Today @ 10:30am we are hosting a free workshop (on Zoom) for retailers that have a POS software connected website. We will discuss making the most from the opportunity, looking at SEO, SEM and other activities key to driving success with an online consumer-facing platform.

Today’s live workshop is another in our series offering free education to local small business retailers.

The Tower Systems POS software helps retailers deal with, manage and track consignment stock in their businesses.

Consignment stock is stock supplied to the shop on the basis that it is paid for when sold.

In our years of experience working with retailers across several retail channels, we have seen a variety of approaches to handling consignment stock. There is no standard, no one way that is most common. Our POS software consignment stock solutions have evolved over time, as we have seen a greater variety of situations.

We have built into our POS software several opportunities for managing consignment stock. These include options for tracking the stock when it arrives in the business, all sales and accurate reporting for reconciliation for the supplier when it comes time to settle up with them.

Thanks to our options and in-built flexibility for managing inventory, we are able to report on the sales of items provided to a shop on consignment. We have seen this be useful in a range of retail situations including, gift, jeweller, garden and collectibles.

The consignment stock management options available for use in our POS software have evolved over time and they are sure to evolve further – like you would expect from any advancing POS software that serves a range of retail settings.

The tricky thing with consignment stock is that in most settings it is not an inventory asset of the business yet you want to track its sales. It’s through our tagging, supplier settings and stock settings themselves where the software can help retailers access the level of reporting that is important to them in managing consignment stock.

Consignment stock is loved by retailers as they get to carry inventory for no capital outlay. Suppliers love consignment stock as they get to take floorspace in more retail situations as a result. The key to making this mutually beneficial relationship work is timely access to accurate data.

We don’t claim to be the best at managing consignment stock through our POS software, but we do offer several solutions.it is this flexibility that has been appreciated baby our customers, not only in this area of consignment stock but in other areas where our software has served.

Xero is the preferred accounting software solution among small business retailers. We are grateful to have been a partner with Xero for years, linking our POS software with Xero, making the connection, easy, seamless, tight and safe – reducing the cost for small business retailers, especially the cost of bookkeeping.

Using our POS software Xero link, retailers are able to rely on the live sharing of data, enabling accurate business financial reporting, and more.

Thanks to the POS software Xero integration, small business retailers can:

1. Save time. This is time in the business as well as with the accountant or bookkeeper.
2. Cut mistakes. Every keystroke you eliminate in business is a possible data mistake eliminated. The Xero POS software integration cuts keystrokes.
3. Make better business decisions. Accurate business data feeds better business decisions.
4. Reduce accounting and bookkeeping costs. All the data entry work bookkeepers and accounting professionals do can be eliminated thanks to safe and fast data flow between the POS software and Xero.
5. Drive business value. Data is revealing and this helps you extract more business value.
6. Enjoy the business more. Data entry is a grind and it can lead to mistakes. Get rid of these challenges and yours enjoyment rises for sure.
7. Immediate cashflow visibility. With no lag for data, you can see your position immediately.

What is Transferred to Xero through our POS software Xero link?

What is the best POS software for retail? This is a good and often asked question. Unfortunately, it is often asked of the wrong people.

Only you can know what good POS software for your business looks like for it is only you who truly knows and understands your needs. This is where the answer starts – with your needs for it is those that must be served if the POS software you select is to be of service to your business. So, if you are wondering What is the best POS software for retail? start with the needs.

Plenty of POS software sales people will tell you that their POS software is the best for retail. Not here at Tower Systems. we think that our POS software is good for the marketplaces in which we serve, but, only those using the software can speak to the question of whether it is the best for the need.

If you ask us, we will say let’s help you find out. We will do that by first wanting to know more about your needs. This can sound like had work, but … it is about reaching the best outcome for your retail business and that starts with your needs. We want you to find the best POS software for your retail business. We’d love to help you on what is a personal journey centred within your business needs.

Whether something is best is subjective. That’s why you won’t read of us saying our POS software is the best. What we think doesn’t matter. What you think, once you have used it, is what matters. This is also why people who have not used our software cannot comment as to whether it is the best software for a situation.

We strive to make and maintain good POS software for specialty retail situations, and to back this with timely and professional customer support. If this is seen by specialty retailers as being the best POS software for their business we are grateful. With so many long term customers, we have a sense that we are doing things right here.

What is the best POS software for retail?  We hope to explore your needs with you.

It is a thrill to see the different ways our op. shop software is able to serve different op. shop situations. From handling corporate level requirements to bringing structure to a single local small op. shop situation, our POS software made for op. shops is helping these vital community groups serve their respective communities in myriad ways.

