we report safe and good data that can be used to provide evidence for JobKeeper, through accurate BAS preparation, and thereby tap into rent relief options thanks to the national cabinet code of conduct agreed over a week ago.

We work with our retailers on these fronts, to help them achieve the outcomes that are financially key to their businesses on these fronts. We are doing this while doing what is traditional for our POS software co: making good software, supporting it, selling it to new businesses, delivering training and offering business level help to any customer who asks.

We understand the test requirements for JobKeeper and that accurate BAS data is key. Our POS software is POS software that authorities can trust and because of this small business retailers can trust. being a local Australian PSOs foetar4e company developing and supporting local Australian software we are geared to help right now when it is needed most -0 accurate reporting to Australian standards is critical.

This is our help for small business retailers. It is real and made for these times. Shonky POS software businesses have no place in business today. Sadly, there are some still around.

We have released a new video training resource for small business retailers contemplating connecting their POS software to Shopify. It is accessible at no cost.

Using live examples from a range of businesses our team talk through the how and why. This training is another example of our diverrse mix of training opportunities for small business retailers.