Buying local has benefits
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Local is where we thrive
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Tower Systems appreciates local shoppers
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How Australian made POS software helps local Australian retail businesses
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Any local Australian retail business that wants to see local shoppers engage with local retailers should consider these benefits of local Australian made POS software:
- We better understand you. A local Aussie POS software company will understand local retailer needs better than a software company located offshore.
- Your business is different to retail overseas. There is an Australian way, an Australian style, an Australian approach … embedded in our POS software.
- We speak Australian. Terms used in our POS reflect local terms, they make sense.
- We are awake when you are awake. If you need us for something serious, or even not so serious, we are open when you are open whereas an offshore company operates their local hours.
- We pay taxes here, which benefit the local Aussie community. And by taxes we mean GST, payroll tax, company tax, regulatory fees and more. And, since we hire locally, our employees contribute locally. If you buy from a software company located offshore, much less of what you spend will benefit the Australian economy and the lives of Australians.
- We report in a way that makes local sense. How businesses assess their performance varies around the world. Having local software provides you with access to reporting in a manner that makes sense to you.
- Local software helps you compete locally. We need local businesses, small retail businesses. Our software is fine-tuned to help these businesses compete against bigger businesses, just like we do in our own company. We think our local POS software will do better at helping your local business compete than POS software from some big offshore company that may not be as locally connected as we are.
- We support local community groups. Local small businesses understand local community support.
Of course, we’ll pitch this as we are a local Australian POS software company serving local Australian retailer needs.
While this is a nice emotive case, the real decision has to be what’s best for your business. Now, best can be about the tech. of the software or the broader assist from the company to your business and the local community we share.
Here at Tower Systems we are grateful to have been chosen by more than 3,000 local retail businesses in Australia.
Thank you.
Thank you for shopping local and supporting small business retail
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Here’s a video from the series we made for local small business retailers to use own social media to share gratefulness in their community for those shopping local.
Small business retail advice: how to use POS software loyalty tools to encourage shoppers to spend more in a visit and come back sooner
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In a retail shop using our POS software last week we saw first-hand how the unique loyalty tools in our small business POS software helped a customer spend close to $300.00 when they originally visited the shop to purchase a $25.00 item.
The customer was grateful to have found items that were on their shopping list but that they had not considered purchasing from this shop. This bus where the smart loyalty tools kick in, they get the shopper considering beyond the one destination transaction. They give the shopper a reason to look up and look around.
Check out this video in which we discuss our loyalty tools and how retailers and shoppers interact with them.
Shopper loyalty is something to nurture, with care, as it sits at the core of local small business retailer success.
Discount vouchers genuinely differentiate your business.
- You name the voucher anything you like and can change this at any time.
- You set the rules on how the value of the voucher is calculated.
- You set the rules on what the voucher can be redeemed for.
- You set the rules on expiry dates.
Male shoppers are more likely to spend the voucher immediately and many customers use the voucher to purchase items more expensive than the items in the initial purchase made. Customers see the voucher as cash, often commenting that they like the direct approach better than a points-based system. They like the transparency and simplicity.
In our own retail experience, which sees us competing against major retailers in a Westfield shopping centre, several shoppers have stated they prefer Discount Vouchers over the rewards programs of our competitors.
We are confident that Tower Systems’ Discount Voucher facilities can help you:
- Get customers spending more in a visit.
- Bring existing customers back sooner.
- Attract new shoppers to your business.
- Drive impulse purchases at the sales counter.
Buy X Get Y Free
The “buy x, get y” pitch is a common offer in retail businesses, especially those that sell everyday items such as pet food, magazines, garden mulch and other consumable items.
In the Tower Systems software loyalty facilities you have access to a powerful and configurable BUY X GET Y facility. You can use this to track shopper engagement and ensure proper rewarding of the free product at the right time. This is an excellent tool for driving shopper loyalty without the usual manual overhead of clipping cards or managing other processes. You can also report on the reward at the right time back to the supplier to ensure you are compensated for giving away the free product. Indeed, you have various detailed reporting options.
