We encourage you to shop local and support local small business retailers
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Our POS software company supports shop local
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Here is a video we have provided for our customers to use on social media.
Small business retail advice: how to be local for local shoppers
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Being genuinely local for any local business sounds easy, right? It can be challenging because of different expectations and experiences.
As a POS software company that only developed software and sells to small business retailers, we have plenty opt experience with retailers on thinking, living and acting local. We share this advice with our customers. Here in this post we share some of that advice, to provide a taste for the extent of business inspiration and management we provide our customers.
Being local in retail is more important than ever.
Yes, even with online, being local really does matter.
Local can mean different things to different people – it does not necessarily mean geographic proximity. Being local could be about the level of care and attention you provide customers, the additional advice you provide, that you live locally, that you source locally or that you serve the local community personally.
Locally sourced products could be products made in Australia. For example, detailing where a product is made and the family behind it pitches local compared to a similar product imported from overseas.
You can use your Tower Systems POS software to pitch local in a range of ways:
- Shop local yourself. Be seen doing this.
- Hire local. This shows you adding local economic value.
- Talk local. Know local news. Share it on your business social media pages.
- Include notes on receipts.Add product care instructions, use instructions or other useful information automatically on receipts – making your receipt a useful information platform.
- Tell people where you source products. For a product made by a family or small business in Australia, include details on the receipt. Shine a light on this local product – provide extra information so your shoppers can feel more locally connected.
- Include a SHOP LOCAL pitch. Add an image of a poster or some other promotion of the benefits of shop local to every receipt, reinforcing the value of shopping local. Tower Systems has images you can use for free – in the downloads section of our website.
- Thank your customers.Include text personally thanking customers shopping with you. Put our name to the message. Include your mobile. Big businesses do not do this.
- Track local product sales.Be aware of suppliers of locally made products and report on the performance of these through various reporting tools.
- Thanks for shopping local vouchers.You can use the discount voucher facilities in the software and call them Thanks for shopping localorLocal shopping reward. This reinforces a value for shopping with a local business – offering $$ discount off the next purchase based on rules you establish.
It is not enough to tell people to shop local, you need to demonstrate the value of this, you need to live it transactionally in your retail business. The best way to do this is through systems and processes in your POS software.
Tower Systems supports shop local, encouraging small business retailers
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Here at Tower Systems, we help support shop local
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Our POS software co supports shop local
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Shop local, for Australia
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Tower Systems is proud to encourage shop local through our marketing and through our POS software.
Shop local: create jobs, encourage local innovation; build a better community
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Nothing beats home grown products & home grown POS software
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Our POS software co pitched shop local
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Here is another video we have produced in-house for social media circulation, pitching shop local, for the benefit of all Australians. As a POS software company that only sells to small business retailers, supporting small local businesses is important to us. It is also important to all Australians who appreciate local jobs, local communities and local suppliers. We’re all in this together…
More support from Tower Systems for shop local
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We believe in and support shop local
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We need a Royal Commission into retail shopping centre development and retail tenancies in Australia
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We, Australians, small business retailers, suppliers to small business retailers, local towns, all of us need a Royal commission into retail shopping centre development in Australia and the behaviour of shopping centre landlords.
There is enough evidence to indicate that an appropriately skilled and resourced Royal Commission could uncover behaviour that is illegal and harmful to our economy and small businesses and families that rely on the small businesses.
I appreciate that the areas I think the suggested Royal Commission cover are broad and could be better served as two investigations. However, the two issues feed into each other. I think they are best considered together.
WHAT IS A SHOPPING CENTRE?
For the purposes of my proposal, I suggest that a shopping centre is a retail development with fifteen or more shops of any size.
While I am sure there is misbehaviour to consider in smaller centres, for management and focus, a threshold of fifteen tenancies, or similar, is needed. Otherwise, any Royal Commission would run too long and cost too much.
RETAIL SHOPPING CENTRE DEVELOPMENT.
This is the beginning of the issue. Whereas in the US and other countries growth in retail tenancy space is flat or declining, in Australia it continues to grow. Some say we already have far more shops that the population can support.
In regional and rural locations the challenge is that a new centre is usually located outside town and its development can gut the centre of town, diluting or killing off the heart of a small town.
In some cases, mid-size centre development tis driven by competition by the two major supermarkets and aided and abetted by several other anchor tenants and supported by Tatts keen to be in all new centres.
- Do we need more shopping centre space?
- Should there be controls on approving this?
