Small business retail advice: trust your data
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Alternative for Vend and Lightspeed POS software customers concerned about Lightspeed payments
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More retailers using Vend POS and Lightspeed POS have told us of concerns at being told by Lightspeed to switch to the Lightspeed Payments platform or face what reads like a penalty charge from the company for continuing with a current, non-Lightspeed, payments solution.
As recent Lightspeed earnings reports have revealed, growing Lightspeed Payments revenue has become a key commercial activity for the Lightspeed business. This pitches them as like a road a tolling business, making a clip from each transaction processed by retailers using their Lightspeed POS software or their Vend POS software.
It’s like they see revenue from a clip of retail sales in the shops of their customers is more important to them than the revenue they get from the actual rental of their software.
Here at Tower Systems, our view is that as a software company it is important that we make most of our money from our software, and not off the back of hard work by retailers using our software. Making money off our software itself keeps us focussed on the evolution of the software, it keeps the software at the core of what we do.
The more businesses using our software, the more money we make, the more money we have available to invest in enhancing the software.
If you think about the Lightspeed model, they make more money when your transaction volume increases. Does this mean bigger businesses, with higher turnover, are more important to them as a company? We don’t know.
What we do know is that here at Tower Systems every single customer is valued and treated the same because we are not tracking sales volume.
We don’t care what EFTPOS or payments platform you use. Our POS software integrates seamlessly with all major Australian banks, so you can process payments quickly and easily without any extra keying or keystrokes.
We also don’t charge any penalties or fees based on your payments platform choice. We believe that retailers should be free to choose the best payments platform for their business, without being penalized for doing so.
Unlike Lightspeed, Tower Systems offers a flexible, no-contract rental plan. You can rent our software for as long or as short as you need, with no lock-in period.
We are committed to providing our customers with the best possible support. Our team of experts is available 24/7 to help you with any questions or problems you may have.
If you are a Lightspeed POS or vend POS customer and are looking for an alternative to Lightspeed Payments, consider Tower Systems. We would be happy to discuss your needs and see how we can help you.
There’s more to us:
- Comprehensive reporting tools to track your sales and inventory
- Customisable features to fit your specific needs
- Robust security measures to protect your data
- 24/7 customer support
If you’re a Vend POS or Lightspeed POS customer and happy with their products and service, terrific, please stay with them. What matters most is that you are using software you love from a company that appreciates you.
Helping local small business retailers save time and improve efficiency
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Labour costs are under the spotlight in businesses around the world. The obsession with AI is, in part, because it reduces reliance on labour. In San Francisco 3 autonomous (driverless) car companies now operate taxis. We saw them when there on business just a week ago. 7-Eleven in Australia is trialling just walk out type tech. several shops where registered shoppers can walk in, take items off the shelf, and walk out. WH Smith now has self-checkout terminals in most of its Aussie c-store businesses.
We are working on several fronts for you in related areas.
- Our ChatGPT AI integration is saving time on writing product descriptions and has been since January this year. Retailers are loving it – the time saving and the improvement in product descriptions.
- Our free version of Retailer Roam makes it easy and fast to photograph products using your phone or tablet, load these into Retailer and sync with your website. In seconds you can take and load images of products via your phone, or tablet.
- We are trialling our new Retailer Self-checkout facility using a new shopper-friendly portrait checkout screen. It’s an easy for shoppers to self check out, a labour saver in some settings.
- Qjump, our new mobile customer-accessible true self-checkout facility is in trial. Think the new 7-Eleven app but for local indie small businesses without the weirdness of capturing shopper images and the high tech implementation cost.
- Our new EasyEDI platform offering easy access to time-saving electronic invoices is in early trial with a supplier who, until now, has not offered these.
We are working on more innovations in our small business focussed Retailer POS software to help improve your efficiency. Time saving is a key focus, as is data accuracy.
It’s in these areas of work that we genuinely differentiate for our local small business retailer customers.
We are grateful for the support of our customers. Thank you. We hope you have an awesome lead into the Christmas retail season.
Oh, one more thing … Google has released a core update, which will impact website rankings. We shared advice by email with our customers about this in the last week of August. Let’s know by email if you’s like a copy. sales@towersystems.com.au
Gift shop software
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How do I find the best POS system for my business?