The BUY X GET Y facility has been developed with retailers in several channels as well as with suppliers to those retailers to ensure it meets the requirements of both business participants.
The total loyalty package in the Tower Systems software is comprehensive, flexible and tuned to offer retailers choice through which they can serve their own situation with confidence and success.
How Tower Systems helps local small business gift shops thrive
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Local gift shops are vital for local communities, offering access to gifts that are thoughtfully selected and displayed. These small business retail shops are in a competitive space both in-store and online.
Tower Systems, through its gift shop software, helps these local small businesses compete … through guiding efficiency, reducing mistakes, helping to reach out to past customers and with a loyalty solution that can be tailored to the needs of the business.
This gift shop software has evolved over the years to serve the evolving needs of local gift shops. More recently, the focus has been on webstore integration. the gift shop software integration with Shopify is especially sweet and seamless, helping local gift shops to sell online, anywhere and easily.
Tower Systems has developed plenty of Shopify websites connected to the POS software from the company, including these websites connected to the gift shop software:
- www.prezziesgifts.com.au
- www.highlandsgiftsandplush.com.au
- www.peppercorngifts.com.au
- www.beerlessbar.com.au
- www.inspiretasmania.com.au
- www.brenita.com.au
There are plenty more than these, developed in-house by Tower Systems to the requirements and specifications provided by the retailers themselves.
If you run a local gift shop and being local matters to you, our locally made and locally supported gift shop software may be of interest. We are grateful that hundreds of gift retailers use our software already, and help it continuously evolve.
Find out more at www.towersystems.com.au/gift.
Take a quick look at: https://vimeo.com/455694613
Watch a one-hour demonstration: https://vimeo.com/571958406
From sales to special orders to pre-orders, from Xero integration to Shopify integration, from loyalty that works to easy shopper postcode tracking, from smart ways to pitch shop local to featuring locally made products … our gift shop software is made for gift retailers, made to help you enjoy your business more.
See it for yourself. Talk to one of our gift shop software specialists by calling 1300 662 957 or emailing sales@towersystems.com.au.
Local gift shops serve local communities with what they expect local will love and want to give to others. This is what Tower systems does, too – developing POS software for gift shops they will love and want to use locally in their shop.
The best solution for a local business will be the one from a local business that itself gets being local.
Our tips for politicians for supporting local retail businesses
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Every election, politicians say that small business is the lifeblood of Australia. Then, after the election, they forget about small business. No wonder trust in politicians by Australian voters is low.
Small businesses are the lifeblood of our economy.
Small business retailers are nimble and able to lift local economies faster than big businesses and certainly better than online businesses.
Here are six tips for politicians on steps they can take, decisions they can make to help lift retail, especially small business retail.
- Direct all politician electorate Christmas spending to be with local small businesses.For gifts, parties, cards, everything for a year. Have the results assessed independently. Ensure that spending is fair, too, to benefit a variety of local businesses, and not dolled out as political favours. Shop local, shop small.
- Run a national shop small shop local ad campaign. Make it educational, smart, encouraging …, guiding Aussies on the value to them from shopping local, shopping small. Help to understand the true value of shopping local, shopping small compared to the alternatives. The ad campaign should run regionally across multiple media platforms, giving preference to locally owned platforms with a track record for not managing their business to minimise tax.
- Local shops refresh grant. Give every local retail business a grant of at least $10,000 with the stipulation that it is spent locally tin capital works for the shop, to improve the shop. Proof of local spending is to be in the form of an invoice from a local tradesperson or company with and ABN and more than a year of trading as recognised by the ATO – to avoid fraud. Spending could be focussed: painting, electrical, carpentry, flooring, repairs. The management of this should be online with quick approval and payment. Note: the $10,000 is suggested as anything less could be cosmetic.