- What is the economic impact of the current growth in retail space in Australia?
- What is the social impact of the current growth in retail space in Australia?
- What is the impact, specifically on small business retailers of the growth in retail space?
LANDLORD BEHAVIOUR.
Talk to any small business tenant in a shopping centre and they will have at least one landlord story that causes them stress.
There is the landlord who did a handshake deal with a party that was negotiating to buy a business. the landlord squeezed and the family business closed. The new tenant moved in without paying goodwill.
There is the landlord that took too long on centre re-develoopmnent, making decisions that saw a 50% drop in shopper traffic, and refused any compensation for retailers.
There is the landlord that permits one sore to be on a % deal where they pay 9% of turnovers in rent with a shop next door not able to have such a deal and managing and occupancy cost of 32%.
There is the landlord that strong-arms retailers verbally, never in writing, never in a way that can be used against them.
There is the landlord that takes a marketing levy every month and spends this on activities that offer no benefit whatsoever to retailers.
There are hundreds of stories.
The Royal Commission needs to listen to stories, all stories. Tenants need to be able to do this confidentially as the fear of reprisal by landlords is real.
- Do landlords act unlawfully?
- Do landlords treat retailers differently?
- Do landlords act in secret knowingly harming small business retailers?
- Do landlords abuse funds they collect from retailers for marketing?
- Are landlords fulfilling their obligations in terms of bringing traffic to shops in their centres?
- How are the various roles of employees paid in landlord businesses? What are their incentives?
There are many other questions to answer. My goal here is to kick off the discussion.
WHY?
Too many families are losing their businesses, homes and other assets. Too many small business operators are having their personal situations, including health, negatively impacted. Too many small business operators are losing their life. Yes, this issue is that serious.
Small business retailers feel helpless. They want their business. It has been their life’s work. They fear without it they will have nothing. This can see them agree to a lease that is at its very foundation doomed inappropriate for their business.
Landlords have the upper hand. They are in control. Too many people in landlord businesses are bullies and aware of how to bully without being caught.
The best way to resolve this is to shine a light. Only a Royal Commission c an have the authority and power to do this.
I get that Royal Commissions are popular right now. This suggestion, however, is important given that those most impacted are also those most vulnerable – small businesses, run by families. Were are told small business is the business backbone of our country. However, there is evidence to suggest that small business retailers are disadvantaged in terms of shopping centre development and retail teensy negotiation.
Here at Tower Systems we only serve small business retailers with our POS software. In our view, small business matters. This is why we support the push for a Royal Commission into shopping centre development and retail tenancies.
This post first appeared on a blog last week in a post by the CEO of Tower.
This is us: Tower Systems, supporting small businesses
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This is us: Tower Systems, supporting small businesses
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Small business retail optimism in 2017
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In our business and supporting small business retailers, 2017 is a year of optimism. We proudly share this here and across social media platforms.
Small business marketing help
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INTRODUCING TOWER SYSTEMS – YOUR LOCAL POS SOFTWARE COMPANY
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Tower Systems is an Australian POS software company that develops, sells and supports software for selected specialty marketplaces including toy, pet, produce, gift, newsagent, bike, garden and fishing businesses.
We only serve independent small retail businesses. This is important.
Our mission is to help retailers run more successful businesses. Our definition of success is a business that is making money, where the owners and employees enjoy what they do and where suppliers enjoy transacting.
Good software can play an important role in nurturing business success as it sits at the heart of the business: transacting sales, managing stock, tracking customer activity and shining a light on business opportunities.
What makes us different is how we engage. We go beyond what is traditional software company.
- We welcome working with product suppliers to create data links that save you and them time, data links that improve data accuracy, data links that feed more accurate business reports.
- We provide business insights based on data cultivated through the software – to business owners who ask. This is a free service.
- Our help desk provides context for advice. Rather than the turn it off and turn it on advice, our help desk team members explain the why, why from a business perspective the advice they are providing matters.
- Our software updates contain enhancements suggested and voted on by customers. You can have a direct say in the evolution of the software.
- Our communication is in plain English. While we are a company of IT geeks, when talking with customers we keep it simple. We know technology scares people. We don’t want it to scare our customers.
- We are accessible. You get to talk with real people all the time, including our leadership team.
We mention these capabilities today as they reflect what we stand for, what is important to us in our service of small business retail. Most important of all is our focus on small business retail, our commitment to helping small and independent retail businesses thrive as they compete with online a bigger retail businesses.
