The POS Software Blog

The POS Software Blog

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

CategorySmall business management advice

Helping suppliers to small business retailers provide invoices that can be easily read by POS software

March 22, 2026
2 Min read
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Efficiently managing stock starts with how retailers receive data from their suppliers. When a supplier provides a structured invoice, our Tower Systems POS software can use AI to import those details directly, accurately, efficiently. This removes the need for manual data entry, saving you time and reducing errors.

Traditional EDI tools are not needed. The AI tools in our software have been tested with many hundreds of invoices. We have retailers saving 3, 4 and 5 hours a week. That’s a bottom-line benefit they love!

Manual data entry is a time-consuming part of managing a retail business. It facilitates mistakes, which can be expensive.

By adopting an automated import process, you eliminate the risk of human error that occurs when typing in costs, quantities, and barcodes. This ensures your inventory records remain accurate and your margins are protected. Most importantly, it frees you from the back office, allowing you to focus more of your time on the shop floor with your customers.

To help suppliers provide the best possible files for small business retailers Tower Systems has put together some simple best practice guidelines you can share with them. We have shared this with our customers, with many suppliers, and now we share it here for any to read and act on, for the benefit of small business retailers.

Document structure and consistency

For the software to identify data correctly, invoices must be structured with a consistent layout and clear column headings. Suppliers should include their company name, address, ABN, invoice number, date and any relevant order numbers.

Necessary product details

Each product listed on the invoice should include the following specific information:

  • Product code
  • Barcode
  • Description
  • Unit cost price
  • Quantity supplied
  • GST amount
  • Total price

The invoice should also clearly state the total amount due and any applicable freight costs.

Tax and formatting

It is acceptable for GST to appear as a single line item before the final total if all items on the invoice are GST inclusive.

Regarding file types, the software can process Word documents, PDFs or Excel spreadsheets. For the most reliable results, we recommend using the Arial font.

Support and testing

If a supplier is unsure about their formatting, our team is available to help. They can send a sample invoice to support@towersystems.com.au. We will test the file to ensure it imports smoothly into your system.

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Free small business retail advice on how to attract more online shoppers in 2026

February 8, 2026
3 Min read
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In early 2026, Google Search has undergone a paradigm shift that many calling the “Age of Authenticity.” It’s a fundamental defence against the flood of AI-generated content that has saturated the web.

This important and welcome shift by Google is an opportunity for retailers prepared to do the work to build a moat around their business, and attract new customers. We see it as an opportunity for local small business retailers especially.

Here is advice we provided to our tower Systems customers:

Writing blog posts that drive online in 2026

Blog posts are the best value digital marketing tool for small retailers in 2026. While some argue that AI summaries reduce website visits, the true goal for most businesses is conversion rather than mere traffic. High-quality blog content improves search engine rankings and influences the responses generated by AI models. I say this because it works for me.

Choosing the right topics

I see businesses make two common mistakes when selecting blog topics. Some write only what they believe is important without considering what customers actually search for. Others focus too much on high search volumes and ignore the specific terms used by people ready to make a purchase.

To be effective, focus on niche-specific keywords. These are the terms large language models often cite. These topics can serve as templates for a wide range of content.

High-performance blog templates

Several formats consistently drive engagement and conversions:

  • Selection guides: Use titles like “How to choose the best [product] for [specific use]”. This provides value without appearing spammy.
  • Cost analysis: Discussing the “Cost of [product] for [use case]” allows you to explain your pricing and why the cheapest option may not be the best choice.
  • Competitor alternatives: Listing your brand as a top alternative to a competitor can be effective if you are comfortable with the direct approach.
  • Problem-solving: Write about how to solve a specific problem that your product or service addresses.
    Ensuring quality and brand impact

A blog post must deliver on the promise of its title. It needs to provide genuine value to the reader while explicitly recommending your brand.

While humans may rarely browse your entire blog archive, they will find individual posts through specific searches. Most blog content is now consumed by both search engines and AI models, so the writing must be clear and direct to ensure your brand is correctly represented in their results.

And, if you are not publishing regularly, you’re likely not getting the traffic you want online. Sure recommendation is 3 blog posts a week at least, 350 – 500 human written words that share your knowledge in areas noted above or similar.

Now, there’ll be some companies that say don’t worry about any of this, pay them to do it for you. Our advice is that doing that would not serve your business well. Remember, the search / AI engines will shine a light on expert knowledge. Who knows your business better – you or someone you pay to promote your business?

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The right POS system for any retail business depends on the specific needs of the retail business. Tower offers POS software made specifically for local small business retailers in a selection of retail channels. To see if we might help you…, request a free, no-obligation demo today.  

Call 1300 662 957 in Australia or 0800 444 367 in New Zealand. Or, email sales@towersystems.com.au. 

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Why Tower Systems may not be the right POS software for your retail business

December 2, 2025
5 Min read
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It’s crazy, right?! starting a blog post with a heading: Why Tower Systems may not be the right POS software for your retail business.

But, here we are. Let’s get into it.

It might seem strange for a software company to write a blog post about why you shouldn’t buy their product.

Usually, sales pitches are designed to convince everyone that a product is the perfect solution for everything. But at Tower Systems, we believe that honesty saves everyone time, and money.

We don’t want to waste your time and we don’t want you to waste ours.

We are a niche software company. We build specialised POS software for specific types of independent specialty retail businesses. Because we are so focused on what we do well, there are large sections of the business world that we simply do not serve.

We make software for local small businesses: jewellers, bookshops, garden centres, toy shops, bike shops, newsagents, gift shops, homewares shops, firearms dealers, music shops, op. shops, pet shops, fashion shops, haberdashery shops, indie supermarkets, trophy shops, homewares shops, cleaning supplies businesses – and the businesses similar to these specialty shops.