- Local artists grants. Offer cash grants to fund buskers for local high streets, to make shopping locally more entertaining. Make the application easy. Focus on local artists entertaining in their local community. This serves the dual purpose of injecting cash locally as well as fostering the local arts. The application process should be online, approval fast and payment immediate.
- Local visual merchandising supports. Keeping in-store displays can be a challenge for small business retailers. Fund a network of merchandisers to make a 2 hour call weekly on qualified independent small retail businesses, sub $1M turnover, ABN registered, trading for six months or more. With each visit to be about visual refresh of the shop. Cap the cam pain at three months assess the economic value. Only local merchandisers to be used – i.e. to an overseas agency who hires local contractors.
- Establish local currency systems. These work overseas on regional towns where local currency has more value than the national currency. It supports shopping local through a smart value structure. the government role could be on the tech back end to manage the currency – taking away capital cost from local councils. To find out more ab9out this, read up on the Bristol Pound.
This list could be much longer. It is offered here as a start, to gets people thinking of practical ways to support shopping small, shopping local.
The current disinterest by politicians in practical support for local small businesses has us on a path of business closures. Urgent action is needed to engage locals in supporting local businesses.
Tower Systems thanks everyone who shops local
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On behalf of all of us who rely on local shoppers supporting local retailers, thank you.
Is our POS software right for your local community?
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The question we are asking today may sound a bit obscure, but it is 100% relevant to local small business retail.
Is our POS software right for your local community?
We pose the question to retailers considering POS software because embedded in the question is the bigger question abut what is right for your local community.
If you pitch shop local at all in promoting your business in-store or on social media then this question is key for you, because in calling for your local community to shop local you would want to back this up with your own shop local approach to your business decisions.
Is our POS software right for your local community? This question is all about shop local – for our POS software is locally made and supported for local specialty retailers. We have competitors in the marketplace that are overseas businesses with overseas software developers and overseas help desk people.
Shop for POS software with us and you are supporting local IT. This is why we like the question Is our POS software right for your local community? If shopping local matters to your local community then that is a factor in the software you choose.
Of course, you need to choose software that is right for your business and the software company that is right for your business. But, if after all your research it is us and someone else and Tower Systems, being local could be the factor that is the differentiator because our situation aligns with your situation, our value proposition aligns with your value proposition. These are factors when shop local matters to your local community.
We are proud to support local software innovation and to develop local IT skills. These are things that are important for Australia and our small software business plays a role in this.
Is our POS software right for your local community? Only you can know the answer to this question. Today, we hope that our words were useful in your consideration as to the right POS software for your business.
Tower Systems is a specialty retail focussed POS software company. We are grateful to serve more than 3,000 local small business retailers across a broad range of specialty retail channels.
How our locally made POS software helps local small business retailers pitch locally made
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Our locally made Tower Systems POS software is made for local retailers who are keen to encourage shoppers to shop local.
Within the software there are tools and facilities that make it easy for a local retailer to draw attention to and to feature locally made products. These teens help local retailers to draw attention to their own shop local credentials.
These tools and facilities help local retailers to drive sales to people looking to source locally made products. we make this type of pitch easier for you.
Noting products as Australian made, or made within the state our territory or even made in town, you have a number of ways you can do this with the software, to pitch a thoughtful and factual locally made pitch.
Yes, we have thought a lot about this and built within our POS software facilities that enable you to pitch shop local in a more nuanced and practical way than the usual more whiney approach that you might see on social media from some businesses.
Our approach through the software is show, don’t tell.
A valuable shop local pitch is where you find the tools you use in your business, like POS software.
If you want locals to shop with you. If you rely on the local community to support you. If you have ever pitched shop local on social media…
Local does matter.
Local businesses hire locally, support local community groups, engage on local matters, often buy from local suppliers and spend locally.
Local economies benefit from local independent retail businesses.
Local does matter.
