The POS Software Blog
News from Tower Systems about locally made POS software for specialty local retailers.
We have just completed another live and interactive preview with our POS software customers of a major enhancement our POS software.
We appreciate those who could Jon us live, as well as those who will watch the video.
Software enhancements take time to plan, develop, test and release. Today’s session was another step for a centrepiece update to our tower Systems POS software for 2022.
Tower Systems is grateful for the years of support from a diverse group of church bookstores, at the local church level as well as at the state level and the national level. The christian bookshop marketplace is strong both physically as well as online.
Our POS software for church bookstores has evolved over the years. It offers facilities unique to their operation and respects their role in the broader church life experience.
Our POS software for charity retailers fits in this space, too, serving secular as well as church related charities.
From serving through our POS software single christian bookshops to groups of christian bookshops to shops connected with local churches to shops connected with broader christian organisations, our POS software offers a broad based solution to inventory management, special order management, online sales, imp-store sales, shipping and more.
Church bookshop software is specialty by nature, like the businesses themselves. We work closely with those working in the businesses as well as those tasked with overseeing each business. We are grateful for opportunities to speak at conferences and to engage with church bookshop folk in a range of forums.
Dealing with tax in an appropriate way has been vital as has been the need to integrate with other platforms that are used in some church bookshop situations. Our software is flexible and constantly evolving as we discover other ways we can serve this vital part of church life.
From evangelicals to catholic to independent to Seventh Day Adventist, our church bookshop software is as diverse as the world of faith and we are grateful to what we have learned on this journey.
Christian bookshops are unique in that they are businesses and they are also part of church life, often staffed, at least in part, by volunteers. We understand the need for easy to use yet highly functional software. This is where we are proud to offer Australian developed and supported POS software for Australian church bookshop and christian bookshop needs. We make it easy for volunteers to learn and use our POS software.
From the practical such as pricing, bundling, customer accounts, inventory management and more to the complex such as managing a single online sale across multiple outlets and the proper accounting for freight, our church bookshop and christian bookshop POS software is robust and proven. We appreciate the advice and guidance of so many in getting us here and for supporting our work.
Tower Systems is grateful to offer locally made and supported POS software for local needs.
Here is 2022 stocktake advice from our POS software company for our 3,000+ customers:
2022 is proving to be a challenging year for retailers. Covid continues to disrupt product supply and labour access. It is also impacting shopper behaviour.
The retailers doing best are those managing their business data, leveraging data for insights that guide business decisions. There is where the Tower Systems POS software helps local retailers.
Using our POS software, local retailers are able to be more frugal. Being frugal is a local retail business is beneficial, if it is done based on data, with a focus of driving overall business value. Being frugal is a good thing if done thoughtfully and well.
Let’s be clear though, there is a difference between being frugal and being cheap.
Being frugal is about being careful. Spending based on evidence when nit comes to labour costs and inventory costs.
Too often we see retailers over-index with labour, eating unnecessarily into business profits. Likewise, too often, we see businesses buying poorly, not based on evidence, and negatively impacting on the profits of the business.
Our POS software helps local retailers in these two areas and more, we help them be frugal in their approach to rostering and frugal in their approach to buying … with the goal of adding measurable value to the business. This matters.
The stronger the financial base for a business, the lower its operational overheads, the lower poor performing inventory volume, the better for the business. This is where being frugal matters. Done properly, it provides the business with capacity to weather economic challenges, to actually make the business stronger in its financial foundations. Our POS software helps local retailers do this.
There is a gloss and excitement to owning your own shop. The real gloss, and value, comes from running the business well. This is one of our goals here at Tower Systems – to make POS software and back it with support that helps small business retailers run their businesses well.
Being frugal is good for business and good for all in the business who rely on it. Our POS software provides insights as well as mechanisms for being frugal, for driving the value of and for the business.
Okay, we know it’s not her birthday and, yeah, we are keen for Australia to be a republic, but who would say no to a holiday? Not us!. No matter, our online businesses are open today, including offering Platinum Jubilee mint coin sets like these:
Tower Systems is grateful to see its POS software serve spare parts retailers in an often neglected space of retail.
