CategoryProduce store software

We are grateful to see sales data from a range of different Victorian retail businesses using our POS software. Here are trends from the latest Victorian lockdown:

• Relaxing products. The jigsaw surge from March and April is back but in an expanded form – adult colouring, art and craft, journaling, cross-stitch, knitting, games and art. Smart retailers are selling these items as well as offering customers opportunities to connect with others doing this.
• Nesting. This category is surging not only in Victoria but nationally. Nesting includes candles, diffusers, essential oils, rugs, cushions, homewares, pets, cooking and related.
• Tactile products. We have seen a surge in cuddleable (not a word I know but it best describes it) products. This segment includes plush and other soft toys, pets, rugs, blankets, pillows and similar. With touching and hugging discouraged, it stands to reason that people seek out alternatives.
• Easy shopping. We have seen retailers gain sales by making shopping easier through packaging items often bought together and having these placed front of store and at the counter.
• Postable gifts. People are loving that they can easily send a gift to people they are unable to see.
• Working from home. For some, this is now a permanent arrangement. Many retail channels have offers they can make to those working from home and businesses with employees working from home. The opportunities are usually broader than retailers think.
• Contactless retail. Having the EFTPOS machine shopper facing and situated for easy tap and having in place arrangements for the lowest cost possible to the business for EFTPOS.
• Online. Having an online offer matters. While people like the safety of having goods shipped, they also like click and collect and they like to use the website to ensure you have something in stock before they visit the shop.
• Online events. More retailers are hosting events to show off new products and offer education –  Zoom, Facebook live and similar events. Unboxings, educating on new products meet the maker and more.
• Christmas has started early. Yes, we are seeing Christmas purchases already in businesses that are offering Christmas stock.

While the pandemic has disrupted business, in that disruption are opportunities. The Victorian situation is a reminder that disruption is not temporary. We think history will show that winners will be those businesses that adapted early and were able to finesse their offering and processes as the market demanded.

More and more small business retailers are embracing the pivot to online as covid continues to impact in-store traffic. The covid pivot is more about getting online, for sure. It is about small business retailers finding new category opportunities to serve through their existing business operation.

That is the covid pivot, a turn for the business to attract new shoppers and to do this through an online model that leverages existing physical store infrastructure.

Tower Systems is grateful to serve small business retailers in making this covid Pivot, helping them to connect their POS software to a beautiful Shopify site created by our web developers.

Our suggestions cover the technical, operational and the creative. Our customers choose what they want for their businesses. All we can do is speak to our experiences and the experiences of others in making these moves. New are especially attuned to helping small business retailers looking for pivot opportunities as that is net new benefit for them, helping to drive efficiency of their overall business operation.

The covid pivot is real in business, especially small business and even more especially small business retail. covid pivot is a term we have been using since March to describe advice we have provided to small business retailers to encourage and guide their actions to attract new shoppers.

As developers of small business focussed POS software and as web developers of Shopify and Magento websites we are well positioned from these two parts of our company to deliver the tech infrastructure ideal for helping retailers make the most of a covid pivot move.

Jewellers, garden centres, bike shops, fishing and outdoors businesses, toy shops, pet shops, homewares businesses, newsagents and more are all benefiting from the advice and encouragement we offer in this model of the covid pivot to find new shopper traffic for any retail business. Guiding these businesses to make an online move is key and beneficial.  It is timely because of covid even though the need and opportunity were always there.

The covid pivot is defined as the move you make in business in response to, because of and / or thanks to covid to help strengthen the business in an area not historically familiar to you. It is smart, opportunistic and timely. New customers are out there for businesses that pivot to find them.

We are grateful to have switched more MYOB Retail Manager customers to our POS software. Through this latest round of work we have learned more about how our software is a good alternative to MYOB Retail Manager.

Each time we bring convert someone from MYOB Retail Manager we learn more about our MYOB Retail Manager alternative, how we can specifically help and guide retailers to walk that path with us.

We respect the place MYOB Retail Manager has played in serving small business retailers. As the alternative to MYOB Retail Manager, Tower Systems seeks to help those retailers move beyond where they sat, to lean into opportunities of change in physical retail as well as online.

So, here is feedback from folks who have embraced our MYOB Retail Manager alternative.