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Don’t rush it. Take your time. Make decisions when you are ready.
Many POS software companies and sales people will want you to rush. Some will apply financial pressure. Others will say it’s easy, start today, be selling today … and they will often say this without understanding your business needs.
Take your time. Make decisions when you are ready.
The goal has to be to choose the POS software that best serves your needs. So, start there, with your needs. Think about them, what matters most to you, what’s not negotiable. Start there and cast aside any software company that is not interested in starting with your needs.
Some will offer a free trial, some will even push hard at this. That’s lazy selling. They want you to use their software to see if it is suitable, and knowing that some customers will stick because of concerns that it could be hard to switch software. We think free trials are a crock.
Some will offer you free software. There is no such thing. Software developers don’t work for free, nor dog help desk people, the accounts office in the software company, the sales team. Since they don’t work for free, the company has to make money so, no, there is no such thing as truly free software.
All the sales claims can make it challenging.
Take your time. Make decisions when you are ready. Start with your needs.
If this sound like hard work, it is. Good software can make you a lot of money, it can save businesses. Spending time getting this decision right could be worth a ton of money to your business. But the work has to come from you, not the sales person.
The best POS system for your retail business is the one that covers the most of your needs at a price you are prepared to pay.
No software company can claim theirs is the best, although plenty do. They can speak to customer numbers, of course, which is fine, but not a measure of best.
Here at Tower Systems. we start with you, and your needs. We want to understand them first. If we think our software is not right for you, we’ll say so.
How do I find the best POS system for my business? Don’t rush it. Take your time. Make decisions when you are ready.
See the gift shop software made in Australia for local independent gift retailers
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The Tower Systems gift shop POS software is made for local indie gift shops. It is 100% small business focussed, local business focussed.
This is important.
Every customer matters to us. Every customer is equal.
In a big software company that serves big retailers with many stores, the local gift shop can be forgotten, lost.
We have learnt so much over the years from local gift retailers, so many business insights that we have been able to encode in our software, to help other local indie gift retailers.
Our 3,000+ local retail business user community is terrific like that.
In our gift shop software you will find facilities designed to help you with all the usual POS software stuff like transact accurately, and to help you with insights designed to help you run a more enjoyable and successful retail business, help you reduce mistakes and help you thrive.
The Tower Systems gift shop software is made for this and much more. Here’s a list of the benefits gift shop owners and staff love using in this gift shop software:
- Get one-time-only shoppers spending more thanks to an easy to pitch loyalty system embedded in the software.
- Leverage you. If you believe your knowledge is a differentiator, offer it through structured opportunities in the software.
- Encourage customer happiness by serving product care info. on receipts.
- Easily handle special customer orders. Bring product in for a specific customer and have them notified automatically by email or text when the goods are in and ready.
- Easily sell online with a direct to Shopify / Magento or WooCommerce link from your POS software – including image flow.
- Ensure compliance when required with structured age checking.
- Save time with electronic invoices from suppliers.
- Use tags to get a fresh perspective, side-view, on stock performance.
- Bundle items together to make price comparisons harder and thereby increase sales.
- Business differentiating loyalty. Stand out from the crowd. Have customers coming back to you for this.
- Trade and club pricing profiles. Set pricing rules based on customer type.
- Make money from pre-orders – Easily pre-sell a delivery so that when the stock arrives you can manage distribution and billing efficiently.
- Differentiate with informative receipts. These can include product care, use and safety information based on what customers buy.
- Differentiate with bundles. Selling items bundled together makes price comparison hard.
- Track who sold what.
- Say goodbye to LayBy – with integrated buy now pay later options.
- Market to customers based on past purchases.
- Save time by importing electronic invoices.
- Sell more with a direct connect to buy now pay later services.
- Cut mistakes with integrated EFTPOS.
- Cut accounting and bookkeeping fees with integration to Xero and others.
But the heart of it is that this software is made for local indie gift shops. Every customer is equal at Tower Systems.
POS software integrated Slyp digital receipts help small business retailers compete
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The integration of our Tower Systems POS software with the Slyp digital receipt platform is helping local small business retailers demonstrate their engagement with leading tech ology to enhance the shopper experience.