We are a local POS software company serving Australian and New Zealand retail businesses in specific retail channels.
Engage with our POS software and you support the local IT community and you tap into software that helps you pitch local.
Yes, using our software you can pitch your local difference.
We develop and support software for: gifts, jewellers, bikes, toys, fishing/outdoors, garden centres, pet shops, produce, firearms, adult shops and newsagents.
Call us so we can find out more about what you do, to see if our specialty retail software could be of value to you and your business.
Now, for a personal pitch:
Thank you for shopping local
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It’s the tax contribution by local businesses that can make a big difference to the local community.
We have competitors based overseas who shift revenue to minimise the tax that’s paid in Australia. Any time that is done it reduces income for the government that could have helped fund health, schools, education, infrastructure and more.
We are grateful for the support of Aussies, for this is what helps us be successful and our success is success for Australia.
Whether you shop with us or another locally owned and run business, thank you. #ShopLocal #grateful #AustralianMade #community
How our Aussie made POS software helps local retailers serve local tourism opportunities
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With local retail businesses relying on local tourism while the international border remains closed due to Covid, Australian made POS software from Tower Systems is helping local businesses promote local tourism opportunities.
Embedded in our Australian POS software are facilities through which local tourist locations and opportunities can be pitched without additional labour investment from the business for each pitch. Being able to do this consistently and in an automated way is key to efficiently pitching local in retail.
Our locally made POS software makes it easy for regional and rural businesses to shine a light on nearby and local tourism attractions and situations. here are some marketplace examples that show what can be done:
- Camping businesses can share local camping opportunities, places off the beaten track people can love.
- Music shops can share details of local music groups, with which local visitors could connect, especially if they are having events.
- Fishing businesses can use these local tourism marketing facilities in the POS software to help people visiting an area to have a more successful fishing experience.
- Bike shops can use these local tourism marketing facilities in the POS software to promote local riding tracks and cyclist destinations worth visiting.
- Garden centres can use these local tourism marketing facilities in the POS software to feature local gardens of note and bush trails sure to excite a gardener.
- Pet shops can use these local tourism marketing facilities in the POS software to highlight local pet locations where they can date the dog for a play or otherwise enjoy what the local area has to offer.
- Produce and farm supply businesses can use these local tourism marketing facilities in the POS software highlight local crop and related information to encourage a better yield.
Other local businesses can use these local tourism marketing facilities in the POS software to encourage the visiting of local tourist destinations in a structured way to help local tourist operators and thereby more broadly help the local town. The software could serve providing collective loyalty opportunities too.
These facilities in our POS software are loved by our customers as they make it easy for them to pitch their local community engagement and through this to demonstrate community support. They help better integrate the business with the local community and tourism opportunities the local community has to offer.
With so many of our POS software customers in regional and rural Australia, these facilities made sense when we first offered them years ago.
Tower Systems is grateful to help regional and rural retailers to support their local communities.
#grateful
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Thank you for shopping local this week
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We’re grateful for everyone who shops local
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Sunday small business retail advice: 6 ways to promote your shop this Winter
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Winter can be tough for retail as traffic is often down. Local indie retail businesses have an opportunity to leverage the season, to make it more enjoyable. Here are six suggestions to get you thinking abut winter differently:
- Provide a warm and welcoming Winter experience. Offer hot coffee, tea or hot chocolate. Maybe have a slow cooker with some delicious home cooked vegetable soup. Offer warm cookies or muffins. Play warming / comforting music. Maybe project a movie onto a wall for something fresh and different. Have a place for wet umbrellas. Offer a place people can dry themselves. The goal here is to make your shop the shop locals talk about loving in Winter.
- Host a Winter event. Create your our ‘season’ your own in-store experience where people can relax, have some fun and enjoy the business. Warm cider or mulled wine wold be good for this after-hours event.
- Reach out to retirement villages and nursing homes. Pack up key items from your shop and take them on the road – go to those customers who can’t come to you because of the cold.