• We loved that we could start again with our data. We have used MYOB Retail Manager for many years and had not been ideal in our management of the data. The stock was right but the stock on hand was wrong. So switching allowed us to clean the data.
• Tower were great. They took our MYOB Retail Manager, looked at how we used it and provided advice on how to take that generational leap we needed to shift our business up a notch or two, to make it more viable and competitive.
• We loved that even though we moved on from MYOB Retail Manager we could keep using MYOB for our account ting software. That was important to us. Tower were great in respecting this.
• Our data was a mess. We had used MYOB Retail Manager for many years over many different staff. The Tower people helped us get completely clean and accurate data and that has made a huge difference to our business.
• I loved that they gave us unlimited training.
• I loved that the people selling and supporting the Tower software and from the same company as the people who write the software. I was tired of dealing with people who were not from MYOB.
• I love that I can rent the Tower software.
• I liked that there was no pressure. I first looked at Tower a year and only made the switch from MYOB Retail Manager three months ago. They did not pressure me. This was important to me.

We are grateful for the users of MYOB Retail Manager who have joined our user community and look forward to welcoming more.

We are thrilled to bring a click frenzy like opportunity to the Tower Systems small business community.

If you have a website, come and join our small business to small business promotion. To promote the websites of Tower customers to other Tower customers, we invite you to set up an offer code – [redacted] – in your website to run from July 6 to July 31, giving those who use the code a discount, which you set.

This is a click frenzy opportunity with a difference. It is within our small business POS software user community only.

Email Tash, our admin expert, your web address, one line on the product categories and the discount the code delivers. Our advice on the discount is be bold with a discount designed to help you get icing on the cake type sales, sales you would otherwise not get.

Here are two examples from us:

www.cutenessoverload.com.au; all things cute; 25%.
www.mintcoinshop.com.au; coins from the Royal Australian Mint; 10%.

To ensure consistency of information in the list we will share with our customers, please follow this standard.

Our goal here is to help you show off your website and to, hopefully, get more small business retailers buying from small business retailers. We want to give you a valuable click frenzy sales boost of online sales.

Ours is a diverse small business community. We’d love to see this diversity reflected in the range of websites that join this promotion.

We will only promote it to Tower Systems customers. That is to 3,000+ small business retailers.

Plus…

We will include a list of all Tower POS software connected retailers who send us the above information on our own website. This will be a new page we create: Retail Businesses We Love. That listing will have your business name and web address. We will not publicly share the discount code. The goal of the listing is to give you another backlink.

This Tower Systems small business retailer click frenzy opportunity is another way we are working with and helping our small business retailer community to reach people and to drive business opportunities from other small business retailers.

Our click frenzy campaign also helps small business retailers expand the reach of people to their new websites and through this to get more experiences about online sales.

Hundreds of small business retailers have installed R3, the next generation POS software from Tower Systems. R3 is a technical step forward in small business POS software.

Its release last week is the culmination of months of beta testing and acceptance testing through partners with which Tower Systems connects through its POS software.

• R3 POS software delivers access too a fresh and current design look and feel. It is 2020 sostfwasre for the 2020 marketplace.
• R3 POS software uses a stronger and more robust data management system providing safe, secure and fast access to business data.
• R3 POS software is written in a langauge that is forward leaning, setting Tower Systems and it customers up for wonderful advance opportunities in the back half of this year and into next year.
• R3 POS software delivers new facilities, bonus facilities through which retailers can extend their businesses.
• R3 POS software delivers a replacement of core facilities. Yes, we did a Marie Kondo, thanking parts of the software for their service and letting them go, replacing them for completely new, completely rewritten facilities, that truly spark joy.

Our R3 release is us investing in the future of the small business retailers we serve and those we are yet to welcome to our Tower Systems small business retailer community. The project itself began three years ago and involved more than 10 IT professionals working together to design and build awesome next-generation POS software for our specialty retail channels. This team did this work while our existing software was itself enhanced and supported.

The million dollar plus project is an investment we are proud to have delivered for our customers and for our own community working in the Tower Systems business.

This is what POS software companies do. They make software. And, making software is complex, expensive, time- consuming and inexact. hence, the long beta release program as we finessed the software to ensure it served the needs of our customers.

R3 is truly innovative POS software. It is backed with excellent help and training, seamless data conversion and more as we take the hands of our small business retail customers and bring them to the new world of R3, next generation POS software for small business retailers in Australia and New Zealand.

We are grateful for the success our discount voucher facilities in our POS software have delivered to small business retailers since February 2013.  Last week, we got together with a small group to explore the discount vouchers and to understand the opportunity operationally in small business retail.  Our goal was to record content for others. Here is a video of some of that meeting.