In today’s digital age, shoppers like seeing good tech used to enhance their shopping experience. Shoppers want a seamless, convenient, and tech-savvy shopping experience.
That’s where Tower Systems and Slyp come in. Our two companies have partnered to create a solution that helps local small business retailers deliver on these expectations.
Tower Systems makes, sells and supports POS software for local specialty retail businesses. Our software is used by thousands of businesses to manage their sales, inventory, and customer data and plenty more.
Slyp is a digital receipt platform that allows businesses to send receipts to customers’ mobile devices. Slyp receipts are more than just a digital version of a paper receipt.
The integration of Tower Systems POS software with the Slyp digital receipt platform is a game-changer for local small business retailers in our community. It allows businesses to:
- Deliver a more convenient shopping experience for their customers. Customers can now access their receipts instantly on their mobile devices, without having to dig through their pockets or bags.
- Enhance the customer experience with interactive receipts. Slyp receipts can be used to track spending and more. This gives customers more control over their shopping experience and makes them feel more valued.
- Demonstrate their engagement with leading technology. By using Slyp, businesses can show their customers that they are committed to providing a cutting-edge shopping experience.
Our POS software Slyp integration has been live for some time, under the radar, under beta release. This followed comprehensive live acceptance testing. Through the beta release we enhanced the integration, to reach a point of delivering something we are truly proud of. The POS software Slyp integration is terrific, useful and differentiating for our local small business retailer community.
If you are a local small business retailer, you should consider using Tower Systems POS software with the Slyp digital receipt platform. It is a great way to enhance the shopper experience and stay ahead of the competition.
Gift shop software on show at Reed Gift Fair in Melbourne
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We are grateful to be featuring our Aussie made and supported POS software for gift shops at the Reed Gift Fair in Melbourne.
This awesome trade show started yesterday and already it’s been terrific for us with new customers signing up on the stand. It is terrific meeting these folks face to face and live demonstrating the software to them.
Our stand has been busy, which we love of course.
At the trade show we are showing our Gift Shop POS software as well as our cloud based and truly portable POS solution, Retailer Roam. This product can run anywhere, any time, with or without Net access. Version 2.0 of this product is packed with features retailers are loving
Our gift shop software features:
- Easy and accurate selling.
- Integrated EFTPOS and you choose the bank or EFTPOS partner that suits you.
- Instant access to money making business performance insights.
- Less time spend on setting up new stock thanks to supplier partnerships.
- Less mistakes with reordering thanks to ordering based on past history.
- A deeper average shopping basket thanks to marketing and other tools.
- More frequent shopper visits thanks to loyalty solutions shoppers love and engage with.
We’re a POS software company. We make money renting our POS software to retailers. We’re not relying on you going with any particular payments platform or buying from any particular supplier. This matters because it keeps us focussed on making sure you gain value from our POS software.
Gift shop owners who want to make more money from their businesses can benefit from our business insights and labour saving tools. We know that the more our retail partners make more money using our software the more customers we will attract thanks to word of mouth. We really are all in this together with our gift shop oner customers.
Not all gift shop POS software his the same. Not all POS software companies are the same.
We are grateful for and proud of our differences. Our Tower Systems gift shop POS software is a stand out, a product on which you an rely to run a more successful and enjoyable business, a business that’s easier to run and delivering the benefits you want, and need.
From sales to special orders to pre-orders, from Xero integration to Shopify integration, from loyalty that works to easy shopper postcode tracking, from smart ways to pitch shop local to featuring locally made products … our gift shop software is made for gift retailers, made to help you thrive.
There is no lock-in contract, no requirement for you to pay up front for a year.
- Get rid of manual books at the counter for LayBys, special orders, stock you need to order and more.
- Guide shoppers to spend more with loyalty tools we think you will love.
- Nurture community group member engagement with group pricing.
- Pre-sell hot items – get paid before the stock arrives.
- Leverage your knowledge on receipts and elsewhere. Sell you.
- Reach beyond your four walls with a directly linked Shopify store.
- Eliminate LayBy and get paid sooner with buy now pay later.
- Cut dead stock and re-order based on data facts.
