The POS Software Blog

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

Categoryretail efficiency

WHAT MAKES THE TOWER SYSTEMS POS SOFTWARE MAGENTO LINK A BEST PRACTICE SOLUTION FOR RETAILERS

April 23, 2016

2 Min read

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Not all POS Software Magento links are made equal. Some POS software Magento links are slow, out of date, not direct and / or cumbersome. Some make doing business online and in a bricks and mortar store from the same stock data set cumbersome,

Thanks to relationships developed in the US with the Magento team over years, Tower Systems offers a best-practice solution, one powerful, easy to use and ideal for independent retail businesses.

Linking directly with the Tower POS software it is a breeze to use – as the many e-commerce sites already using it can attest.

A weakness we have seen in some other products is their use of an old version of Magento. By using the latest release, we are able to deliver something far more useful and valuable to small business retailers. Indeed, we can show the difference live through sites we have developed even for our business retail and e-commerce businesses.

This use ourselves of our own software enables us to speak with experience and authority on these things. We are not selling you something thinking how it should work. No, we are selling something we use ourselves for our own retail business, something that meets our own exacting needs, something of which we are most proud.

Using our Magento link it is easy to share data, images and other vital content between your shop and your online store without extra time or technology overhead. The Tower Systems approach is a breeze to implement and manage.

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SMALL BUSINESS RETAILERS NEED GOOD GIFT CARD SOFTWARE IN WAKE OF DICK SMITH COLLAPSE

January 11, 2016

1 Min read

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The woes of retailer Dick Smith and the swift announcement of the status of gift vouchers by the Administrator last week has made shoppers suspicious of gift vouchers. This is what happened following the collapse of the Red retail group – Angus and Robertson – some years ago. It took months for trust to rebuild.

Unfortunately, we can see a similar situation follow what is happening at Dick Smith at the moment.

Thanks to the comprehensive gift voucher / gift card management facilities in our software, our small business retail partners have a good story to tell about managing the cards / vouchers and the cash collected.

Our software is well established and tested in this area, across multiple retail channels. we manage the vouchers in a way a CPA would expect and the way a shopper can trust.

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POS software customer love helping us sell POS software

January 9, 2016

1 Min read

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We invited several customers last year to have their photo taken in-store as part of a promotional series showing happy small business customers in their shops where they use our smart POS software. We were thrilled every customer we approached agreed.

Here is one photo from the wonderful LollyBomb business in Adelaide. Some of the specialist facilities in our software help this business in smart and engaging ways.

We are grateful for their help in promoting our software.

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POS software helps retailers sell more hampers at Christmas time

December 9, 2015

1 Min read

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Christmas is hamper season for many retailers and Tower Systems helps retailers easily and confidently make, manage, sell and deconstruct hampers.

We track all the components of a hamper, special package pricing, sales history, customer engagement and, if necessary, the breaking down of hampers to single items should a hamper not sell.

Making it easy to manage hampers helps the Tower software be selected by gift shops, bike shops, pet shops, garden centres and other retailers where hampers are an important part of the Christmas trade.

Our work in the hamper space started years ago when we sold our software to a hamper specialist. They guided us to develop smarter tools and these sit in the core POS software we offer to retailers today.

Hampers are a terrific way for local small retailers to pitch a point of difference. Our software makes hampers easy to manage and sell. More important, our software makes it easy to leverage for next season.

This is another POS software Tower Advantage^TM.

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Five management tips small business retailers most often ignore – Sunday retail management advice

November 22, 2015

1 Min read

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Based ion our many years experience and our personal work with more than 3,000 retailers, here are the five most common bits of advice small business retailers ignore. Do these five things and your business will improve.

Track everything you sell from the moment it arrives to when it sells.
Reorder stock using your software and not your gut.
Track all employee transactions.
Do not purchase from suppliers who do not provide electronic invoices.
Run a dollar based loyalty program that encourages shopper engagement more often.

These tips are offered as part of a series from Tower Systems, a POS software company serving more than 3,500 small business retailers with specialist POS software for a range of retail niches.

Every day through our software, advice, support and training we provide help beyond the software, help to make a genuine difference to the small retail businesses we serve.

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Cloud based free roster software loved by small business

September 23, 2015

1 Min read

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Eziroster, the free cloud based roster software released in beta by Tower Systems is attracting plenty of small business users. Offering roster setup, management and budgeting tools, Eziroster is a free service from Tower Systems available for any retailer, offering money-saving opportunities for small to medium retail businesses.

Developed as part of a broader cloud strategy, Eziroster is being embraced by retailers from a variety of retail channels keen for more effective employee rostering and management tools.

Tower Systems has announced that Eziroster will continue to be free, as part of its small business pay it forward commitment – a commitment to help small business retailers beyond what is traditional for POS software companies.

In addition to the free Eziroster facilities, Tower Systems offers small business management advice to help small business retailers properly use the Eziroster tools for their maximum advantage. Going beyond the software itself in this way helps small business retailers reap even greater rewards.

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Sunday #smallbusiness retail management advice

September 13, 2015

1 Min read

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Employees are your front line of any independent retail business. They can make or break your business. You hire them, train them, motivate them and fire them. Their performance is on you.

Here are eight tips to encourage their engagement:

Train them.
Communicate your expectations.
Congratulate them.
Be open with them.
Ensure they know the goal of the business.
Give them responsibility.
Listen to their ideas, seek their counsel.
Thank them.

Small businesses are unique in many ways. Employees play a vital role in reflecting and leveraging that uniqueness.

Tower Systems helps small business employers to encourage and manage employee engagement in a range of ways in our specialty retail software.

