The POS Software Blog
News from Tower Systems about locally made POS software for specialty local retailers.
We invited several customers last year to have their photo taken in-store as part of a promotional series showing happy small business customers in their shops where they use our smart POS software. We were thrilled every customer we approached agreed.
Here is one photo from the wonderful LollyBomb business in Adelaide. Some of the specialist facilities in our software help this business in smart and engaging ways.
We are grateful for their help in promoting our software.
As with each POS software update released by Tower Systems, the communication provided announcing the release of the latest update is thorough, professional and easy to understand. This good advance communication is key to confidence in the software. It encourages trust.
Our communication helps customer decide when they want to install the software. We do not force any update on our customers. There are no surprises.
The latest communication lists all enhancements and changes in the software – showing the value of our commitment to software development and the extent to which we listen to our customers in deciding what is to go into an update.
In addition to testing the software itself, our comprehensive beta release program tests the communication announcing the update.
All Tower systems customers can vote on items to be included in an update through our transparent software ideas process.
Tower Systems is using the rush of trade for small business retailers at Christmas to reinforce the commercial value of the Tyro integrated eftpos solution we offer. With 1,000 retailers connected through Tyro we have excellent data reflecting time saving, mistake reducing and other benefits for retailers that help at the sales counter as well as in the back office management of the business.
In the middle of the busy trading of Christmas, the benefits of the Tower Systems Tyro broadband eftpos integration are clear and felt on small business retail shops across a range of marketplaces:
In the first three days of Christmas / New Year most support calls have been from people wanting advice on how to do things they might not have got to through the regular busy trading period. Being accessible has been key to the service we provide – accessibility like regular blog posts here, access by email, access by phone and the continuation of our weekly support email.
How do you identify product that is not working? When do you quit a product that is not working? Why should you quit stock? How do you quit the stock? How long should quitting stock take? What if the item does not sell no matter what you do?
These are all questions we will answer here for you in the form of suggestions. What you ultimately do is 100% up to you. Your choices need to reflect your own situation and circumstances.
Identifying product that is not working.
Product is not working if it is not paying its way – paying for the floor space it takes and the time you spend on it. Check your sales, rank all your stock based on sales – look at the bottom performing stock. Your software should have a ranked Sales Report that lets you list all your stock ranked by unit or $$ sales. Use this to create your list of items to consider.
The other way to identify stock that’s not working for you is to check your back room or other storage facility. Stock that is not generating cash regularly has to be considered dead in our view.
When do you quit a product?
You quit, exit, products when they are not paying their way, when a season is done or when you want to exit that category for some other reason.
Let’s say your rent is $1,250 per square metre per year. If your gross profit averages, say, 50%, you will need to sell $2,500 worth of product to pay for a metre of space. However, this is not the complete consideration as you have labour, power and other costs to cover. The suggested rule of thumb is that your retail sales need to be at least three times that necessary to cover the cost of the space. In the scenario covered here, you should be earning at least $7,500 from a square metre of space. If stock is not delivering this, quitting it could be necessary.
Why quit stock?
To keep your shop fresh, to not be weighed down by dead stock to make your shop look more relevant, to stop hoarding.
How to quit stock.
Here is how we quit stock in retail businesses we operate. These businesses are in shopping centres where retail space is limited and expensive. We are necessarily aggressive.
Quitting stock takes strength and commitment. We urge you to do it to keep your business fresh. Product not selling gives shoppers a bad impression of your business.
Take a look at your shop floor and in your back room. Look at what you can get rid of right away to reduce the anchor of dead stock on your business.
Too many retail businesses have old stock gathering dust. One of the best ways to separate your business is to regularly quit stock that is not performing as it should.
Tower Systems is thrilled with the structured professionally managed beta release of a major POS software update. Representing many man-months of software development, this latest update delivers new facilities along with user-requested enhancements, taking our software into new areas and leveraging new opportunities.
The roll out is proceeding well and at the pace chosen by our customers.
Retailers using our POS software and following our retail management advice has had access to terrific tools with which to leverage the Boxing Day / Post Christmas sale opportunity. Our training, support and retail business advice platforms have aligned to help retailers make the most of the seasonal sale opportunity – well in advance of the big day.
Our focus has also included training and guiding new retailers and those who have never undertaken such sales. Owning our retail businesses for years, we have been able to drawn on our own advice to to speak from personal experience, to help those new to the Post Christmas sale opportunity to help it work for them.
