The POS Software Blog

The POS Software Blog

News from Tower Systems about locally made POS software for specialty local retailers.

CategoryPOS Software

Square POS software alternative for local small business retailers

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here at Tower Systems we make POS software for specialty retail businesses. We have businesses that have switched to us from Square POS as their needs have evolved from the basic to the specialty retail.

Our specialty retail business POS software is different to Square POS software in that we go beyond the everyday POS transactions of tracking sales, inventory and customers.

Our EFTPOS integrated POS software goes beyond Square POS in offering integrations with specialty retail suppliers, specialty retail functionality like repairs management, customer special orders, bagging up your own products, multi-layered loyalty tools and much much more.

While Square POS software serves basic retail needs, we dive deep every day, guided by the evolving needs of the specialty retailers we serve. This includes working with suppliers, retail business owners and the field force working in retail.

Beyond the sales counter, where Square POS software is most loved, in the back room, on the road, on the shop floor and at home ur tower systems specialty retail POS software serves, serves and serves as it helps retail business owners to uncover opportunities, to see what they might otherwise not see in and for their businesses. This is valuable differentiation on which the retailers can rely and bank.

The thing about Square POS is that they say there is no cost for the software, and that you pay a fee per transaction. It’s easy even for a small business to rack up fees using Square POS that make it more expensive than the Tower Systems POS software. take a gift shop, using our POS software, the cost is under $1,200 a year. our of a $300,000 turnover, that equals a percentage of turnover cost of .4%. That’s less than half the cost of Square POS. Plus, a gift retailer using our POS software has access to facilities and serves considerably beyond the Square POS software options.

Our software is Australian made and Australian supported. Our business is Australian, serving the Australian community. these are all factors for businesses that appreciate and support buy local – because they want their customers to appreciate their own local credentials.

If you are thinking about Square POS soft your local retail business, let us show you a comparison, so your decision can be more informed.

POS software for mobility scooter businesses

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Using our POS software for mobility scooter businesses you can expect to engage with software that has facilities of value and worth to your specific type of business. This is software with facilities and tools for mobility scooter businesses …

  • Tracking serial numbers.
  • Handling orders for customers, special orders.
  • Managing repairs that are in-house as well as external.
  • Bringing customers back for servicing.
  • Club pricing, which can work for retirement villages and similar situations.
  • Regular sales.
  • Loading supplier stock files.
  • BOGO: Increase sales with buy this and get that bundling. And, yes, it’s a thing.
  • Warranty: Track details and leverage this for customer service.
  • Bring them back: Target market based on past services.
  • Sell anywhere: Using our Retailer RoamTM sell anywhere app.
  • Sell anytime: With our Shopify / Magento / Woo integrations.
  • Special orders: Easily manage special customer orders.
  • Awesome loyalty: Guide one-time and regular shoppers to spend more.
  • Seasonal reordering: Easily reorder inventory based on seasonal sales.

All these things and more are useful in helping our POS software for mobility scooter businesses be useful, valuable and helpful to these unique and local businesses serving people with mobility needs.

Here are some of the ways our locally made POS software for mobility scooter businesses leverages the uniqueness of these businesses:

  1. Rare visit loyalty.  The customer visit cycle for a mobility scooter business is often infrequent. Embedded in this software are loyalty tools that encourage shoppers be more valuable each visit.
  2. Pre-orders. Easily manage selling products before you have them in-stock.
  3. Buy Now Pay Later and LayBy. Through our software you can have both.
  4. Bundle / package. It’s easy to bundle items together to create something unique to your needs, unique for your customers. Putting items together this way can help you guide shoppers to spend more.
  5. Club / group marketing and support. Leverage retirement villages, clubs and other local groups with offers and pricing.
  6. Special orders. Being able to manage and track special customer orders helps you save time and cut mistakes. Also, it’s easier for you to be paid in advance for these.
  7. Product repairs and servicing. Using our repairs management facilities you can track parts and labour used in repairs as well as repairs done outside the business. You can also recall customers based on activity, like last service date.
  8. Serial number tracking. For service records, insurance and much more. Tracking serial numbers of stock items is good for busines and good for customer service.

Our Australian made and supported mobility scooter business 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 you.

POS software for computer shops helps local IT businesses serve local customers

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Our POS software for computer shops helps these local and loved specialty IT businesses better serve their customers thanks to a range of specialty tools built into the software, tools that help these businesses more efficiently and successfully serve the needs of their customers.

Let’s get into it.

Our POS software for computer shops helps these businesses …

  • Track stock, including small computer parts.
  • Manage special customer orders.
  • Manage and track a computer build from parts through to labour to completion.
  • Manage computer repairs.
  • Track and manage serial numbers.
  • Offer loyalty for shoppers who shop infrequently.
  • Track customer call backs for service visits.
  • Encourage sales by offering club pricing support.

This is POS software made for computer shops, bringing certainty, structure and smooth workflow to these local businesses that provide specialist IT products in their local communities.

We often see local computer shops running general POS software when they could more usefully benefit from POS software that is more closely aligned with the needs of the business.

Computer shops that handle special orders for customers will find the pre-order, lay-by, customer special orders and other related facilities useful as they can help you capture business long before you have the goods in the shop.

Computer shops that quote for business will find the unique quote and invoice management tools useful as it is designed specifically for that service. This reimagined facility was developed with businesses that do a lot of quotation related work.

The Tower Systems computer shop POS software has been tuned to the needs of computer shops. We are grateful today to note that we have plenty of customer in this specialty retail niche of computer shops. They guide our enhancement program and help us to continue to evolve our computer shops software solution to be of more value today than it was last release and the release before that. Many of our customers were surprised at some things we do, helping them to expand what they offer from their businesses.