- Offer free delivery. If option one does not work for you promote a delivery service so people shut in can still get their fix. Be the retailer who goes the extra mile.
- Have a summer sale. In the middle of winter, at the coldest, have a blow-out sale and call it something like a SIZZLING SALE. Get people warm with great prices.
- Host an art event. A wonderful way to brighten up the shop and those who visit is by displaying art, photos and things made by your shoppers.
If your shop is in a really cold area consider an outer door to keep the warmth in. They do this a lot in Europe and the US in Winter.
These ideas are all about relaxing things, bringing opportunities for joy to the business and evolving the narrative associated with the business. This is what having fun through Winter is about. It’s abut the less obvious, you doing things you can and that a bigger business are less likely to try.
Thank you for shopping local this Easter
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EPOS now – British software in Australia and New Zealand
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EPOS is the term the Brits use for POS software. We’re not sure why they have the e in EPOS. If you see a company using EPOS in their name or for the name of their software or the type of software they sell, it could be they are not making software locally or may not be a local company.
This may seem like a trivial point, writing about EPOS now, talking about the term EPOS. The thing is, we have been asked the question as if we are missing something because we don’t have the e in our description that we are a POS software company, that we are not an EPOS software company.
The only difference is we develop software locally for local marketplaces using local terminology. This local focus matters to local businesses. You can see our local roots and focus in our software and documentation. It’s 100% local, made for local businesses. We are not using terms that are not local, we are not using a software label that makes sense overseas but not so much here.
This is why we are writing about EPOS now, because there is software being pitched in Australia and New Zealand that emanates from Britain yet it is being pitched as being local. It’s not. It was developed in the UK, which is okay in that the UK has some fine programmers. But, there are fine programmers in Australia and New Zealand who live locally, who shop locally, and who speak using local terms. We think these are factors that matter.
Local software development matters. Think of it as local film and TV making in that they tell local stories. Locally made POS software tells local stories too. We know that in our POS software we have ways you can shine a light on local, we have ways you can use your local voice in support of your business. That we have included such tools is part of a suite of ways we represent local with and for you, in ways we think you won’t find in EPOS software.
Tower Systems makes POS software, without the e, for specialty local retailers. Local retail businesses matter, especially to local communities. We are grateful for the thousands of local businesses that have supported and continue to support our locally focussed business.
Tower Systems supports shop local with new 2021 campaign collateral
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Shopping for Back to School needs? Shop your local newsagency
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Your local Aussie newsagency can serve your Back to School stationery and textbook needs. We are proud to say that our POS software company serves many of these local newsagency businesses, we help them offer quality Back to School products at competitive prices and in a way that supports local school and community groups.
Back to School is a competitive space in Australia. The local Aussie newsagency is often calls upon by school and community groups for support. The best way to help them support community group and school group fund raising is to shop for Back to School from these local newsagency businesses.
Too often we see Back to School purchases going to companies outside Australia and national retailers who chase on price and often neglect the all important product quality.
Your local newsagency delivers quality goods since they are local and easily contacted is the quality of a product does not stack up. Big businesses tend to not have this local care. This local accessibility is another reason to shop for back to School locally.
For Back to School stationery needs, start at your local newsagency. Supporting them helps them support your local school community. You see that every day through local newsagent support for school students, school groups. Every day newsagents are asked for support and donations for local community groups, including school groups. They can only do this if there is robust local support for their businesses.
Please don’t be duped by the truckloads of cash poured into advertising by competitors chasing your back to school spend. They have the cash to do this, to make it look like they have good products and good prices. Often, when they say they will price match, they don’t sell the same brands, often selling cheap imported products only available through them.
Your local newsagent is a perfect place to shop for back to school for quality, service and community connection.
Tower Systems is proud to support 1,750+ local Australian newsagency businesses with newsagency software that helps them deliver a good Back to School experience and through which they can support local community and school group fundraising.