Now, let’s get into what we are here to talk about: Why Tower Systems may not be the right POS software for your retail business.

If you fit into one of the categories below, Tower Systems is likely not the right choice for you.

1. You run a hospitality business (cafe, restaurant, bar)

This is the most common mismatch we see. Running a cafe or restaurant is completely different from running a retail shop. You need table management, kitchen docket printing, bill splitting, and ingredient-level inventory tracking.

Our software is built for retail goods, things that sit on shelves, have barcodes, and are sold to customers to take home. We don’t do table service. If you run a cafe, you will be much happier with a dedicated hospitality POS like Toast, Kounta, or others designed specifically for food service.

Now, we need to pause here for a moment. We do have some cafes happily using our software. In these situations, they don’t need table service. Our software handles kitchen docket printing but it does not handle table service management.

2. You are a large business, a chain, a franchise

We are champions of the “little guy.” Our entire business model, support structure, and software development is geared towards independent, local retailers. We love serving businesses with one shop, or maybe five or ten locations.

If you are a massive corporate chain with hundreds of stores, rigid corporate ERP requirements, and a need for complex international tax compliance, we are probably not the right fit. We thrive on the agility and personal connection that comes with working with local small business owners.

3. You just need a “digital cash register”

If your business is a weekend market stall, a hobby, or a very simple pop-up, our software might be overkill for you.

Tower Systems POS is a deep business management tool for specialty retailers. It’s not lightweight. If your business does not specialise, we may be too specialist for you. It handles complex inventory, loyalty programs, marketing, special orders, and repairs. If you just need a way to tap a card and email a receipt, without tracking what stock you have left, you might find our system too comprehensive. A simple app-based solution like Square might be a better, more lightweight starting point for you.

4. You want an “instantly on” generic solution

We don’t do generic.

We pride ourselves on offering specialised software. Our software for Jewellers is different from our software for Garden Centres, which is different from our software for Bike Shops which is different from our newsagent software. These businesses are known for what they do, not something generic. So, yeah, we don’t do generic.

Because we go deep into these niches, there is a setup process. We install the software, we train you on how to use it, and we help you configure it for your specific industry. If you are looking for a generic app that you can download and start using in 5 minutes with zero human interaction, that’s not us. We believe the value comes from the personal setup and training, but we understand that not everyone wants that level of engagement.

We help our customers make money by leveraging specialty tools in your POS software in service of their business goals. This is not generic, not average.

So, who are we for?

We are for the local Jewellers, Garden Centres, Newsagents, Bike Shops, Toy Shops, Produce Stores, and Fishing/Outdoor businesses who want to use technology to fight back against the big guys.

If you want to track your stock accurately, market to your customers, and run a better local business, we’d love to chat. If, along the way, we realise we are not a good fit for you, we will say so and wish you all the best.

If you do fall into the “not for us” categories above, we genuinely wish you the best of luck in finding the perfect system for your needs.

Sure, we want to sell our software. We also want to sell well at night and proud of what we do. That’s why sometimes saying no is the best decision for us and those to with whom we are speaking.

We hope all this makes sense.

Thanks for reading.

Still think we might be a match? Check out what we do at www.towersystems.com.au

Call us on 1300 662 9056 or from NZ 0800 444 367.

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Helping local small business retailers find optimism in their businesses

November 21, 2025
4 Min read
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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, our advice from years of working with small business retailers is 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 nurture 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 insights dashboard is a wonderful place to discover good news and opportunities you can cultivate. That’s where we suggest anyone start.

We’re here to help you find the good news in your business. Your business data is the key.

If you’ve got this far, thanks for reading. We have many years experience running shops of our own in a few different retail channels. Plenty of our people here have worked in retailer. then, there is our decades of service of local retail. All of this helps us have the knowledge and experience on which we can draw to provide advice such as we share here.

We hope it is useful.

Today could be a good day if you go looking for that good news.

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The right POS system for any retail business depends on the specific needs of the retail business. Tower offers specialty retail business software made for local small business retailers. To see if we might help you…, request a free, no-obligation demo today. 

Call 1300 662 957 in Australia or 0800 444 367 in New Zealand. Or, email sales@towersystems.com.au. 

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3 things small business retailers are shocked to discover about their business from our POS software

November 17, 2025
4 Min read
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From serving small business, local, independent retailers for decades, there are three things that stand out as the things that shock retailers the most when they discover them using our POS software.

The 3 things that shock small business retailers are, however, things these retailers tend to not want to know about, because of how the discovery makes them feel. This is why we say they shock them.

Dead stock.

Every retail business has underperforming stock, many have dead stock, that is, stock not selling, stock that is sitting there doing nothing for the business. Dead money. Wasted space. Missed opportunities. Dead stock can kill a business.

In a typical independent small retail business, dead stock accounts for 15% and more of the total investment in stock. In a business with $100,000 in stock, that is $15,000 dead, wasted, lost.

Our POS software shows the value of dead stock easily, quickly, continuously. It is easy for retailers to see the value of dead stock. Most don;t look. Most don’t want to know.

For us, when helping a retail business, dead stock is an easy win. See it. Make a plan. Act. Stop making decisions that result in dead stock.

Theft.

Every retail business experiences theft – employee theft and customer theft. Most retailers don’t look for theft, don’t use tools in POS software that can show theft may be an issue.

Theft in retail is one of those things – if I can’t see it, it’s not happening, which is nonsense, of course.

In a typical small independent retail business, theft costs between 3% and 5% of annual turnover. A shop turning over $1M a year in sales experiences theft to the value of at least $30,000 a year is occurring in the business between employee theft and customer theft.

In our experience, retailers tend to obsess about customer theft and ignore employee theft. The thing is, employee theft is usually hitting a business at a higher cost.

Every retail business needs a consistent focus on theft.