We are grateful to have made and to serve software that serves their needs.

From presenting to committees to making training more accessible to volunteers to handling the unique pricing arrangements of goods in some op. shops, our op. shop software serves day in, day out. It is flexible, resilient and capable, bringing structure to op. shops where often there was none.

Australian op. shops are unique and loved businesses, providing valuable service to the local community and to those supported by their work. Using our specialty software for op. shops, you can expect to tap into a range of benefits, including:

1. Easy shopper loyalty.  Yes, loyalty matters in these situations. While the software offers a loyalty points system, we have found the cash-off approach in our loyalty tools works better in local retail. People understand money. A receipt showing an amount they can save on their next purchase gets, usually, at least 20% of people spending more that visit.
2. Manage inventory your way. yes, everything sold in an op. shop is inventory, to be tracked and managed. You can sell by barcode, products code, department, category within department, price point. You can sell, measure and report at the level point appropriate to your needs.
3. Easy to learn. We have found that in community enterprises easy to learn / easy to use really does matter. Volunteer turnover makes this essential. We can record training specific to your needs and make these videos available for future volunteers.
4. Secure. You can lock down parts of the software to secure them for management access only.
5. Check and balances. This software guides processes. It also provides hidden tracking so you can investigate should the need arise.
6. Club / group marketing and support. Leverage clubs and community groups with offers and pricing just for them.

Our Australian made and supported  op. shop POS software does much more than what’s on this list. See it for yourself, live and obligation free, to see if it could serve you and your business. We’d be glad to show it to all involved in the operation.

It’s been a few years since we made this video. Today, the numbers are much higher:

We are hiring for another new role in our business, a backend software developer. This new role is part of an evolving project here at Tower Systems, part of our software of the future project.

Retail express checkout is something we offer with our locally made and supported POS software.

What does it mean though, this retail express checkout?

It’s about safe speed, accurate speed. It’s about a customer experience they love and trust. It’s about retail express checkout.

In our POS software our customers can offer checkout online, on the shop floor, over the phone or at the sales counter. This is what retail express checkout looks like and feels like – what you need, where you need it and when you need it.

• We help retailers transact with fewer keystrokes, which improves speed and accuracy.
• We help retailers connect to various EFTPOS platforms, which improves speed and cuts mistakes.
• We help retailers manage workflow in the sales process, which helps all involved.
• We help retailers with a broad variety of selling processes.

Designed for high volume retail as well as specialty, comprehensive and often slower, retail. Our approach to selling provides retailers with facilities they can love as they trade in their businesses.

Our approach to retail express checkout is designed to help retailers provide the solution that works for them and for their customers.

We get it that speed is important in many retail settings. So is accuracy. As is integration with other business processes. This is why businesses benefit from a broader view of their processes.

In our installation, setup and training process we help small business retailers to integrate the POS software within their businesses, to tap into the solution in a way that benefits the business the most. It is this setup work that is key to helping a business leverage what it needs from within the POS software.

While Tower Systems offers POS services for all retailers, our core business is the provision of specialist software packages for fishing and outdoors businesses, bike shops, jewellers, gift shops, newsagents, pet shops, garden centres, firearms shops, health and nutrition businesses, bike shops and toy shops.

Many of our POS software co. team members have terrific retail experience and our software is informed by what happens in real world business – not from what happens behind a desk.

The company’s strong management infrastructure champions the small business, independent culture of Tower Systems.

A question for local small business retailers …

Why should people buy from your business over another business?

You have a few seconds to answer.

It can’t be price because anyone can sell on price.

In most cases it can’t be products as other businesses can stock what you stock.

It can’t be opening hours because any business can match that.

It could be location. Location used to be a thing. But not as much today with online.

You, you and everyone working in the business is the reason. You are the difference.

What you do and how you do it. What you know and how you share it … these are the differences your business has over competitors. These are the differences you can leverage.

Our POS software can help you leverage you.

Made In Australia for local specialty retailers like bike shops, garden centres, produce businesses, gif shops, jewellers, fishing businesses, toy shops, sewing margin businesses, fabric shops, music shops, charity shops, newsagents and more.

Our POS software helps you leverage you.

We see this every day in our interaction with successful retailers in our community of 3,000 or so local specialty retailers. People do matter. It is the people who provide the difference in so many cases.

We are grateful that in our specialty retail POS software we help these local retail businesses to leverage their knowledge and their skills to deliver a differentiating experience and through this to help these businesses to prosper and grow.