- Cut theft by knowing what is being stolen.
- Make price comparison harder with bundled packs.
- Easily and consistently pitch locally sourced products.
- Bring customers back with reminders on dates important to them.
- Save money on bookkeeping by integrating with Xero.
As a software company, our focus is on locally owned small business retail. We’re not after big retailers with 20 or more shops. It’s in local indie retail where we thrive and where we help our retailer partners thrive.
If you’re at the Reed Gift Fair, drop by and say hi. If you’re not, call is on 1300 662 957 or email us at sales@towersystems.com.au. Or, check out our gift shop software: www.towersystems.com.au/gift.
Here are our answers to some common questions we are asked about our gift shop software:
Are you Australian based? Yes.
Do you make your 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.
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 I sell gift cards for my business? Yes.
I sometimes sell from a market stall. Can the software do this? Yes, our Retailer RoamTM option manages selling from anywhere.
Does the software handle club member pricing? Yes, this can be a great marketing tool, getting local community group members support the business and fundraising at the same time.
Does the software have a facility for encouraging infrequent shoppers to spend more? Yes, it’s proven to work well at achieving this.
Does the software let me buy in bulk and break up to retail packs? Yes.
Does the software produce WAS / NOW price labels? Yes.
Does the software manage time-based catalogue pricing? Yes.
Can I include product care instructions on the receipt? Yes.
Does the software track where I have stored a box for an item? Yes.
I have similar items from several suppliers. Can I compare suppliers? Yes.
Does the software handle LayBys? Yes.
Can the software manage special orders for customers? Yes.
Can I bundle items together, like into a hamper, and easily sell that? Yes.
My business is seasonal, can I report on last season when planning for the next? Yes.
Can you reach out to customers based on what they previously purchased? Yes.
Does the system handle account customers? Yes.
Advice for small business retailers on dead stock
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Dead stock has no value in any retail business. Indeed, it has a cost as it takes up space and needs labour to keep it clean at least. It sits there, occupying this space, not being bought, paging with each day.
What constitutes dead stock will vary by type of retail business. In some, stock has an expiry date, making that the drop-dead date for the stock. In other businesses, stock is dead when a new version or new release of an item is out.
For the purpose of the advice we provide here, our definition of dead stock is that which has not sold whatsoever in six months or more. The is, you have a quantity of an item on hand and have not sold any of then in six months.
Knowing what stock is dead in your small business shop is critical. It is the start, the beginning, of resolving the issue of dead stock.
Our Tower Systems POS software helps local small business retailers easily identify dead stock. You can decide what constitutes dead stock in your business and list it, bring it up on the screens for attention.
Start there, start with your definition. next, use your software to identify what’s dead. Once you have this information you need to jump, what for some, is a hurdle … you need to decide to quit that stock.
Some retailers are adamant that they need to make a profit on everything they sell. These retailers don’t like discounting to quit dead stock. The thing is, the stock on the shelf is worthless until someone pays you something for it.
In our pragmatic view, getting something, anything just about, is for stock that is dead is better than waiting longer and getting nothing for that same dead stock.
Quitting dead stock is best considered a freeing cash move. That’s what we say getting anything at all is better than the stock sitting on the shelves and not moving.
Use your POS software to identify the dead stock and then jump that hurdle and quit it, quickly, freeing the space and allowing you to focus on what’s next.
In our Tower Systems POS software, the Stock manager tool is best for identifying stock that is dead. You can easily see when you last arrived stock, what’s on hand and when it last sold. In seconds you can have a hit list of stock that could benefit from action. Stock manager operates in a way that any retailer could use it. It’s not complex, not daunting. We have a terrific video showing how to do this with Stock manager. We also have a wonderful advice sheet.
Retail businesses exist to support those who rely on them for income. Dead stock is not helping with this.
Unfortunately, too many small business retailers do not actively engage with the opportunity of dead stock.
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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.
Advice for small business retailers on the best value approach to decision making
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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.
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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.
Some thoughts on news of Lightspeed charging small business retailers a ‘penalty’ if they choose to NOT use Lightspeed Payments
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Tower Systems at the Reed Gift Fair in Melbourne
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We are excited to share that we will be at the Reed Gift Fair in Melbourne next month at stand K34.