What am I missing?

Every retail business has opportunities they miss. The easiest one to see and understand is the cost of sales not achieved because the business did not have the stock available when a customer was in and wanting that stock.

In our work with retailers across many retail channels, but small business retailers, independent retailers, we see that in the top 20% of inventory items, businesses are out of stock of these enough of the time to be able to predict a value loss to the business.

In our research across a number of businesses, we can see the cost of what am I missing? hitting between $15,000 and $20,ooo in revenue in a year. The question for any retailer is – do you want that $15,000 to $20,000 in additional revenue each year? We hope the answer is yes.

In our POS software we answer the question of what am I missing out on? without if having to even be asked.

These are just three things we know small business retailers are shocked to discover.

In a business turning over $1M a year in sales, these three things can combine to be worth $60,000 a more in a year. Every retail business we know would like an extra $60,000 in revenue value, especially if it is easy to put in place processes to lock that revenue in.

These are easy wins in retail businesses that our Tower Systems POS software can deliver for small business retailers. To facilitate the delivery, we back it with training and business insights support – so that using the POS software to leverage the 3 easy wins in, well, easy.

If you run a local retail business: know your dead stock and fix it, understand the cost of theft and fix it, be sure of what you are missing out on and fix it.

This is easy action advice for small business retailers today. These three things offer small business retailers easy wins.

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The right POS system for any retail business depends on the specific needs of the retail business. Tower offers specialty retail business software made for local small business retailers. To see if we might help you…, request a free, no-obligation demo today.

Call 1300 662 957 in Australia or 0800 444 367 in New Zealand. Or, email sales@towersystems.com.au.

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Holiday season help for small business retailers from POS software

November 9, 2025
2 Min read
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In the Tower Systems POS software, small business retailers can tap into terrific Christmas season help. This can be in the form of inventory buying guidance, marketing help, co-location assistance and shopper nudging support … plus more.

Helping small business retailers with holiday season facilities is an important role for any POS software. It is something Tower Systems has offered it’s thousands of small business retailer POS software customers for decades. Over time, the holiday season advice and tips have evolved, as have economic and consumer needs.

Leveraging holiday season inventory guidance, for example, retailers can make more informed purchase decisions that better serve the needs of the business based on prior holiday season experience and taking into account trends from this year.

Oh, and when we are talking here about the holiday season in retail, we are talking about holiday seasons like Christmas, Easter, Black Friday, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, Christmas in July, back to School.

A holiday season in retail is any season that a retail business can respond to in any to leverage the business opportunity and serve niche customer need.

Holiday seasons in retail do not necessarily have to be the holiday season you think of in a traditional sense.

Using our POS software, beyond knowing what to stock for a holiday season, our retail business partners are able to make shop floor decisions that guide shopper engagement with the holiday season product opportunity ties. These could be loyalty, price, packaging, bundling or post purchase re-visit invitation. these and more can be leveraged thorough the Tower Systems specialty retail POS software.

Leveraging the surge in traffic that a retail business sees from the holiday season can be key to through the year growth, benefiting the business between holiday season shopper traffic peaks. This is key to any retail business achieving a smoother sales flow. While a spike in shopper traffic and revenue are good, less of a spike makes management of a retail business easier and more cost friendly.

Tower Systems, using its collective lived retail experience, can help small business retailers cross the divide between tech and real world to offer a better and more beneficial holiday season experience. That is our goal in the software we develop and the advice we provide through our customer help desk.

Our focus is on local independent small business retailers, in Australia and New Zealand.

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Advice for small business Australian retailers on how to choose the best POS system for your business

September 6, 2025
4 Min read
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Choosing a POS system is something that you don’t do that often. If you do find yourself doing it often in your business something is wrong with your process. We have some advice specifically for small business retailers on how to choose the best POS software for a business. It is advice that will stand up to scrutiny, advice others will judge as fair and reasonable.

Yes, we are a POS software company. No, our advice is not to go with Tower Systems. While we love welcoming new customers, we only want customers for which our POS software is a good fit.

Here is our Advice for small business Australian retailers on how to choose the best POS system for your business.

It’s simple really. You don’t need to read a book about it or go to hours of seminars. This is easy and straightforward.

  1. Be sure of what matters operationally today to you and those who work in the business. For efficiency. For profitability. For enjoyment.
  2. Understand what will matter tomorrow and into the mid future. For efficiency. For profitability. For enjoyment.
  3. Reflect on what matters to you from a social responsibility persecutive. Like, does Australian made and supported matter? Does dealing with a business that pays fair tax in Australia matter? Or, does dealing with a business focussed on personal customer service matter?
  4. Now, do the work. Yes, you, do the work. Don’t outsource it. If you own the business and the final decision, do the work. That way, you’re responsible.

Okay, the four steps are more complex than we make them out. They are the headlines though. Focus on them. Flesh them out for your type of business. Own each step. Do the work. The result will be a decision that is right for the business today and tomorrow.

Don’t rush. Work at the pace you choose. Always be in control. Watch out for a pitch of a deal that seeks to get you to act sooner. Watch out for claims of functionality in the POS software they have not shown you. Actions speak louder than words. Anyone can say yes to a question or say the software has some facility. Only believe those who show you as showing is the truth.

Take notes, lots after notes. Record meetings (with permission).

Oh, and beware the companies that want to take you to lunch or who buy you gifts. The gift you want is profit from having made the right POS software choice for your business.

If you are not sure of something, go back over it again, and again – until you are sure you understand.

Choosing the right POS system can make you a lot of money. Conversely, choosing the wrong POS system can cost you a lot of money. Put in the work. Take your time. Only choose what feels best for your business.

That’s it, that’s our advice.