This opportunity has grown out of other specialty retail channels in which we serve. Tower Systems has served bike shops, jewellers and farm supply businesses with spare parts inventory software for many years.
Growing out of our workshop management software, our spare parts inventory software became critical to accurately recording sale and use of spare parts in repairs as well as over the counter to customers.
Offering tracking by brand, use, supplier, barcode, SKU and more, this spare parts inventory software works in a range of situations and businesses. Motor bike businesses, trailer sale and repair businesses, bike shops, jewellers, outdoors businesses, farm supply businesses, pool maintenance businesses … they can all use this spare parts inventory software.
Within the software, you can ember use and care instructions for each product. While this is optional, it offers the business the ability to be more than a seller of products. Selling products with information, intellectual property, can differentiate the business and this is key to return business.
Managing spare parts inventory in multiple locations can be handled. Pricing, too, is flexible with the ability to offer flexibility to shoppers based on purchases and other factors. This is software that has been road-tested in a range of retail settings.
Retailers are able to bundle multiple spare parts together into a package that you sell. This can make price comparison harder. It can also better serve customer needs if some spare parts are always bought with other spare parts.
In addition to managing inventory, this spare parts inventory software offers multiple reporting tools that enable various views of inventory performance. The flexibility in the reporting is useful and a key factor in the software serving needs across several types of spare parts related businesses.
Accessible in-store, online and through a remote POS solution, the spare parts inventory software from Tower Systems is a software solution for many different businesses.
The best way to see if the Tower Systems spare parts inventory software is suitable for your needs is to see it. The company can organise a demonstration easily, when it suits you. Send an email to sales@towersystems.com.au and one our skilled software advisors will get back to you and show you as much of the software as you would like to see.
Tower Systems serves more than 3,500 independent small business retailers across a variety of specialty retail channels. That several of these retail channels depend on spare parts inventory software positions Tower Systems well to offer service to others with this need.
Retailers can save thousands of dollars by using the Tower Systems POS software to undertake a stocktake rather than using in an external stock taker as retailers have traditionally used for decades.
It’s easy, efficient and accurate. Any retailer can do this. No external help is needed.
External stock takers often deliver s little outcome except a stock value for the end of the financial year. By using Retailer for the stock take retailers get accurate on-hand data which is vital for reporting on a range of retail performance metrics.
Using your data creates a more accurate result. too often, external stocktakers engage in estimates and assumptions, with the results being less than accurate.
Smart Point of Sale software offers a range of stock taking options from the portable to the hard wired. Regardless of the hardware technology you use, the result is the same: an accurate stock on hand count and value plus updated stock details.
Every time a stocktake count is done using smart POS software you are dealing accurately, often there are anomalies discovered in the stock database. The stock take is a good opportunity to address this. A manual stock take loses this opportunity.
Our recommendation is that once a business has undertaken a full stock take once using their Point of Sale software and if they have good processes around receiving, selling and returning stock, a process of rolling stock takes would serve the business well in maintaining an accurate stock on hand figures.
Through the stock take facilities in our software, our retail partners have access to a suite of tools with tremendous flexibility, allowing a retail store to count in a way which suits their operational needs. many of our customers operate with a program of rolling spot stock takes. These are designed to ensure accurate stock on hand figures in the system as well as identify theft situations.
Expensive and single purpose stock takes can be eliminated from any retail business with the proper use of quality Point of Sale software. Through our advice sheets, training videos, online training workshops and other opportunities, Tower Systems helps its retail customers to access the benefits of accurate stock on hand data.
Too often today, businesses situate their call centres and help desks off shore, in a place where labour costs less. The key requirement in those settings is that someone can read off a script.
Small business help should not come from a script. It should start with listening. From that flows questions and conversation.
Understanding the query or need is key to helping someone, anyone.
Here at Tower Systems, our POS software help desk is Australian based, serving retailers in Australia. We are proud to be local, to offer local support that is delivered by people who live here and understand local business. We also have a team member in New Zealand, where we also have customers.
Too many POS software companies selling to Aussie retailers do not have local help desk support.
We are grateful to be in the position of delivering local service and support to our local retail community.