Harvey Norman is engaged in ad ad blitz right now pitching to businesses for instant asset write off business prior to June 30. They are spending big to entice businesses to spend big with them.

Click here to access the instant asset write off information on the Tax Office website. We think it is important that businesses act on up to date advice from the government authority overseeing the tax write off program.

This year, some shelter changes were made to the instant asset write off program:

From 12 March 2020 until 31 December 2020 the instant asset write-off:

• threshold amount for each asset is $150,000 (up from $30,000)
• eligibility has been expanded to cover businesses with an aggregated turnover of less than $500 million (up from $50 million).

Here at Tower Systems, our interest is small business retailers and, in particular, helping them with our POS software written for a range of niche specialty retailers. This is POS software made in Australia for their types of businesses.

Installing our POS software and related infrastructure is an eligible purchase for any business, it meets the criteria for the instant asset write-off program. Our POS software could be financially beneficial and operationally beneficial to a business this financial year. Our focus, through good use of the POS software, is to help small business retailers run more efficient and valuable businesses.

• Computer hardware purchases.
• Tablet, iPad and similar purchases.
• Network infrastructure purchases.
• Printer, scanner, scale and other purchases.
• Software.
• Software support.

All of these and other expenses can be investments that help any retail business and they could be useful when the and retail business is planning to tap into the instant asset write-off opportunity.

The Tax Office and accounting professionals are the ones best positioned to guide any purchase, to help any business ensure they purchase to maximise their spending and deduction opportunity.

Our job here at Tower Systems is to help small business retailers leverage our POS software for the best possible use in a business, for management certainty and through this to drive the best value possible for a business. Oh, and to help those in the business enjoy the business.

Any retail business keen to explore instant asset write-off opportunities can speak with us here at Tower Systems and we will help as much as we are able. We also appreciate specking with accountants, to ensure that any transactions meet they requirements they identify for their clients.

Here is a video of a Zoom meeting we held for our POS software customers last week. The core reason for the meeting was to record this and make it available to our customers as free training.  Since release, the view numbers and feedback have been terrific. We have many more training videos online for our customers.

We are all set to go for our free live POS software stocktake training Zoom meeting this morning. We will share time saving tips, data accuracy tips and more as we share train ing on how to stocktake using our POS software. We will cover a full stocktake, a spot stocktake and a custom stocktake.

Better still, we will record the meeting and make it available t all of our POS software customers along with our articles of advice on stocktaking and our free one-on-one training on stocktaking.

This end of financial year, Tower Systems has you covered for stocktakes.

Australian retailers benefit from using Australian made and Australian supported Point of Sale software.

Of course we would say this, we are an Australian Point of Sale software company. We want you to buy from us. That is true. But moire important, we want you to buy Australian.

If your local Australian retail businesses ever pitches shop local, then where you source what you use and sell in your business matters. The COVID-19 pandemic and the economic response has brought that into sharp focus. It has helped us understand that our local economy matters.

Being an Australian Point of Sale software company we are focussed on serving here and nearby, like in New Zealand, Fiji and other pacific nations.

Buying your Point of Sale software local…

1. Keeps jobs local.
2. Drives local tax revenue.
3. Nurtures tech skills development locally.
4. Ensures more relevant software because it have been developed locally.
5. Provides access to more timely and local support.
6. Puts your closer to the developers and therefore more likely to influence enhancement.
7. Gives you a perfect answer for people who ask how much of your business is local.
8. Nurtures Australia to bee smarter.

The economy is circular. People shopping in your shop need money for their purchases. The most valuable money they can bring into your business to spend is that which they have earned locally. The more your buying supports local jobs the better for your business and every there local business.

The cliche is true, we’re all in this together. This is at the heart of why shopping locally for inventory and business infrastructure matters, it is why buying Point of Sale software locally matters.

Tower Systems is a proud local POS software company. We proudly make our software for local retailers. We are grateful to the 3,500+ local retailers who have partnered with us duo far on our journey. We are proud to have given so many their start in work and for many of those to contuse to offer them valuable and enjoyable employment – in creating land supporting locally made Point of Sale software.

We’re local. We’re proud. We’re making a difference, every day.

Point of Sale software from Tower Systems has been helping small business retailers navigate the challenges and leverage opportunities of this COVID-19 world.

Here we are almost four months in and COVID-19 is here and has fundamentally changed retail. The Tower Point of Sale software has helped retailers to quickly identify trends and thereby to respond to these in a competitive and timely manner.

In a more practical way, the Tower Point of Sale software has helped retailers access federal, state and local government funding support through the provision of accurate records that are key to meeting application criteria.