Now, why are we writing about this today, on a Saturday morning of all things. Well, this morning we heard from a business owner who looked us and ultimately went with another POS company. Now they are locked in paying for software that;’s not a good fit, software that is not helping them operate efficiently and happily. They asked if we could help them get out of their contract. We can’t Some contracts are like that. And that brings us to more advice: read the contract.  In the small business space, a lock in contract if more likely to favour the software company than the retailer. You want a contract that lets you out at 30 days notice.

Anyway, that’s it, that’s our advice on how to choose the best POS system for your retail business.

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While the right POS system for any retail business depends on the specific needs of the retail business, Tower Systems was built to serve  Australian and New Zealand local small business specialty retailers. To see how we can help you…, request a free, no-obligation demo today. 

Call 1300 662 957 in Australia or 0800 444 367 in New Zealand. Or, email sales@towersystems.com.au. 

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How does POS software help a retail business grow?

July 3, 2025
3 Min read
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Not all POS software helps a retail business grow, let’s put that out there right at the start. Our Tower Systems POS software is focussed on helping retail businesses grow. It has facilities embedded in the software that play into business turnover growth and net profitability that you’ll see in the business profit and loss statement.

Oh, and by growth here we are not talking about chasing scale. rather, we are talking about profitability and growth in the context of a local small retail business. For many, staying small is far more profitable than spending up chasing scale (growth).

Here are some of the ways our Tower Systems POS software helps businesses grow:

Smart loyalty. Our loyalty tools are engaging, easily understood and proven to bring shoppers back more often and nurturing them to spend more. This approach to loyalty makes shopper visits more valuable and therefore more profitable.

Time saved. Our integrated AI tools help retailers reduce rostered hours by eliminating some manual tasks. Our AI innovation has already proven to be bottom-line beneficial in plenty of local retail businesses. Using our Ai tools you can import just about any invoice, generate marketing blog posts and price compare.

Early theft detection. The smart theft mitigation tools in our software have helped many retailers capture irrefutable evidence of theft that has been used to resolve the situation through police or other means. Through data tracking and other security smarts, our software provides business owners secret insights on theft.

Cutting out of stocks. Being out of stock of a product typically costs a shop thousands of dollars a year. We have seen more than half the out of stocks caused by poor oversight on stock ordering. Our software shows the out of stocks and puts a value pin lost revenue. This focusses the attention of the business owner, which leads to resolving the problem.

Better business decisions sooner. Thanks to smart insights in our constantly curated insights dashboard retail business managers are able to make evidence-based business decisions faster than through old processes. Evidence-based business decisions tend to be better decisions for a retail business.

Targeted marketing. By reaching out to customers based on past purchases allows a business to finely target customers and this can bring them min sooner for more purchases.

Cutting keystrokes. Our POS software is tuned to eliminate some manual processes and with them unnecessary keystrokes. Every keystroke we eliminate is a possible mistake eliminated as well as a millisecond of time saved.

This is not a complete list. rather, it is a snapshot of how our Tower systems POS software can help a local small retail business grow revenue and improve net profit.

Can we help you?

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Who is our target customer here at Tower Systems, the ideal customer for our POS software?

June 26, 2025
2 Min read
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Here at Tower Systems we are focussed on serving small, independently locally owned and run retail businesses, primarily in Australia and New Zealand.

Our purpose is to empower local, independent, and specialty retailers to truly thrive. We do this by providing them with powerful Aussie-made and supported POS software, along with the essential training and ongoing support they need to succeed.

A local independent retail business is one with, usually, no more than ten shops – most of our customers have one shop.

We believe in the power of local businesses. They are the heart of communities, fostering connection and contributing to local prosperity. When a local business is profitable, everyone benefits—from the owners and their staff to their customers and the wider community. And when they’re profitable, they’re happy too!

Our software is specifically designed for a diverse range of specialty retailers, including:

  • Jewellers
  • Garden Centres
  • Bookshops
  • Charity shops / op. shops
  • Gift shops
  • Homewares shops
  • Bike Shops
  • Toy Shops
  • Newsagents
  • Pet Shops
  • Music Shops
  • Sewing Shops
  • Clothing Shops
  • Pool Maintenance Shops
  • Garden Landscape Businesses
  • Produce Businesses
  • Stockfeed Businesses
  • Fishing and Outdoor Shops

We are passionate about working with local small businesses, whether they’re in rural areas, regional towns, or on the high street. We excel at providing personalized, one-on-one engagement within these niche retail channels.

We’re proud to say we make what we sell. We don’t just provide the tools; we also train our customers in their use and offer comprehensive support through our help desk and online knowledge base. We know our software, training, and support can make a real difference in helping these businesses flourish.

If you own or working a local small retail business, we might as well good and valuable fit for you. Check us out. If were discover we are not the right fit for you we will absolutely say so. We want you to thrive and will never get 9in the way of that.

We are dedicated to helping local retailers truly thrive. By providing our specialised Aussie-made software, comprehensive training, and ongoing support, we empower these vital small businesses to achieve profitability and happiness, knowing that their success strengthens the entire community.

Please, let us know if we can help you.

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Retail management advice: review shop floor performance by gross profit

March 6, 2025
3 Min read
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This is good everyday advice for any small business retailer in any retail setting. It’s easy to do and a powerful motivator to drive profitable change. Best of all, it’s 100% about your business, it’s personal.

With retail space usually costing between 11% and 15% of revenue, it is usually the next highest cost outside of the cost of stock itself. How well you use your space determines the success of your business.

Retailers often argue that rent should be lower. It could be that a different view of shop floor performance helps you achieve a better return.