We support shop local as a company and encourage retailers and others in business to shop local. This is why we pitch today that when you talk with our help desk you are talking with an Aussie, someone who knows local business, local retail and can speak to local needs. Yes, local really does matter.
To keep jobs in Australia and help the Aussie economy to come out the other side of the coronavirus pandemic, shopping local matters. This is why we urge retailers to ask the question abut the location of POS software help desk personnel. While we feel for call centre staff in India, Pakistan and elsewhere, now is the time when local matters.
Now, we do have one caveat for this. We have a help desk team member, an Aussie, living and working in New Zealand. But that’s okay as we have a ton of customers in New Zealand. And, hey, we consider Aussies to be Kiwis and Kiwis to be Aussies
If you are in a local retail business and considering POS software for the business, check out where there trainers and help desk team members are located. Make sure that the company you are considering doing business with is supporting the local economy as much as you want your local economy to support your business. These things matter in terms of the truth of your own shop local pitch.
Shop local and support the local economy. It ripples out from your business to the town to the state and to the country. That is how we see it an how we try and live our lives here at Tower Systems, a proud local Aussie POS software company.
3 weeks ago we published this video: 5 things every retailer should know about their retail business but are usually not told by POS software. Across several platforms it’s had 1,000 views, for which we are grateful.
When our CEO made the video, it was spur of the moment, based on a comment made in a conversation at the Sydney gift fair in April. While the video was spur of the moment and not scripted, it drew on years of experience, years of service of local small business retailers.
We appreciate the feedback we have received, the appreciation.
To us, the video represents something different about Tower Systems. It presents that we want you to cultivate and harvest value from your business through the use of our POS software.
This is the difference of value.
Long after you start using our software, appreciating genuine value from its use.
Thank you for watching. Wr hope you found the video useful.
The short answer is we don’t know. we have never used Retail Express in any of our software. We’ve not even looked at their software. Likewise, we are not aware of any Retail Express staff members looking at our Tower Systems POS software.
So, How does the Tower Systems POS software compare with Retail Express? … we don’t know.
This question is on our mind today because someone asked us. They had been told a view and wanted our reaction.
The best we can do is make it easy for you to see our software in a demonstration for your specific business, or across at our publicly accessible Tower Systems YouTube channel. You don’t have to give us your email address to access these videos. We believe in transparency and show it through easy access to this software we make and support.
We are even happy to arrange a personal Zoom meeting where you can see our software compared function for function with Retail Express.
If the Tower Systems POS software is not the right fit, we’ll say so and wish you all the best. We won’t pressure you or pitch to you. We let your needs guide what’s best, yes, your needs and how they match, or don’t, with our POS software.
From our sales team members to our leadership team to our help desk team members we are all about providing personal service in support of ever evolving POS software. We mention ever evolving since the Tower software today is very different to what we offers a year ago or two years ago. This continual improvement with which we engage is driven by customer suggestion, for which we are sincerely grateful.
Functionality is everything and comparing two POS software programs function buy function is useful to determine which better serves your needs. This is another reason for wanting the assessment to be done in your business, at a time of your choosing.
This is what good personal service is all about – putting the needs of your business first.
How does Tower Systems compare to Retail Express? Compare the two software programs in your business side by side and see for yourself.
Our 3,000+ local retail businesses that we serve help us create better software every day and for that we are grateful.
$300 reward. At the end of this financial year, make sure you have the right EFTPOS partner.
We’ve partnered up with Tyro for this special offer when you apply for a Tyro EFTPOS machine by 30 June 2022. Enquire with us now. For T&Cs see here: https://www.tyro.com/300-reward-2022-terms/
We are often asked for advice on reducing shopper theft in retail, because of experience advising on this in the past and because off our service as expert witnesses working with police, prosecutors, insurance companies and retailers.
We are an engages POS software company, offering services beyond the POS software itself, helping local small business retailers to reduce overheads, lift shopper theft overheads.
So, with that in mind, here are: 5 steps to cutting shopper theft in any retail business
1. Understand why shopper theft happens
Retail businesses are often targeted by thieves because they offer merchandise that is easily portable and typically not well secured. To reduce shopper theft, it’s important to understand why people steal from retail stores in the first place. Common motives include financial need, opportunity, and addiction. Understanding comes from knowing for sure what is being stolen and, as much as possible, when.