Our POS software helps these local specialty retail businesses to show at the transaction level why people should shop with a business. We do this in a systematic, structured way that benefits the customers and through this benefits the business.

This is the answer to the why. Leverage your people and what they know and a competitor will be challenges to match you, especially a big competitor where people are blended into a large corporate backdrops and, all to often, lost within their big business systems, so that the big business provides a consistently average experience. It may work for mass, but it’s not what shoppers love in specialty retail areas.

People should buy from your business because of the value-add from your people.

We are grateful to have participated a series of supplier forums recently in which we have been able to explore more commercially beneficial engagement between suppliers and retailers who stock their products.

Or tech is the glue in the relationship. We help both sides benefit more from a tighter relationship.

Thanks to Covid there is less face to face contact between supplier representatives and retailers. By us providing access to a tech based meeting platform, we have been able to bring them together and their respective benefit as well as our own.

From more useful data flow to value-add data insights, working more closely in the retailer / supplier relationship space is delivering some wonderful rewards.

We are grateful for this opportunity.

The repairs management tools in the Tower systems POS software are being used across a range of retail channels as they embrace the management of repairs, large and small, within their businesses.

Initially developed more than twenty years ago, the repairs tools today are current, made for today, serving fresh needs as more retailers offer customer service repairs in-house as well as through external repairers.

Some of the functions our specialist retail software’s repair features are being used for include:

• In Jewellers: Jewellery and watch workshop repairs, dated manufacturing.
• In Bike Shops: Bicycle and tricycle repairs, warranty returns.
• In Garden Centres: Landscaping services management.
• In Firearms Stores: Gunsmithy and equipment repairs, warranty returns.
• In Pet Shops: Aquarium installations.

Repairs management software is flexible, serving a range of needs outside managing the actual repairs themselves. The flexibility in the software enables it to be used in different businesses for different purposes – from job management, to workshop management and traditional repairs management.

The software tracks the labour and resources used from a billing and inventory management perspective. It also handles allocation of repairs or parts of a repair to venues outside the business (for contracting and supplier exchanges or repairs for warranty issues, for example) and tracks repair staff and couriers used in shipping repairs. Once the repair is ready for pick-up by the customer, the software finalises the billing and advises the customer by SMS or another preferred method. Payments are processed with the usual depth of our retail software’s point of sale functionality – customers can make multiple payments against a repair or a specialist manufacturing, pay through cash, EFTPOS, PayPal or other methods.

See the repairs tools for yourself in this function-specific demonstration:

We are grateful to the jewellers, bike shop owners and others who have worked together to find common needs in this area of repairs management and tracking, so that one piece of software can be useful and efficient across multiple retail channels.

Managing repairs is not something you see in POS software usually as it is a complex area of business management, with many options to be handles and different business situations to be considered. Our years of experience and our many customers have helped us provide a piece of software of which we are most proud.

Our Aussie made and supported POS software with serial number tracking facilities is loved by a range of retail businesses. The serial number tracking tools set it apart, providing specialty tools for these businesses for which serial number tracking is vital.

From the moment inventory arrives in a business, serial numbers can be tracked, right through to when the items are sold.

Our POS software customers can choose the extent to which they engage with serial number tracking. some prefer to only track as they sell while others prefer to track from the moment the goods first arrive.

Using the software, retailers can record serial numbers sold to a customer. This can be helpful for insurance claims, warranty claims and more. It is this level of accurate record keeping that is particularly helpful to retail businesses.

Ideal for jewellers, pool maintenance businesses, mobility scooter businesses, music shops, firearms dealers, bike shops, pet shops, appliance businesses, the serial number tracking tools in the Tower Systems POS software are loved, they set the software apart. We have developed the facilities with retailers and others who rely on serial number record keeping.

By tracking serial numbers using the POS software, you can provide a level of service to customers they will appreciate. Serial numbers are listed on receipts. They are recorded, too, for later use should the item be stolen from the customer and they need to do a claim.

Tracking serial numbers in this POS software also sets your business up for longer term tracking of the service history of an item. This can be a valuable way to differentiate the services provided by your business.

Join Justin in this video made here in-house as he explains and shows some of the benefits of the serial number tracking in our POS software:

The serial number tracking tools in the Tower Systems POS software are another example pop the specialist nature of this POS software, they are another way this software helps specialty retailers be specialty.

If your retail business tracks product serial numbers, or pet microchip numbers, this specialty retail POS software is worth considering. We would love an opportunity to show it to you and to get your feedback.