Here are the simple steps to follow to do a GP performance floor map of your shop:

  1. Take a blank sheet of paper, ideally A3, and roughly sketch out the layout of your shop, marking in display units, shelving, the counter – everywhere you have product. Include your back room if you have stock there.
  2. Colour-shade the layout by department.
  3. List the departments on the side of the floor plan.
  4. Calculate the percentage of total space used for each department. This does not need to be accurate to two decimal places. List this next to each department you have listed.
  5. Use your POS software to report on gross profit dollars earned by each department over the last year, or calculate it from sales figures knowing the average GP% per department.
  6. Calculate the percentage of total gross profit contribution earned by each department and list this next to the floor space allocated to each department – on the floor plan map you have done.
  7. Circle in green those performing the best, where the GP% contribution is more than the GP% space allocation, and in red those performing the worst.

Typically, a business owner doing this for the first time will have an ah ha moment, seeing something they had not realised.

We have seen business owners make changes including to floor layout, quitting suppliers and increasing stock weight for some departments.

You can take the analysis a step further by looking only at one department and analysing its performance by category, using the method outlined above.

Our specialty retail POS software can help with this and more business performance analysis. It offers gross profit and other data points useful in this shop floor map performance analysis.

Our goal is to help you run a more appealing, successful and valuable retail business. As retailers ourselves, we use our software this way every day.

We can help if you are interested. Here at Tower Systems we are 100% focussed on serving local small business retailers. We offer advice like that covered here to help local small business retailers thrive.

Find out more:  www.towersystems.com.au  1300 662 957  sales@towersystems.com.au

Thanks for reading.

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Helping all retailers embrace the spirit of Valentnine’s Day

February 14, 2025
3 Min read
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There are many Valentine’s Day opportunities outside of cards, flowers, chocolates, sexy clothes and a night out. We think every retailer can embrace the opportunity and connect with Valentine’s Day.

While Valentine’s Day is undeniably a commercial bonanza, it is an opportunity for and local small retail business to stand out and more meaningfully connect with locals.

Here’s our Tower Systems advice, our take on opportunities for local retailers, no matter what you sell. Here are five ways to spread Valentine’s love:

  1. Love Where You Are: Celebrate your community! Set up a noticeboard (physical or online) and encourage locals to share what they adore about the area. Think stories, photos, or any expression of local love. This is a fantastic way to give back to the community that supports you.

  2. Love What You Do: This one’s all about passion! Invite people to share what they love about their lives, hobbies, or work. Promote it as a chance for people to express themselves and share a little piece of their story. It’s a beautiful way to connect with your customers on a deeper level.

  3. Love Others: Spread the love to those in need! Partner with a local charity and use your business as a collection point for donations. Launch a “Loving Others this Valentine’s Day” campaign, promote the charity’s work, and encourage your customers to join you in supporting them. Don’t forget to contribute yourself!

  4. Love Lists: Get social! Over a series of posts, invite people to share their favourite things. Each day, focus on a different theme: a beloved song, a cherished photo, a go-to recipe, a must-read book. Ask them to explain why these things are so special to them. It’s a fun way to spark conversation and get people sharing.

  5. The Love Seat: Create a cosy spot in or outside your shop—a “love seat” for two! Promote it as a place for friends to catch up, rekindle connections, share stories, and make memories. Encourage old-fashioned conversation, away from the distractions of social media. Bonus points for offering complimentary coffee and cake!

These ideas aren’t designed to directly boost sales or foot traffic. Instead, they’re about showcasing who you are and what your business stands for in the community. While big businesses will be shouting about Valentine’s Day deals, you’ll be touching hearts and celebrating the true meaning of the season.

The best idea though is to leverage the suggestions here and others that flow from thinking about them outside of February 14. There is no rule as to when we should nurture love in any form and on any topic. Take the Love Where You Are idea. This is something you could run mid-year as a support for your location.

Being the business known for nurturing love and appreciation could help strengthen your emotional connection with locals.

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From the trenches: the outlook for local small business retail in Australia in 2025

January 8, 2025
3 Min read
F

We’ve read stories published news outlets about the economic outlook for 2025. Often, they quote either organisations representing big business or the work from think tanks that are distanced from everyday local retail.

Our outlook for local small business retail in 2025 is based on conversations with local retailers, small business retailers. these are typically retailers on the high street across a range of business types and in different settings: city, country and remote.

The thing is, there is no one outlook. It does vary by geographic situation, business type retail setting (mall versus high street) and, most important of all, the skills and resources of the retailer.

The news outlets publishing these general outlooks are filling their pages and pixels with fodder. Okay they do have data to backup their reports. It’s blended data though. The differences across sectors and geographical situations does differ considerably.

Now to our outlook for 2025 for local small business retail in Australia.

The outlook is good. We see growth for retailers engaged with running efficient customer-focussed businesses. Typically, these are retail shops not constrained by the expectations for their type of business. They are flexible businesses prepared to tread away from expectations in pursuit of sales.

Here’s what we mean.

Garden centres with the best outlook for 2025 are those that are not your traditional garden centre.

Bike shops with the best outlook fort 2025 are those that trade outside of what is expected for a bike shop.

Bookshops with the best outlook for 2025 are those that are not traditional bookshops.

Newsagents with the best outlook for 2025 are those that don’t run traditional newsagency businesses.

The common attributes for the local retail businesses with the best outlook for 2025 are:

Staff efficiency. Managing labour cost as a percentage of revenue to be as low as practical.

Shopper efficiency. These are businesses getting shoppers to spend more each visit and to come back more often.

Gross profit value. These are businesses setting prices based on value delivered rather than obsessing offer what others may charge for the same products.

Return on floorspace. These are businesses focussed on using space well and not leaving things to sit for too long.

Return on inventory investment. These are businesses tracking stock turn and buying to maximise this.

While national economic forecasts often paint a broad and sometimes misleading picture, the reality for local small businesses in 2025 is far more nuanced. Success hinges on a combination of factors, including adaptability, efficiency, and a customer-centric approach. Those retailers who embrace innovation, challenge traditional business models, and prioritise value over conformity are poised to thrive. By focusing on optimising staff and shopper efficiency, maximising gross profit margins, and ensuring efficient use of space and inventory, local businesses can navigate the complexities of the market and secure a prosperous future.