This is what local POS software companies like Tower Systems do, constantly improve their POS software to evolve the value it provides.

Our local computer shop POS software is worth a look if you are in this retail channel. We’d love to show it to you.

This software is based on our bike shop software as that has been found to serve the needs of computer shops.

Joyful POS software

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We are grateful to our creative team for sourcing joyful images to represent each of our specialty retail POS software products for local specialty retailers. here’ a quick video we put together focussing on those images.

A Covid lockdown To-Do list for local small business retailers

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Here in Melbourne we are in our fifth Covid lockdown. As well as owning our POS software company and working with local small business retailers every day, I also own three retail businesses and several online businesses.

This Covid lockdown To-Do list for local small business retailers is practical advice you can action without cost, to make the most of the lockdown opportunity.

Whether your shop is closed or open but with less traffic, now is an ideal time to work on your business.

  1. List what’s not sold. Run a report listing all inventory in the business that has not sold at all this year. This list gives you a starting point for action. We did this last week for one customer and identified $15,000 worth of dead stock, stock the owner to that point was not focussed on.
  2. Act on what’s not sold. Dead stock is dead weight. If you have long since paid for it, cents in the dollar for it is better than nothing.
  3. Look at what’s been selling with what. Often the items in the same basket are not seen by retailers as items you can put together. This list, which you should be able to get from your POS software, can guide shop floor placement changes.
  4. Front to back clean. Literally, start at the front of the shop and work your want to the back. Clean every single product. We often find that the act of holding every product leads to decisions about some products, decisions we might otherwise not have made. We have just done this at one of our own Westfield shops and the decisions we made along the way have been liberating.
  5. Work on your roster. Look at what usually sells by day of week and by time. Your POS software should be able to help with this. Take time to review your roster to ensure it is set appropriately. Labour is usually the top or second highest cost in a retail business outside of inventory.
  6. Reset the front third of the store. Look carefully at that front third of your store. Make bold changes simply by moving things, so that when shoppers return they see things they’ve not noticed before.
  7. Prepare social media content that leverages you. Using your phone, film short videos of you or a team member talking about products. Prepare these to load over time on Facebook, Instagram and more. Have fun.
  8. If you have a website for the business, write blog posts as they are absolutely the single best thing you can do to attract traffic to the website. A blog post should be single topic, pitch a consistent keyword at least five times and be over 350 words. We have a lot of experience with this and note, again, this is the single most effective online marketing for a website. The only investment is your time – don’t outsource this.
  9. Learn something new. Ask your POS software company for the best report in the software to reveal what you are unlikely to know about your business. Run that report. Read it. Make a list of things you could do. Act on it.
  10. Be a shopfitter. Shopfitters are expensive. Look at an area of your shop that you want to change that you would usually hire a shoplifter to handle. Think through how you can do it yourself. I know many retailers who have done this and vowed to not use shopfitters for such changes in the future.
  11. If you are online, undertake a data driven review of your website. Look at your traffic and the traffic of your competitors. Review your site and theirs. Look for opportunities to attract more shoppers to your site based on the data. Whoever developed your website should be able to collate this data for you.
  12. Personally: refresh. If you can take a break from business, even for an hour a day, read fiction, listen to music you love, go for a walk outside. These nourishing things can help reset mood and that could help you discover new opportunities for your business.

We are a local Aussie POS software company serving 3,500+ local small business retailers with POS software and beautiful Shopify websites. Beyond this, we also offer retail business management advice and help to our customers every day.

Thanks for reading. have an awesome rest of your weekend …

Mark Fletcher | mark@towersystems.com.au.

FREE WORKSHOP: Helping retailers leverage POS software connected websites

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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.

POS software helps retailers handle consignment stock

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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 integrated POS software helps small business retailers cut mistakes and reduce accounting fees

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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?

Sales
End of Shift based department-level sales are transferred to Xero via a sales invoice. Each department can be assigned its own Xero account.
Invoices
Invoices received into Retailer are transferred to Xero at department level. No individual stock items are transferred.

 

Write Offs & No Sales
These are transferred to individual expense accounts depending on the transaction reason chosen.

Cost Of Sales
An option on sales exporting is to export Cost of Sales. While not a full implementation of COGS it does transfer over the cost price of items sold each day to reduce the value of Stock On Hand in Xero. If you use this option you will export Write offs, not as expenses, but as adjustment to your Stock on Hand. This makes processing stock adjustments for the End Of Month much easier.

What is the best POS software for retail?

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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.

Grateful to serve local op. shops with our Australian made and supported op. shop software

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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.

Thank you to our customers!

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What a thrill to have so many customers join our live POS software Q&A this morning. We were proud to show off some soon to be released POS software enhancements, discuss opportunities and more. In addition to the live meeting, there was live chat.

Sessions like the one we hosted this morning are regular for us as we connect with our customer community outside of the usual help desk and other one-on-one engagement.

We have a commercial licence for the Zoom platform. This enables us to record the session for wider release to those unable to participate.

To those at the meeting today, thank you. To those who will watch the video and provide feedback, thank you, too!

Retail express checkout with Tower Systems POS software

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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.

Why should anyone buy from your retail business?

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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.

Previewing new POS software update for customers

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We are hosting a live preview of our latest POS software update this week, sharing a live demonstration of the latest software vis a customer-only Zoom meeting.

At this session we will be showing some new facilities as well as other enhancements in the software, including a new fast-tech reporting solution that is sure to be loved.

This Zoom session is the next in our series of customer / software development team engagement through which our customers can ask questions, provide feedback and play a more active role in what is considered in our POS software update process.

We are recording the session and making it available by way of registered private link for customers unable to be with us live to view.

There is no doubt here at Tower Systems as to the value of these customer engagement sessions. We are thankful that customers embrace the opportunity.

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