2. Improve store security
One of the best ways to reduce shopper theft is to improve store security. This can be done in a number of ways, including increasing the visibility of employees, installing surveillance cameras, and using security tags on merchandise. One good step to security is where you place often stolen items.
3. Train employees
Employees are often the first line of defence against shopper theft. By training employees to be aware of potential theft and how to prevent it, you can reduce the chances of theft occurring in your store. Training should start with transparency as to what is being stolen. This can create a goal for the team, to reduce it.
4. Use technology
There are a number of technological solutions, like POS software from Tower Systems, that can help reduce shopper theft, including retail security systems and loss prevention software. These solutions can help to deter thieves and make it easier to catch them if they do steal. It starts with understanding, and the Tower Systems POS software solution can provide this.
5. Be proactive
The best way to reduce shopper theft is to be proactive about it. This means being aware of the signs of theft and taking steps to prevent it from happening in your store. By taking these steps, you can keep your retail business safe from shopper theft.
If you follow these tips, you can cut shopper theft in your retail business and keep your store safe. Remember, the best way to reduce shopper theft is to be proactive and take steps to prevent it from happening in the first place.
While complaining can make you feel better about a situation of shopper theft, actions are what matter. Tower Systems offers its POS software customers a structured approach to reducing shopper theft. It’s part of the comprehensive site local retail POS software support services provided by the company.
The Tower Systems POS software integrates with the Linkly EFTPOS platform to make it easier for local retailers to take credit and debit cards for over the counter purchase payment.
The Linkly POS software integration has been part of the Tower Systems software for many years.
There is no additional cost for retailers to use the Linkly POS software integration from Tower Systems.
Using the Linkly POS software integration, retailers can take payment without re-entering same amount details. There is an integration between the Tower POS software and the credit card terminal and through the Linkly connection, processing of the sale is accurate, fast and easy … providing for a smooth transaction flow at any sales counter or elsewhere bin the business.
Tower Systems first worked with the Linkly business many years ago when it was called PC Eftpos. That work continues through their transition to the rebrand as Linkly.
We don’t force our POS software customers to use Linkly. It is 100% optional, like any of our EFTPOS handling integrations. We create the solutions and let our customers choose those that work best for them in their circumstances. Customers like this, that we do not require them to use one company or another. They like the purity if us focussing on what we make rather than forcing them down a payments path that is not ideal for them but which may enrich the POS company – yes, we have seen that happen.
The integration in our POS software with Linkly is in all options of our software, for all marketplaces. This means our customers across a diverse mix of specialty retail situations can rely on the POS software tinkly integration to provide a stable and secure solution for handling the processing of credit can debit card payments in the business.
We have no commercial terms with Linlky. The relationship is purely Technical ical, in service of our POS software customers, local retailers serving local communities. we will continue to support the Linkly POS software integration since so many of our customers rely on this. It is important to them, which makes it important to us.
in addition to the link itself, we provide advice, help and support for our customers, to make using it easy and certain. This is what good POS software customer service looks like.
We are grateful to welcome a new team member today, to another new role in the business.
While plenty have found the pandemic to be challenging, we have leant into opportunity, and this has helped us flourish.
Making what we sell is good for local small business retailers and all here at Tower Systems who depend on us.
We are adding to our POS software development team, in the React space. We have several roles requiring skilled, commercially experienced, developers. here’s what we are looking for in candidates:
Tower Systems is grateful to support local IT professionals with leading edge opportunities.
Good POS software offer these 5 benefits. Tower Systems does.
Of course, thanks to the Tower Systems POS software, there are many more benefits than these. Now, here’s a new video from us about these 5 benefits from the Tower Systems POS software.
In many different ways in our POS software we help local retailers pitch local, and this matters to many in local communities.
Of course, the more more keep local jobs, the more the local economy thrives, and Thi sis good for everyone.
So, in our POS software, we make it easy for local retailers to shine a light on locally made.
And, outside our POS software, we promote local, in support of our retail customers.
This video is another way Tower Systems goes beyond what is traditional for a POS software company. We are proud to do this, and more.
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