From discount facilities to inventory opportunity discovery to targeted marketing tools, our POS software is an ideal platform through which to drive additional revenue this time of the year.
We have been advising our small business retail, customers our planned Christmas hours for several weeks:
CHRISTMAS HOURS.
We will close at 12 noon Christmas Eve and reopen 7am December 29. On December 31 we will close at 4pm. we reopoen January 4 at 7am. Our after hours numbers will be available for urgent system down queries.
There are some bad web development businesses out there, charging too much and delivering website solutions that are not what customers sought. Like anything in business, when it comes to web development – you get what you pay for. Caveat emptor.
Our advice when it comes to choosing a web developer is simple:
Tower Systems is helping several retailers transfer old-school loyalty points balances to cash value for engaged shoppers.
With points based loyalty so damaged from the poor value offerings of major retailers, smart small business retailers are engaging in the switch.
Having POS software with multiple loyalty offerings makes it easy for retailers to make this switch – to leverage the value accused in points and to package this is a more practical offering that shoppers love.
Even though this is the busy Christmas season, we have retailers engaged with this process – to emerge Christmas opportunities even further. With traffic peaking, this is a perfect time of the year to push even further.
Customer reactions to the conversion of points to dollars is appreciated – we are loving the reactions we are reading.
We were privy recently to correspondence between a POS software company and a customer from just before the customer switched to us. The correspondence is an example of how a tech company serving small business retailers ought not communicate with customers. The correspondence was rude, condescending and short on ethics.
In response to concerns raised about the time consuming nature of some functions in the software, the software company representative ignored the question and ranted on using technical terms to claim, more or less, that the customer would now know if the software was good as they were technically inept.
Yes, sometimes the customer is wrong. The key is to deal with this in a respectful and helpful way.
The communication we have seen was disappointing as it reflects badly on all software companies, especially those of us serving small business retailers.
Thankfully, we have switched the customer to our software and are providing respectful customer service that is restoring their faith in tech companies.
Here at Tower Systems we are transparent, letting our actions and our words here speak for us. This blog, for example, is a place of transparency that you can use to compare what we do and how we communicate.
We urge you to compare the content and professionalism of this blog with that of any competitor. Put the two side by side and see for yourself the Tower Systems difference – in words, design and visuals.
We are grateful to the 3,500+ small business retailers we serve for it is their insights and feedback that help make us what we are and this blog the useful place it is.
We love Xero. While we link to multiple small business accounting solutions, Xero is the one receiving most praise by experts and good press on a number of fronts at the moment.
Tower Systems is proud to be an approved authorised Xero POS software partner, listed on their website.
We are not surprised to see a POS software competition ignoring Xero when rating accounting software. Their ignorance is not unexpected.
With all the talk of a change to GST arrangement in Australia, it is appropriate we note that any change to GST in terms of quantum and the products and / or services on which it applies would be easy for Tower Systems to manage.
The Tower Systems POS software today has all the facilities necessary for our customer to handle such changes without the need for a software update.
The Tower Systems designed and manufactured gift cards are growing in popularity across a range of retail channels. We are thrilled to be of service to retailers keen to offer professional gift cards backed by professional gift card management software as they have access to through their smart and engaged Tower Systems POS software.
The latest design customer gift cards are being shipped right now – pitching fresh designs to retail partners in time for Christmas trade.
The image loaded with this post shows some of the cards we have designed for our garden centre customers.
We are grateful to have in-house graphic design capabilities through which we can promote deeper engagement with our software.
We saw excellent sales processed yesterday in small business retail outlets in Australia as Christmas 2015 trade hits high gear.
Our personal and engaged service of retailers using our POS software sees us working with them on such a busy day to ensure their IT infrastructure genuinely helps them through the busy time.
Here are some tips from us on how to more effectively compete with a big business competitor located near your small business:
Magento is the world’s best online shopping cart, retail website tool in our view. We say this having worked with a host of platforms and gaining considerable experience ourselves and through people we work with.
Our POS software links to Magento through the Magento API, directly from our software into Magento for shared real-time data. We link from our software to Magento ourselves and have small business retail clients using it too.
Developed in addition to our well-established web-store link, the Magento link is deep, comprehensive and tremendously valuable.
High street retailers serious about an online presence will find it easier and faster to achieve through our Magento link, something we have been using ourselves for all this year and something with which we have excellent experience and knowledge.
Our web development team has developed multiple sites, providing us with excellent reference experiences for retailers contemplating an online presence connected to their high street POS software.