From a health and safety perspective, the Tower Systems Australian made Point of Sale software has helped retailers with shop floor management and staffing scheduling. This is key to providing a COVID safe working enviro9nment while helping the retail business to serve and transact.

More broadly, thanks to POS software Shopify, Magento and WooCommerce integrations, the Tower Point of Sale software has helped independent and small business retailers to transdact online for click and collect as well as for delivery. While often created in service of existing and local shoppers, the online connection has helped these retailers to find new shoppers who would otherwise not have known about the business.

Of all the COVID-19 related opportunities leveraged in the Tower Systems Point of Sale software, it is the insights offered through the data collected and curated by the software that offer the most value as this lays out a path ahead that is specific to each business using the software.

We have seen COVID-19 play out differently in different businesses. Some are up. Some are down. In almost all businesses there has been a shift in what sells and it is this shift, unique to each business often, that is most important to small business retailers.

Tower Systems has backed its software with COVID-19 workshops for its retailers, showing them how to use the software to better understand the COVID-19 impacts and opportunities in each business. This training and assistance is on-going as COVID itself is on-going.

Small business retailers in the Tower Systems POS software user community are, overall, trading well and with certainty that the software they are using helps shine a light on a path forward while at the same time offering understanding for the pathway behind.

2020 is proving to be a fascinating year in retail. We are grateful to our customers for their support and trust.

Tower Systems is an Australian software company. We make what we sell. We support it, too. Small business retailers keen to pitch shop local and themselves shop local for Point of Sale software.

Here at Tower Systems we are specialised,  we develop Point of Sale software specifically for small business retailers in a range of niche retail channels … jeweller, garden centres, bike retailers, toy shops, pet shops, produce businesses, farm supply businesses, newsagents, fishing and outdoors businesses, adult shops, homewares businesses, gift shops and even butchers.

Our Point of Sale software is called Retailer. We called it that 20 years ago when the first version was released as it speaks to who it is for. As retailers ourselves, we leverage our own experience as well as that of hundreds of other retailers in evolving the software, to ensure it is genuinely useful in myriad retail situations.

We are proud to have had more than 20 years experience owning and running our own retail businesses in the retail innovation part of our company. It’s where we play, learn and walk in the shoes of our customers.

Through every year we release software updates to Retailer. These are developed based on customer enhancement suggestions. Our customers are invited to vote on the suggested POS softer enhancement. We love this, the democracy of it.

The Point of Sale software we sell and support today is very different to that with which we started. It is fresh visually, technically and functionally. We are proud to bring this to local retailers in Australia and New Zealand.

From our Xero integration to our Shopify and Magento integrations to our scale integration, we connect with tools that help retailers to operate more efficiently and successfully.

In the back office we offer repairs software, manufactured goods software and other tools that help retailers to run their businesses well and through the software. Our repairs software works a treat, for example, for jewellers, bike shops and any business with an in-house or external repair offering for customers.

We are a proud team of software professionals working in service of small business retailers. We are grateful to our customers for their business and for their recommendations. Their guidance and support has been wonderful for us as we have grown the business and helped more retailers run successful businesses.

That is what our Point of Sale software is about – helping local independent small business retailers to run efficient businesses they enjoy. We love seeing that.

While it may sound trite, we know it is true – we’re here to help. We know that if we can and do help, we will be appreciated and appreciation among current customers is at the heart of our future.

Shopify last week announced major innovation and changes to their online platform that will benefit small business retailers, especially those connecting Shopify to their Point of Sale software.

We love the latest enhancements announced by Shopify.

For our own retail business Point fo Sale connected e-commerce websites as well as for websites we develop for our small business retail customers this raft of enhancements from Shopify are terrific.

By connecting your Tower Systems Point of Sale software to Shopify you being together two awesome and separate tools and create a powerful and integrated platform for online selling. The latest enhancements from Shopify help us reach even more retailers with an online shopping solution.

With Point of Sale software managing the inventory and Shopify presenting the online store front, specialty tools are fulfilling their specialty roles.

We are across the detail of the latest Shopify changes and our web team is working with small business retailers for whom we are developing Point of sale connected websites to ensure the leveraging of the new opportunities now before us.  We are particularly excited about several of the changes delivered.

We love Shopify and that our PIS software co. is a partner of theirs, offering a direct integration.