On our stand we will be showing the latest POS software for gift shops as well as the latest truly portent POS software for on the road, at markets, in a pop up shop and more. Both these products are fresh, Aussie made and Aussie supported.
We are grateful to so many gift shops for their support. The growth of new customers in this vibrant channel already this year is wonderful.
We will also be showing off our latest integrations and innovations for retailers more broadly. It will be an exciting few days in Melbourne, and on the back of some other terrific trade shows already this year.
How does our Aussie POS software for gift shops compare?
- Awesome software made for gift shops.
- Rent for $165.00 a month (inc. GST). That’s the real monthly price, not an annual price quoted for monthly.
- No lock in contract.
- Cancel at any time without penalty.
- You’re not required to use a specific EFTPOS provider.
- No extra cost to use on as many terminals in your shop as you want.
- Personal training included – half a day of personal, live, training.
- Training videos included. Learn anytime, at your own pace.
- Melbourne-based, human support by our own team.
- Awesome loyalty tools that offer you differentiation shoppers love.
- Included integrations: Xero, Shopify, Big Commerce, Zip, Humm & more.
- Using this software supports local Aussie jobs.
Rent our Aussie made gift shop software for $159.00 a month (inc. GST).
This $165.00 a month cost includes the software, support (Melbourne based), half a day of training, access to training videos and a knowledge base of advice.
Find out more at www.towersystems.com.au/gift.
Watch a demonstration: https://youtu.be/0kArDkAKE4E
We are grateful to already serve 3,000+ local retailers. We’d love to serve you if our software does what you need. Call us on 1300 662 957 or email sales@towersystems.com.au.
From sales to special orders to pre-orders, from Xero integration to digital receipt integration, from loyalty that works to easy shopper postcode tracking, from smart ways to pitch shop local to featuring locally made products … our gift shop software is made for gift retailers, made to help you thrive.
For EFTPOS, link to Tyro, the major banks, as well as SmartPay.
For selling online, link to Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento and Woo.
Our software does smart things, too, like making it fast and easy to remove the background of photos you take of products.
Advice for local small business retailers: how to enhance your local credentials
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In 2023, embodying the essence of local in the retail become more vital than ever. Big businesses are engaged in local, but they are using systems, processes and tech. The conundrum for genuinely local small business retailers lies in authentically cultivating a local identity.
The term local means different things to different people. It isn’t restricted to geographic proximity. Local can be perceived as the degree of personalised care you offer to your customers, the supplementary advice you give, living within the locality yourself, sourcing products locally, or serving the community on a personal level. It may also be linked to the availability of locally sourced products.
For instance, a product produced anywhere within Australia could be deemed as locally sourced. Narrating the story of where a product originates, along with the family involved in its creation, can add a local touch to it, distinguishing it from similar overseas products. This narrative is crucial because it underlines the local aspect.
Small retail businesses can leverage Tower Systems’ retail POS software to effectively promote their local attributes in various ways:
- Enhance your receipts: Use receipts to provide product care instructions, usage guidelines, or other beneficial information automatically, turning your receipts into a valuable information source.
- Disclose product origins: If a product is made by a small business or family within Australia, include this detail on the receipt. Highlight the local product, giving customers additional information to foster a local connection.
- Advocate for local shopping: Attach an image or poster promoting the advantages of shopping local to every receipt. Tower Systems offers free images for this purpose, available in the downloads section on their website.
- Show customer appreciation: Personalise a thank-you message to customers shopping with you. Sign off with your name and contact number. This personal touch is typically absent in larger businesses.
- Monitor local product sales: Keep track of local suppliers’ product performance using various reporting tools.
- Reward local shopping: Implement discount vouchers named “Thanks for shopping local” or “Local shopping reward” to emphasise the benefits of supporting local businesses. You can establish rules to offer discounts off the next purchase.
- Merely advocating for local shopping isn’t enough; you must showcase its value and integrate it into your retail business operations. The most effective approach to accomplish this is by incorporating suitable systems and procedures into your POS software.
There are plenty of ways local small business retailers can authentically pitch local. In this post we have covered just some of them. We are a local POS software company ready to help you pitch local.