We take our mission seriously and personally. It is our reason for being in business. We are grateful to be of service to valuable and locally connected businesses.
I AM PROUD OF WHAT IS UNIQUE AND VALUABLE ABOUT MY POS SOFTWARE COMPANY…
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LOCAL POS SOFTWARE FOR SMALL AUSTRALIAN RETAIL BUSINESSES
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As an independent retailer you can choose from several software providers, each of which claim to help you grow your business. But why buy overseas POS software only masquerading as local when you can benefit from real Australian specialist POS software?
Why local POS software matters to local retail businesses
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Tower Systems is a proudly Australian POS software company. We develop software in Australia for small and independent Australian retail businesses.
- Our software focus is local.
- Our customer service team is local.
- Our installation team is local.
- Our business planning is focussed on local.
- We offer locally focussed facilities and services in our software.
Retailers wanting software to support their local focus ought to look at local POS software companies.
We have built a good strong business by being locally focussed. Yes, today we serve more than 3,500 retail businesses.
We are proud that in many of our specialty retail channels, we are the only locally developed and supported software. This makes us more fit for purpose for those businesses that care about living and supporting local.
As a famous song once goes so beautifully: we’re all in this together.
Locally developed POS software for local Australian small business retail
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We are proud to make this pitch:
HOW TO FIND OPTIMISM IN SMALL BUSINESS RETAIL
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Every day can be tough in small business. You can feel like the big competitors are winning and that you can’t climb the mountain to compete. You may not know where to start.
There are green shoots of good news and opportunities in every small and independent retail business. The key is to find these and to leverage them for more success.
A green shoot is a product or a category of products or a supplier performing above average in the business. Often, these successes have gone unnoticed.
We were working with a retailer recently who said business was down by 20% and they did not know what to do. It turned out that the best performing product category in their business was ‘failing’ for six months because they had not replenished stock.
They invested, instead, on new lines that had not gone as well as the successful product.
They, in part, created their own downward spiral and had not looked at their business data to understand that contributed to the problems they were confronting.
Once they realised the situation, they re-stocked the successful range of products and numbers started to improve. More important, their confidence level grew and with this their business decisions improved.
There are opportunities for optimism in every business.
Finding optimism is like mining, you have to look for it, sometimes for a long time. It is there, though, in every retail business.
As soon as you hear yourself talking your business down, STOP. Look at your data, look for the good news. That is what you need to think and talk about.
By looking at your data, we mean looking at year on year, quarter on quarter or month on month comparison data for departments, categories, suppliers or even individual products. Look for growth and once you see growth, think about what you can do with and around the products achieving growth so that you can achieve other growth.
Any product achieving year on year increases in unit sales is a product to be appreciated, nurtured and used to help grow other products that can sell to the same customer.
This is how you grow optimism. Find those small green shoots, leverage them with some small steps and, over time, build more success for your business.
While overall revenue, traffic count and profitability may be down, growth even at the smallest data point, such as for one or two products, could be enough to get you looking at your business differently.
In the Tower Systems POS software, the best initial reports for good news are: Monthly Sales Comparison (department level, category level and / or supplier level), the 10×10 Report, Ranked Sales Report (by units) for one period and then for the comparative period.
We’re here to help you find the good news in your business. Your business data is the key.
Helping small business retailers beat Woolworths in the loyalty sakes – Sunday small business retail management advice
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The new Woolworths shopper loyalty program recently released has received plenty of coverage. Now that it is live we have had a chance to test drive it and, frankly, our opinion of it is not good.
The new Woolworths loyalty program is not good value for the consumer.
We know from our own small business customers using the discount voucher facilities in our POS software that the value they deliver is, on average, twenty times better value than the Woolworths offer.
Our tip today to small business retailers is – you can beat Woolworths in the loyalty stakes and we can help you do this.
Sunday retail management advice: leverage shop local
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The shop local movement has a good profile. Locals do tend to prefer to shop local. Retailers need to actively and consistently leverage this through a regular reminder but such a reminder is hollow unless you offer local benefits such as community engagement, hiring locally and sourcing locally made products. Actively engaging in the business through locally focussed decisions helps any retailer bring power and strength to their calls for people to shop local.
This is our advice today – if you pitch shop local, live in in your shop every day and show you yourselves believe in it.
Tower Systems helps retailers actively pitch and live the shop local mantra through its POS software and through the business support the company provides in its training and on its website.
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