2025 is a year of opportunity in local small business retail. the opportunity is there for the taking. Having success to share in December this year depends on decisions and actions of each local small business retailer. No matter your size, budget or resources, there are decisions you can make today that mean your story by December this year will be one of which you are proud.

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AI content being marked down in search engine results

December 18, 2024
2 Min read
A

The latest algorithm adjustments by search and answer engines are m asking down AI generated content. This is good news for people and businesses who publish genuinely original content, human written content.

While we understand the appeal of AI generated content, its source is the same and therefore of diminished value compared to the original.

A common use of AI by businesses is to attract eyeballs to your business online. The thing is, though, eyeballs themselves may not be useful. Businesses need eyeballs from people who are an ideal fit for what the business has to offer. Creating this content takes deep understanding of what you offer and the value a prospective customer can derive from what you offer.

The customers all of us seek in business are humans after all.

Humans understand nuance, AI are unlikely to, currently, understand nuance or ambiguity.

This is one area where AI content may fail a business.

When asked by a local retailer customer about blog content, content for their website or content stored using the POS software we provide to them, our recommendation is that their own human content is the foundation. For sure there is value in an AI review to tidy i8n their content, to make it more readable. Basing everything on their own original content is key.

If they are using AI for an edit or tidy up of their content, our advice is that they craft their AI prompt to ensure that the edit is based only on their content and that no additional other source content is added.

It’s easy to spot AI content. It tends to be bland, using bold and caps is a predictable way and verbally puffy in places. Like we said, nuance is not an AI thing.

Thankfully, the search and answer engines, the answer engines especially, are downgrading fodder AI generated content in their results.

Independent specialty retail businesses, our target customer businesses, are run by humans. Our content is human written for them, in respect of them. It’s not perfect, not smooth or AI bland. Our content speaks to the human experience of local small business retail, the value of local small business retail.

Thanks for reading.

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A message for local independent retailers

July 26, 2024
2 Min read
A

The news cycle is dominated by headlines about economic downturn. Daily there are stories about people doing it tough. While these stories can be unsettling, focusing solely on negativity can be counterproductive.

Here at Tower Systems, we understand the importance of fostering a positive and optimistic environment, especially during challenging times and even more especially in local small business retail.

Local retailers can nurture a more positive local tone.

Yes, the economic climate is challenging and complex. That does not mean there aren’t opportunities. Many local businesses have seen positive developments in 2024. There are green shoots. We encourage you to focus on what’s working for your business.

Here are some suggestions:

  • Highlight your successes: Showcase new products, host in-store events, and promote exciting developments on social media.
  • Maintain a sense of normalcy: Continue providing excellent customer service and keep your store environment upbeat with cheerful music and engaging displays.
  • Focus on what you can control: While external factors exist, you have the power to shape your business strategy and customer experience.

We’ve weathered economic downturns before, and each presents unique challenges. While the global situation adds complexity, many local businesses are finding success in this new landscape.

Let’s be proactive, optimistic, and focus on what we can do to build stronger and more resilient businesses. Remember, a positive outlook is contagious, and it can make a real difference in these times.

In out software for local small business retailers there are plenty of opportunities for sharing happiness and optimism with customers from easy to run cash discount offers, positive messages on receipts, bundles offers and event based offers that offer joyful celebration.

By not being part of the doom and gloom news cycle, your local retail business can set its own narrative of positivity that locals are likely to appreciate and respond to.

Our advice this Friday morning is to embrace positivity, look at what you can do to make your shop a haven of joy and happiness, a shop offering value, a place where you can your work colleagues enjoy serving each day. These are differences you can make that themselves will make a difference to you.

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13 Ways Local Retailers Can Boost Sales And Profits In Challenging Economic Times

July 5, 2024
5 Min read
1

If you or a retailer you know are finding economic conditions tough for your business you can complain, do nothing or make changes. Only one of these has any hope of improving the situation. My advice is to pursue change every time.

Here are 13 free and easy to implement action items any local small business retailer could consider to improve their situation.

  1. Engage everyone in the shop. Let all team members know how the business is going, what it needs and why. Agree on achievable goals and steps to take in pursuing them. Track results openly. Keep communicating.
  2. Declutter. If business is down and it’s getting to you, spend a day or two decluttering. Typically, the act of decluttering helps you see positive moves you can make in the business. Do this yourself. Make those moves.
  3. Quit dead stock. What is dead will depend on your type of shop. For some, it will be stock that has not sold in 6 months while for others it will be stock that has not sold for 2 years. Dead stock wastes space, time and ties up cash. Anything you get for it is better than the daily cost of your dead stock today. And, in quitting, do it in 2 weeks. If it’s not gone, give it away.
  4. Reward an additional purchase. Include a coupon on receipts that offers a reward if the customer makes another purchase in a short period of time – we suggest 7 days. While loyalty points programs focus on the longer-term relationship, the voucher proposed here is all about encouraging purchases sooner. In our software, this is discount vouchers.
  5. Know what you are missing out on. In a typical shop, the top 5% selling items are out of stock 21% of the time. That is guaranteed revenue missed. Fix it and revenue will increase. Your POS software can easily show what you’re missing. In our software tis is on the Insights Dashboard.
  6. Support a local community group in return for their members supporting you. Connect with a group that has plenty of members, the community loves and that does good work. Offer their members a discount off purchases and a contribution donation from each purchase value to the group. The goal is to get their members who don’t buy from you buying from you = new customers.
  7. Have fun on social media. People go to social media to be entertained. Entertain them. Don’t overthink it. Have fun, show your business as a place of fun, share knowledge that differentiates your business.
  8. Leverage free. Make sure your Google Business and Bing (yes, it’s a thing!) presences are up to date and fun.
  9. Lower payments costs. Card payments can cost small business retailers between .075% and close to 2%. While you can surcharge customers, switching payments company could save plenty. If you switch, still surcharge tho.
  10. Email your customers. If you have customer email addresses and know what they have bought, run some targeted email campaigns using this data.
  11. Review pricing. Most retailers either follow the supplier suggested retail price or a mark-up percentage set many years ago. To determine the price you could sell an item for, ask that question. It could be that the convenience of your location and lack of easy to access competitors means you can sell items for more than is usual. If this is the case, do it. Most POS software makes it easy to make these price adjustments.
  12. Talk to your suppliers. If you are finding it tough it is likely your suppliers are too. Ask if they have deal prices to move inventory. If they do and it is inventory you can easily sell, grab it for bonus margin.
  13. Set your shop right. Make sure that your shop is guiding shoppers to spend, and spend more:
    1. Inside the front door: Have a new display weekly. Bright. Optimistic. Fun. Unexpected.
    2. At the counter: Pitch items people will easily purchase on impulse. Items that achieve the best performance and items they did not expect to see at your counter.
    3. Have a scent: Incense, a candle – introduce a scent people like.
    4. Have a sound: Play happy music people will know and sing along to.
    5. If it is cold outside, make your shop warm.
    6. If it is warm outside, make your shop cooler.
    7. Move: Move at least one product category each week. This gives the shop a feeling of change.