How to handle consignment stock using POS software from Tower Systems
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Consignment stock is growing in popularity in retail, especially local small business retail. Here is advice from our POS software company on handling consignment stock.
We have developed this advice following work with gifts shops, antique shops and other businesses offering consignment stock and using our POS software.
Retailers who sell consignment stock, or commissioned goods (typically from a local supplier or artisan) and want to keep track of the products through sales and potentially receiving/returning stock. There are a few ways to handle this in the Retailer POS software from Tower Systems, using different setups, with their own benefits and limitations.
Three of the ways for handling Consignment stock in the Tower POS software are covered here, and since they are not mutually exclusive, you could mix them together to get something that works for your business. For all three methods, you can also arrive/receive stock through Invoice Arrivals, and Returns of the item can be done through Invoice Arrivals, without much change.
When doing arrivals and returns of consignment products, consider the following. If you need to see quantities on hand of the product in the system when you sell, you will need to arrive, or manually adjust the product quantities. Then, process returns on the products later. Alternatively, you can sell into negatives, and only arrive the final quantities of product later.
Using Supplier
A particular supplier can be assigned as a consignment supplier (or multiple suppliers). You can differentiate them simply by adding ‘Consignment’ to their names (or in any other effective manner).
Many reports in Retailer (such as Supplier Sales Analysis and Stock Listing Report) can be set to run for and exclude certain suppliers. The same can be done in stock ordering so this may be the easiest one to implement.
The limitation is that certain reports like the Detailed Takings report cannot be told to include/exclude particular suppliers.
The benefit is you can continue organising stock in Departments and Categories that are mixed with other, non-consignment stock. Carrying a larger amount of consignment products is also fine with Department names and stock tags on reports still meaningful and descriptive of the product itself.
Using Department
A particular department can be setup as a Consignment department, specifically used for holding items on consignment. This department could be named to include the word ‘Consignment’ to differentiate it, and can also be marked as an Agency Department. Agency Departments have the added feature of being able to be excluded as a tickbox option on many reports (e.g. Detailed Takings Report).
This can mean that the Department name is not as meaningful or descriptive of the products, which should be fine for small numbers of consignment products that are quite similar.
Many reports can be run to exclude Agency Departments (if used here) which can be very helpful. This includes the very useful Stock Listing report, which gives you a total stock value on hand.
Using Stock Tags
Stock tags can be created to track products on consignment, and you can have as many as is meaningful to your business without impacting or bloating reports and information.
E.g. Kitchenware Consignment tag, Foodstuff Consignment tag, Fashionwear Consignment tag.
These will need to be assigned to the relevant products.
The main drawback with this is that reports are only going to be able to include these products based on tags. The reports cannot exclude items based on these tags so if you need to run particular reports and easily exclude consignment products, this method may not be suitable.
The big advantage in using tags is allowing your products to be assigned to meaningful Departments together with other product. Any reports that use tags (e.g. Stock Listing report, Detailed Takings report) will also find it easy to list these products, and potentially show subgroups of the consignment products (if more tags were added) or include other products that have similar tags.
Specialty POS software for local small business retailers in Australia and New Zealand
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Here at Tower Systems we are grateful to serve a diverse mix of specialty retailers in different marketplaces. These include:
- Bike shops. $195/month.
- Fashion retail. $195/month.
- Gift shops. $165/month.
- Garden centres. $165/month.
- Produce / farm supply businesses. $210/month.
- Fishing and outdoors businesses. $165/month.
- Jewellers. $165/month.
- Pet shops. $165/month.
- Toy shops. $165/month.
- Health Food shops. $165/month.
- Newsagents. $195/month.
- Firearms dealers. $195/month.
- Game shops. $165/month.
- Sewing shops. $195/month.
- Pool Supplies and Maintenance. $195/month.
- Charity / op. shops. $105/month. (Giving back)
- Doll / Bear / Collector shops. $165/month.
- Antique Dealers. $195/month.
- Music shops. $165/month.
- Mobility Scooter businesses. $195/month.
- Computer Shop / repair businesses. $195/month.
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.
- NZ and Aussie based customer service by us. No call centre.
- Humans answer our phones.