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Sunday retail management advice: how to use POS software to manage suppliers

July 12, 2015

1 Min read

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Suppliers to retail businesses often focus on relationships ahead of data. Our advice is focus on data first. We recommend comparing the performance of suppliers of products in a common category to a retail business.

Let your business data speak for you.

If one supplier is performing worse than another supplier, hold them to account. Do not give them more business unless they help you resolve their sub-standard performance.

Thanks to smart reporting tools in our POS software, retailers can easily compare the performance of suppliers, they can know for certain if one supplier is performing better than another.

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New POS software update in final stages of development

June 20, 2015

1 Min read

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It has been a busy time at Tower Systems as we design, code, test and re-test a suite of new facilities for our POS software, pushing our software into areas beyond what has been traditional for software in the specialist retail channels in which we serve.

We are excited for the developments and the business growth opportunities they will bring to our customers.

We are a couple of weeks away from our first customer previews – such as the rigorous process new development goes through prior to first glances we offer outside our development lab.

Several of the new facilities we have been developing are from insights we have gained inner work forecasting where some retail channels are headed. We are bringing new lift and opportunities to small business retailers to enable them to be even more excited about this futures.

We are love what we do an the customers we serve.

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Good small business retail success story thanks to POS software

June 16, 2015

1 Min read

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While plenty in retail talk about our tough things are, here at Tower Systems we are hearing many stories of success from retailers doing well, retailers growing gross profit in the face of a traffic decline and other retailers growing traffic by using the facilities in the POS software.

One retailer told us last week that while traffic was flat with less than 1% growth, their profitability was up 8% thanks to using inventory management tools in our software to guide buying as well as shop floor product placement.

Our software is rich in facilities that help small and independent retailers make better quality business decisions, decisions that pursue profitability for the business and enjoyment for the business owner.

Each success story we hear adds to our arsenal of stories we can share with others, to encourage them and spread the news of optimism in small business retail.

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Sunday retail management advice: remove barriers and red tape in your business

June 7, 2015

1 Min read

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Business owners often call on politicians to remove red tape and make doing business easier. We think some small retail business owners create red tape of their own, red tape that makes it harder for customers to do business with the business and red tape that makes it harder for our employees to serve our business.

Common red tape we see in small retail businesses that could be eliminated and thereby help improve business includes:

Don’t touch. Your shop is a show room. The benefit you have over online is that people can touch. Uphold this point of difference.
Credit card processing fees on products where you can cover yourself in your pricing.
A shop layout that discourages shopping.
Handling returns. Have a process and ensure your people follow this as it offers certainty and comfort.
Slow sales processes.
Signs like this is not a library.
Poor back office processes with customer accounts.
Mixed messages in signs in-store leaving shoppers unsure about offers.

What red tape, what barriers could you remove from your shop thereby making doing business with you easier?

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Sunday retail management advice: keep your loyalty pitch simple for success

May 24, 2015

1 Min read

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A loyalty program is only as good as the over the counter pitch through which you seek to engage shoppers. Check out this brief video we created to train retail employees on what has to be the easiest to use over the counter shopper loyalty offer.

Tower Systems leads with professional employee training videos which help retail employees leverage more value for the business from our software.

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POS software helps gift shops, small business retailers handle special orders

April 17, 2015

1 Min read

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The POS software from Tower Systems has excellent facilities for handling special orders, pre-orders and other forms of orders for customers that are unique to the customer and a point of difference for the business to offer.

Special orders and customer pre-orders are a point of difference for small independent retailers over big businesses. Being bale to do this with consistency and certainty can help these businesses more successfully compete.

Thanks to years of refinement and working with retailers in a wide variety of retail situations, Tower Systems offers a competitive advantage from the recording of customer details, tracking an order,k advising its arrival and handling a range of payment options including time payment.

We have retailers today transacting valuable business in pre-orders of highly valuable product as a result of these tools in the software. They are financially better off today and over the long term as special order customers tend to return for more orders.

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Sunday retail management advice: success today is important for tomorrow

April 12, 2015

2 Min read

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Too often we see small business retailers running their businesses thinking that they will make their money when they sell. Our experience working with thousands of retailers is that focusing on today, on the right now, will ensure the best outcome for the future of the business.

Our strategy – Make every day your pay day – is simple and effective. It’s made up of basic points:

Run with the leanest roster possibl Just about every newsagency business I review has capacity to lower labour costs.
Have your best people working the floor, helping customers spend more.
Stock what sells.
Get rid of stock which is not selling.
Have stunning displays that attract people from outside the shop.
Have compelling displays in-store that encourage people to browse beyond their destination purchase.
Always have impulse offers at high traffic locations.
Charge more every time you can. Review your prices for products people come to yoo because of convenience.
Buy as best you can.
Grab settlement discounts every time you are able.
Use your business data to guide your decisions.
Promote outside your store.

Be responsible for the profitability of your business. Don’t blame your suppliers, your landlord, your employees or some other external factor … it all comes down to you – the decisions you make and the actions you take.

If you relentlessly pursue profit with a clear focus you’re likely to see profit grow. That’s better than waiting to make money when you sell because that’s less likely to happen in this market.

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POS Software company supports shop local promotion for small business retailers

March 19, 2015

1 Min read

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POS Software company Tower Systems is helping small and independent retailers to promote the support of local retailers through an innovative campaign of collateral created by the company for its retailers.

We are thrilled to be investing our creative resources in support of our retailer partners in this way.

This latest artwork is part of a series we have developed in-house through our amazingly creative marketing team to give our retailers different voices and platforms through which to pitch their shop local credentials.

This is another Tower Advantage^TM.

The free marketing collateral will be released next week.

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