My POS software company, Tower Systems, makes and supports POS software for local specialty retailers in Australia and New Zealand. I also own and runs shops.

I share practical advice like covered here because I love helping local independent retailers thrive.

Mark Fletcher
Managing Director
Tower Systems International (Aust) Pty Ltd
ABN 61 007 009 752
M | 0418 321 338 E | mark@towersystems.com.au
Sales: 1300 662 957 sales@towersystems.com.au

First published: June 27, 2024.

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Stocktake advice for local small business retailers

June 21, 2024
1 Min read
S

Here is stocktake advice from our POS software company for our 3,000+ customers:

We have shared stocktake advice for many years. Our POS software customers have access to video training, text based advice and human to human training and support. Our goal is to help them manage stock efficiently and profitably.

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Local small business retail advice: locals are not buying from me, what should I do?

June 12, 2024
4 Min read
L

Local means different things in different situations. It could be products made in your town, your state or territory, or in your country. What is local will vary depending on what you sell.

If you are certain locals are buying elsewhere instead of from you, find out why, as this is key to what you do to turn the situation around.

Before we get into the why and what you could consider doing about it, think about how local your business is and why you think locals should support you. Gaining local support starts with you supporting locals.

If you buy products from makers who live locally and shop in town, talk about that and how grateful you are to have their products. Create a small sign to place next to their products. Include their photo. This personal touch helps shoppers to understand who else benefits from their purchase.

If you source products from within your state or country that nearby competitors and online businesses source from overseas, talk about how pleased you are to find local suppliers, how that makes you feel, and what it means in terms of the products.

Look at every product or service you use in your business. Talk about each one that is locally sourced; show that it is locally sourced. Consider local alternatives for those sourced from overseas.

Look at your engagement with local community groups and clubs and with the local community as a whole. Is it as good as it could be? Is it consistent? Is there a place in the shop where your local community group support is shown?

Does your business attract people to the area? If there are things you could do to attract people, do them and get known for doing them. Get locals pleased that you are bringing more people into the area.

The more you walk the local walk, the more you can talk the local talk.

Stop telling people to shop locally. Show them. Think about what you source locally for your business and discuss it on social media and in your shop. This is an excellent way to demonstrate being local.

Getting local shoppers shopping locally really does start with you and how locally focused your own decisions are.

Educate shoppers to be inquisitive about identifying local products. Show them how to read a label to see if a product is locally made. Sometimes, people need to be shown how to shop locally.

Now, let’s consider why locals may not be supporting you.

If shoppers prefer online shopping, it could be price or convenience. If shoppers prefer a big competitor, it could be range or price. If shoppers prefer shopping in the next town, it could be price, range and/or convenience.

Addressing price, convenience and range can feel challenging in local small business retail. Let’s have a crack at it.

Price comes down to value. If you sell products that benefit from knowledge you can share that nearby or online competitors cannot or do not share, that’s your competing price. Demonstrate your value at every opportunity and hope that your shoppers will talk to others about it.

Convenience could be parking out the front, your opening hours, nearby shops and/or whether your business is online. If you’re not online, get online; that is an easy step to address. Other convenience factors rely on local amenities and fellow local retailers.

If range is the reason that locals tend to shop elsewhere, your pitch comes back to the value proposition. It may be that you have the best, most useful, longest-lasting products, and that’s why your smaller range is beneficial to locals.

Our point here is that if you are unhappy about support from local shoppers, your decisions and the narrative you pitch in and around your business are key factors.

You need to help locals understand why shopping locally with you is good for them.

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Retail transformation: one of our own shops

June 4, 2024
1 Min read
R

In this video we discuss the transformation of one of our shops, another place where we get to play with our POS software for guidance on how to run a more valuable shop. We are grateful to have this point of difference:

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Advice from Tower Systems on how to choose the right POS software for your business

May 27, 2024
3 Min read
A

The best advice on choosing the right POS software for your retail business is that you do it yourself. This is not something to outsource, not something to use one of the comparison (marketing) websites for. Do your own research.

Choosing POS software is an important decision, a decision for the long term, a decision directly connected to the financial viability of your retail business.

Take your time.

Start with what you want and what you need. These are different things. Write lists. yes, write them down for the more organised you are the more likely you are to make the best decision for your retail business.