Tower Systems is proud to have lead again in 2015 in the hosting of live in-person POS software user meetings around Australia and in New Zealand.
Our comprehensive and consistent user meeting program helps us provide a better customer service experience and it provides us with better guidance from customers and this helps us create better software.
Well done to all involved.
We shared updated information with our customers over the weekend on the Microsoft Windows 10 update that is being pushed currently by Microsoft. We have sought to provide clarity and certainty to small business POS software who rely on us for technical advice and support.
RETAIL LOYALTY INSIGHT: HOW A $2.50 DISCOUNT VOUCHER RESULTED IN PURCHASES OF $1,500 FROM A FIRST TIME SHOPPER
I want to share with you a true story of what happened recently in my own retail business. It is a story of how a small everyday purchase led to something bigger and how this happened as a result of fundamental changes in how the business is run.
To understand the personal nature of this story … Tower Systems owns and operates several retail businesses including a newsagency in a major Westfield shopping centre. We have this business to provide us with a real-world experience in retail where we can experiment with our POS software.
While this story is about what happened in my newsagency, it could happen in any type of business. This newsagency, by the way, is not your typical newsagency. Close to 70% of what we sell is non traditional. It is high margin higher price point items that sit at the core of this unique business.
At its core, this is a story about shopper loyalty, especially shopper loyalty in a retail situation where between 25% and 30% of shoppers visiting the business are not local and therefore not likely to engage with the old-school points-based loyalty program.
A customer passing the shop noticed our greeting card range and stepped into make a purchase because of a specific need. They purchased two cards. On their receipt was a voucher for almost $2.00. As they are not usually in the shopping centre they looked around for something in which to spend the $2.00.
This is the key: the customer came in to make a quick destination purchase. The type of business we were did not matter. They were on the way to the car park and happened to pass buy our shop. Point 1: location is in our favour. The stepped in because they saw our greeting cards. Point 2: the floor placement of cards was key in getting them in the shop.
Having made the purchase, the customer then noticed, for the first time, what else we sold – because of the $2.00 discount voucher on their receipt. Point 3: we got them to look around and see what else we sold.
The customer did a 180 degree turn and saw a locked glass cabinet of beautiful collectible bears. This was in the right place at the right time as they had been looking for a gift for a child. Money was not an issue. They wanted something to last a lifetime. They purchased a $500.00 bear.
This purchase would not have been made had they not been given the $2.00 voucher on their receipt. The voucher is what got them to notice what else we sold.
Fast forward several weeks and this customer who said they don’t usually come to the shopping centre was back for another $500.00 purchase. Now, several more weeks later, the customer has another $500.00 order placed.
I can directly trace more than $1,500.00 in sales back to the $2.00 voucher.
The software produced the voucher based on rules I established. The initial staff member serving the customer made a brief professional pitch highlighting the voucher. These are both important factors as they are at the core of a structured consistent approach to what has become the most lucrative loyalty program I have seen in my 30+ years involved in retail as a retailer myself and working with retailers in many different channels.
While most times vouchers are handed out they are not redeemed, they are redeemed enough to make them worthwhile. They are redeemed for good margin product as they get people looking at the shop for the first time and discovering items to purchase they were not in our four walls to consider.
The discount vouchers are disruptive and this is why I love them. People respond in unpredictable ways.
Best of all, the discount vouchers are profitable.
For this story to work in any retail business you need to have the right products, placed strategically in-store. Your employees need to make the right pitch. Plus, you need to be attracting people who don’t know and probably don’t care what shop they are in.
Tower Systems offers not only excellent software but also the business acumen, experience and drive to help you make the most of the opportunities in the software.
From points on a purchase to buy X and get Y FREE to Discount Vouchers, the Tower software offers flexibility in loyalty offerings that enable you to make the pitch right for your business to bring shoppers bag to spend more than might usually be the case.
Managing staff can be a challenge for small business retailers as too many operate more on a friendship basis than through structured processes and using accurate business data to guide decisions.
Thanks to smart tools in the Tower Point of Sale software, our retail partners have at their disposal tools on which they can rely to bring consistency, planning and comfort to employee management.
Here are four of the tools available to retailers for managing employees using the Tower software:
Using these tools and other facilities in the smart Tower retail management software retail business owners and their managers can build strong outcomes for their business and provide better oversight and management of employees.
Knowing the economic value of an employee to a business can help the business manage good outcomes for the business and for the employee. This is where data plays a key role and where Tower systems can help retailers improve their situation.
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