- Email us and a retail knowledgable human responds.
- Our office is open Monday through Saturday.
- Month to month rental – no lock in contract.
- No lock-in EFTPOS contract. You choose the EFTPOS that suits you.
- Self serve training videos and knowledge base.
- Low cost training for those who want it.
- The listed prices are genuinely monthly – not annual paid up front.
Tower Systems currently serves more than 3,000 local small business retailers.
It may be that our software is not right for you. Let us organise a personal live demonstration by Zoom. We’ll record it with you and give you a copy so you can show colleagues and others you’d like to consult.
If we think we are not a good fit for you we will say so and wish you all the best.
Email us: sales@towersystems.com.au.
Call us: 1300 662 957 (Australia) 0800 444 367 (NZ toll free).
We have a crew of awesome software developers, caring customer service people and a business support crew skilled in serving local indie retailers.
At our website, we have easily accessible recent demonstrations of our POS software, which you can access immediately and without sharing any personal contact details whatsoever. The transparency we demonstrate on our website reflects how we operate as a company.
It’s stocktake season and Tower Systems is helping small business retailers be ready
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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.
How retailers are using POS software integrated ChatGPT to create more valuable product descriptions
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Local small business retailers are short on time and challenges in competing with well-resourced big businesses.
The ChatGPT AI integration delivered by Tower Systems in its local specialty retail POS software early this year is being used by small business retailers to create for search friendly product descriptions.
Using this optional and free facility, retailers are able to describe products faster and in search friendly terms. Here’s a short video we made for our customers to show how it works:
No, we’re not going all AI is replacing the world on our customers. Rather, we are providing access to optional time saving tools. Feedback from our local retailer community has been wonderful, for which we are thankful.
Free demo of awesome Gift shop software $155/mth no lock in contract
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Watch a fresh demo of this Aussie made and supported gift shop POS software right away, without handing over any of your details, see if this 4155 a month POS software is right for your gift shop:
Rent For $155 A Month – Unlimited Terminals.
- Unlimited registers. No extra cost.
- Integrated accounting link.
- Integrated e-commerce links.
- Integrated payments.
- Loyalty programs.
- Advanced reporting.
- Customer marketing.
- Visual analytics dashboard.
- Special customer orders.
- Sell by fractions, sell by weight.
- Integrated LayBys.
- Customer gift vouchers.
- Customised onboarding.
- 24/7 support.
Why do gift shops need specialty POS software? Why can’t they use basic software? They can. However, the more specialty the software, the more facilities the business has to attract shoppers and leverage what’s special about the business.
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.
The Tower Systems gift shop software is specialty POS software made for gift shops. It has been made to help gift shops leverage what is unique about their businesses. We think this is a reason many hundreds of gift shop retailers have chosen our software.
How to convert a PDF invoice into a CSV file for easy POS software import
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Tower Systems offers help to local small business retailers to help them save time and money. We do this through training, written advice and easy to access and follow video advice.
A couple of weeks ago we shared with our small business retail POS software customers this video on how to convert a PDF file to a CSV file that can be imported to our POS software.
By converting the PDF invoice to a CSV file the retailer saves time, improves data accuracy and helps the business have a better handle on business performance.
Tower Systems is grateful for the opportunity to help retailers convert PDF invoices into CSV files foe EDI import into POS software
We also connect with many suppliers for importing electronic invoices and more, making importing invoices easy and fast. But some suppliers have challenges implementing this. hence, this solution for converting a PDF invoice into a CSV file.
This snackable video is one of many offered to all of our POS software customers. We produce the regularly and share them in our email and print newsletters, and as part of our video training curriculum.
We are grateful to local small business retailer customers for their feedback on these videos as that informs our weak developing more useful training and support solutions.
Our gift shop software helps gift shops sell to anyone
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5 ways retailers can use the POS software from Tower Systems to pitch value to shoppers
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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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Bundling products together into something that only your business offers can pitch a value proposition unique to your business.
- 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.
7 ways retailers can use POS software from Tower Systems to help improve the value of their business
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When we talk about the value of a retail business we mean what the business is worth when it comes time to sell, which is dependent on the profitability of the business as reflected in the profit and loss statement.