For Back to School 2021, please shop local, shop with the locally owned and run business that supports the local community.
Aussies embracing Australian made when shopping locally, to help the local community
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It has been great to see the renewed interest in shopping locally, especially in sourcing locally made products. So many of our small business retail POS software customers have shared with us stories of shoppers specifically seeking out locally made products.
Stories of support for locally made products warm the soul.
Local makes are grateful for this support. We have spoken to plenty – local soap makers, local artists, local scent makers, local craftspeople, local pointers, local plant farms, local card makers … they are all loving the stronger support for locally made that we have seen in recent months.
We share the delight of local makers and excitement for what this may mean for 2021.
Buying locally made is good for the community in which those making the locally made products live, the communities in which they spend their money.
Tower Systems is a local POS software company.
We live and work locally, in communities in Australia and New Zealand. You can’t get more local than that when developing POS software for specialty retailers in Australia and New Zealand.
We love helping local retailers to support local makers and shopping locally through smart tools and facilities in our local made POS software. Integrated in our software are opportunities for local retailers to pitch local products, to demonstrate their own local credentials and to shine a light on what being local is all about … and through these things to separate their business from non locally owned and operated alternatives.
This all matters in today’s retail world of heightened awareness of shopping locally and supporting local makers. We are proud to help our retail partners to do this in our POS software, to do it easily, consistently and with commercial outcomes in focus.
With the world disrupted politically, economically and health wise, shopping local matters more today than in recent times. However, telling people, to shop local is not enough. We need to be smart, actively engaged and supporting of the shopper and local makers, serving their diverse needs. This is where our POS software can help with the encouragement and the storytelling.
If you own a local retail business that relies on people to shop locally, consider our locally made POS software. We’d love to show it to you.
Thank you for shopping local this Christmas
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It’s Black Friday, a key day in retail, and we’re grateful to help small business retailers
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Gift shops you can shop online
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Tower Systems is grateful to bring the local gift shop to your keyboard. Through our gift shop software and the websites we have created for gist shops have plenty of gift shops in our awesome list of gift shops we encourage you to shop for an authentic shop local gift shop experience:
- Baby gifts: www.onebaby.com.au
- Christmas ornaments: www.myornaments.com.au
- Britto gifts: britto shop
- Cute gifts: www.cutenessoverload.com.au
- Beanie Boos: www.beanieboosaustralia.com
- Chit Chat Gifts: www.chitchatgifts.com.au
- Fun gifts: www.funporium.com.au
- Pop Vinyls: www.popvinylsinaustralia.com
These gift shops and more are part of the quite of local gift shops that Tower Systems has supported in getting online, to sell to Australians and, in some cases, to sell overseas, bringing gift giving opportunities to plenty of people in different situations.
The local gift shop is no longer the shop down the road. No, it is the shop online that you find the you search for the gift occasion you are purchasing for.
In supporting local gift shops with POS software made for local gift shops and with websites created for local gift shops, Tower Systems is able to being these opportunities to life for local communities as well as for local shoppers who who are shopping for niche and specific gift needs. This is where helping gift shop owners to bring to life solutions online and on the high street makes sense.
While people can shop for gifts overseas, our encouragement is that they support the local gift shop because shopping locally delivers the most important value to gift shops that are themselves called on to help the local community in myriad ways.
With a fully integrated POS software Shopify website solution, the local gift shop is able to take online their carefully selected and curated range of gifts too make them available across many location.
As we head to Christmas 2020, our encouragement to everyone when it comes to gift purchases is to shop locally, seek out local gift shops that can serve your gift purchase needs. Local, of course, can be down the road or elsewhere in Australia. This means that a shop online, interstate maybe, that offers locally made gifts could be better than a shop closer to you that sells imported gifts.
Tower Systems is grateful to serve hundreds of local gifts shops with its POS software. This is a terrific marketplace we serve.
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