Shopify powers 1,210,682 live websites around the world, according to BuiltWith.com. That is an extraordinary number. It is a powerful platform that is ideal for the needs of retailers. Small, medium and large retailers take Shopify online. While here at Tower our focus is on small business retailers, Shopify is broadly used, which is terrific news.

The latest changes announced last week make Shopify even more appealing for retailers, especially Point oil Sale software connected retailers.

If you are looking for a website for your business, the Tower Systems web development team could be the right partner. Based 100% in Australia, our web team understand local retail business needs. We are focussed on delivering useful and valuable solutions to retailers, particularly specialty retailers in the channels in which we also serve with our POS software.

Being Australian based, we are accessible when needed. Support is local too. Partnering with us is an investment in Australia and we are proud to offer that.

We are grateful to all those participating with us in our online workshop program. Here are two0 sessions scheduled for this week. We have a couple of more secret sessions too.

Online workshop: SEO & SEM.
How to guide online shoppers to find your website. This interactive workshop will explore SEO and SEM, explain them and show you what to do to make your website more easily found. We will also look at what people look for that gets them to websites that may compete with your plans.

Time: May 19, 2020 10:30 AM Melbourne time
https://zoom.us/j/94913369113?pwd=WndsWjQ5ODZBMnBIc3BmOVhVTzVIdz09
Meeting ID: 949 1336 9113 Password: 344536

How to take your newsagency online
We will explore what to sell online, how to sell online, why it matters and go under the hood and look at what people are looking for right now.
Time: May 19, 2020 09:00 AM Melbourne time.
https://zoom.us/j/93928597710?pwd=Njh6M2FzRVNaeVdnK3NJK1pGTDEvUT09
Meeting ID: 939 2859 7710 Password: 778081

Online workshop: Loyalty marketing using Retailer.
Now is a perfect time to refresh your approach to shopper loyalty, to maximise the opportunity with one-time and regular customers. In this workshop, we will show you several loyalty options in Retailer and explain how they can drive a deeper basket and a sooner return by shoppers. Plus, we will answer all of your questions.

Time: May 18, 2020 10:30 AM Melbourne time.
https://zoom.us/j/94829736147?pwd=SWlhSjVSb0xKZ3FtcHk1cVdvaXV0Zz09
Meeting ID: 948 2973 6147 Password: 502630

ANYONE CAN JOIN IN.

Yes, we understand that competitors could join in. We’re happy if they do as we welcome opportunities to help others help small business retailers be more successful.

WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT?

Our online POS software workshops are genuinely interactive. We present material at the start and are then guided by questions and comments as to where the session goes. This way we all learn and explore together. It’s a terrific experience that benefits all engaged.

We are also happy for people to sit and say nothing, just watching and listening and learning about out POS software.

We record the sessions too and make them available to customers who cannot attend. This usually expands the reach of the material five and ten fold, which is excellent as it expands the learning community opportunity.

ONE ON ONE?

In addition to these group workshops, we provide on-going one on one training opportunities for our customers, helping them to learn about our POS software  in a way that suits their specific business needs.

Learning is wonderful. It is calming as you get to exert more control over your business too.

Everyone is welcome.

Ahead For Business is a terrific, safe, mental health check-up and support resource for small business owners and those who support them. They are recommended by government. On their website they have a sell assessment opportunity to determine possible next steps if you are confronted by stress, anxiety or depression. And, for sure, many retail business owners will have these challenges. Our tip is check out the site and the resources available.

In our work with retailers we get to hear and see stressful situations first-hand, usually nothing to do with our POS software, but impacting on the POS software experience nevertheless. This one reason we have an interest in mental health resources and tools, so we can suggest if we think it is appropriate in the circumstances.

Safe Work Australia also has some excellent resources that they have curated specifically for retailers in this COVID-19 situation.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented situation for everyone. As a small business it is understandable you may have concerns about how to continue to meet your WHS duties at this time. There are a number of practical steps you can take to manage the risk of exposure to COVID-19 at your workplace and meet your legal obligations.

In our own situation we provide opportunities for our team members to decompress, which is important given the situations they can encounter when helping retailers.

As we have heard from government this week, mental health is a challenge as a result of the challenges of COVID-19. As time goes on, the challenges can magnify personally and professionally.  It is good to see that the politicians are investing in resources.

As business owners, we have an obligation, too, to ensure the right resources are available for those in our businesses and near our businesses. hence, our sharing of resource information to our customers here and through our regular customer emails.

We are not mental health professionals. Our goal with this post is to share some resources from them that small business retailers and their teams in our Tower Systems POS software user community may find useful.