Value is the key business measure here and while there can be non-monetary value perceived by the owners and other stakeholders, it is the value as seen by others, as through P&L results that is the common measure.
Using POS software from Tower Systems, retailers can drive value. Here are 7 ways they can do that:
- Dead stock. In the average indie retail business, dead stock is equal to around 3% of turnover and often around 12% of total current inventory investment. Using our software, it is easy to identify dead stock. That’s the first step to converting it to cash.
- Stop running out of stock. Selling out of items that will sell costs the business money. In a small retail business we looked at recently, sell-outs cost more than $3,000 in a year, or $1,500 in gross profit, all because of poor re-ordering management. Your Insights Dashboard has this information.
- Bloated roster. Some prefer to spend money on people, so they have time to themselves for relaxing, golf or to sit in the back office, where no customer purchases from. We often see a bloat cost equal to around 10% of the roster.
- Wrong trading hours. Some stay open too long while others are not open long enough. Either way has a cost to the business.
- Being blind to theft. Theft in local indie retail costs on average 3% – 5% of turnover. Our software can help you see it, track it, and mitigate against it.
- The wrong product mix. GP% is a key measure of retail business performance. Often, we see retailers chasing transaction volume and not watching and chasing GP%. Growth in business GP% is often more valuable than transaction growth.
- Reordering. Ordering based on data reduces mistakes. It’s better, too, than letting a supplier order for you. The software can help you with reordering, so there are fewer mistakes, fewer sell-outs, less dead stock.
This list is incomplete as our POS software can help cultivate value in plenty of other ways. We created this list to provide our customers with a starting point, some low hanging fruit.
We shared the advice with our customers via our regular customer email and our regular print newsletter. This is another example of the proactive approach we take to guiding our customers to achieve more from their use of our POS software.
While, for sure, our help desk answers support questions and helps with technical queries, we often go beyond with business advice that crosses the intersection of the technical; aspects of the software and the use within a retail business of the software to better serve the business and its owners.
7 ways retailers can use POS software from Tower Systems to help improve the value of their business is all about showing our POS software user community ways they software they already have can be used to help cultivate business value.
Gift shop POS software $159/month for local independent gift shops
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Here’s a new demonstration of our Aussie made and supported gift shop POS software. The $159 a month all up price offers terrific value for business owners who want software that helps them enjoy their businesses and compete successfully.
Free POS software
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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.
Here’s an easy local small business retailers can better connect with their community
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Community connection is vital in local small business retail, authentic community connection at a level that is loved by folks in the community.
Back in the day, sponsoring a local sports club, donating prizes for a raffle or helping the local Rotary or Lions were the go to ideas for retailers. And while those ideas continue today, there are another local small business retailers can engage in providing community support that is funded buy the community itself.
Through our loyalty tools and, in particular the discount voucher tech we offer, local small business retailers can reward shoppers and they can offer in store a way for these shoppers to pay it forward, to support a local charity or community group organisation.
The Grill’d burger chain was an early adopter of something similar with their bottle caps and giving customers the caps to vote for one of three local charities the store would donate cash to.
Our suggestion is to invite shoppers to donate their discount voucher to one of several local charities in your business, which you could have every month or so, accruing the value of the vouchers for a gift card donation to the charity, or you making a cash donation of a portion of the voucher value to the charity.
It pitched well this could see people who support the local charity shopping with you so that funds are raised for the charity.
We know form years of data that around 20% of all vouchers handed out to shoppers are used by those shoppers within 28 days. This means there are other vouchers that expire unused. A nuanced campaign in-store connected with loved local charities and community groups could drive engagement, do good in the community and show the business as community connected in a fresh and loved way. That is the goal here.
Of course, the execution will be different in each location. Our job as a tech company is to provide opportunity. Our job as retailers ourselves is to share what we have seen work well, and what we have learned.
Your job as a local small business retailer is to make decisions that are right for you and your situation.
Using the discount vouchers generated by the software in this way, to support loved local community groups and charities, could be the reset you want, the engagement driver the business needs. The beauty of it is that it is low cost, self funding and truly community focussed.
We are grateful to the feedback from our customers and this has guided our own activity in this space of local community group connection.
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