Choosing POS software is not something to rush. Beware of the POS software companies that put limited time deals in front of you. Those companies likely offer POS software that is not ideal and they try and make your choice about price so as to distract you from your lists of needs and wants.

The decision is about what you need and want and each of the POS software companies that you consider. It’s not about what representatives of those companies think about software from other companies. Asking them to comment on competition is not ideal. If you do ask though and if they bag a competitor, ask them how they know this, ask them for evidence.

Be sure to gather evidence in writing. If a representative of a POS software company makes a claim that they will do this or that or that their software does a specific thing you need be sure to describe your need fully and to get their response to this in writing – it could be you rely on this later.

If being local is an important part of what you pitch for your business, think about the local situation of POS software companies you consider. Find out how local a company you are considering is, how local their people are, think about whether their answers factor into your decision making.

See, don’t hear or read. See the software for yourself. Come to the demonstration with unique sales scenarios you see play out in your shop. See how the software handles these. Ask for a recoding of the demonstration so you can share it with others in your business who will use the software for if they feel they are part of your decision making they are more likely to support the decision you ultimately make.

No marketing company, so software comparison website, no consultant can substitute for what you invest in considering POS software for your retail business. Invest the time, your time, and it will reward you with the best decision for your business, you, people who work in the business and the customers of the business.

No software is perfect, and doubt anyone who claims it is. Software that is the best will not be perfect. best is good though. This is why controlling the consideration process yourself is vital, it helps you find what you decide is best.

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Small business retail advice: a busy shop can lie to you

May 24, 2024
3 Min read
S

Hi, my name is Mark Fletcher. While here at Tower Systems we make POS software for local small business retailers, I also provide support advice to retailers. I was asked to write an article recently for a small business retail publication. Thinking about a shop I had visited recently and how the performance of the business did not match what the owner thought, I decided to write about how a busy shop can lie to you. Here is the article:

Do you get to the end of the day exhausted from how busy the shop was and feel good about the business? When I bought my first shop, I loved being exhausted by the end of the day. I thought being busy equalled success.

The thing is, a busy shop handling many low-value, low-margin transactions in a day is likely to exhaust you more than a far quieter shop handling fewer transactions at a higher value and with a higher margin.

Now, for simplicity, when I talk about margin here, I am talking about gross profit. This is what you sell an item for, less the cost of the item to your business.

The most important truth about the performance of any business is in the profit and loss statement. This is where everything comes together. On one side is all your sales revenue. On the other side is the cost of stock purchased, along with all other costs such as labour, rent and overheads.

Set yourself up to get easy access to your profit and loss statement yourself without needing to go through an accountant. This is easy to do, especially if your point-of-sale software feeds sales data and inventory purchase invoices direct to the accounting software. Being on top of performance has never been easier.

If your business features low-margin, low-transaction value products, look at opportunities to increase margin on those products and sell more higher price point items with better margins.

The price you charge should reflect what you offer. If your business is convenient, shoppers are likely to be comfortable with a higher price than they may pay elsewhere. If you offer a value-addition, such as differentiating product knowledge or follow-up servicing, this should be considered when setting pricing.

On initial consideration, this may feel too difficult to achieve. I have seen retailers think this, only to realise that they were the barriers to deciding what might work in their shop.

A while back, I was helping a retail business that was rooted in that low transaction value, low margin world. I suggested they add a product category their type of business was not known for. They did, and it was a success. Today, that initial change has led to a complete business transformation, delivering a much-appreciated profit multiple that they could not have achieved had they not changed.

In retail today, there are no rules demanding your business stay in a lane defined by the shingle above your door. By disrupting expectations for your type of business, you can create more success for you and all who rely on the business.

Don’t be duped by your business. Feeling tired is no measure of success. The only measure that matters is the one reflected in the financial statements of the business.

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Local retail business advice: small is beautiful

May 23, 2024
4 Min read
L

Hi, my name is Mark Fletcher, I am Managing Director of Tower Systems. We make POS software for local small business retailers. I have also owned retail businesses since 1996. There is plenty of noise aimed at small business owners to scale, to get big. I wrote this article to comment on that and encourage that small is beautiful. here is my article:

I enjoy working in and on my small businesses each day, more than I might if those businesses were much bigger.

Social media, business books, videos and seminars tell business owners to chase size: more likes, more followers, more customers, more revenue, more profit.

Consultants and gurus applaud people for making businesses that are scalable and replicable.

Influencers celebrate follower milestones and encourage others to join in the race for numbers.

It’s as if size is the only measure of success that matters.

Those encouraging small business owners to chase size are often people who profit from you joining the race. Doing what they exhort may serve their goals more than your own. It’s likely to benefit their interests and not be aligned with those they encourage.

The pressure to chase size doesn’t make sense to me. I see it as the pressure on people to relentlessly pursue being slim or having white teeth or a full head of hair. It’s like being happy with what you have is not an option.

Happiness should be the goal—happiness for the business owners, for those who rely on the business for income, and for the customers of the business.

A small business that is profitable can make more money for the owners than a business pursuing scale, especially if that pursuit involves considerable financial risk.

The emotional cost of taking on a loan to fund growth is considerable. Compare this to a small, debt-free, self-sustaining business.

I’ve only ever owned and run small and barely medium-sized businesses. Along the way, I have encountered many big business competitors. While some have scared me for a time, none has hurt my businesses.

I remember a time, decades ago. A supplier to a specialty retail channel my software company served made a multi-million-dollar investment into a software company. They announced they planned to become the industry standard software. I found out that a customer of ours had allowed programmers from this other company to look at how our software worked and the data structures we used. They appeared to be trying to reverse-engineer some very retail channel–specific facilities we had developed.

I was paralysed with anger as I didn’t have the money to mount a legal challenge. Then, I realised that we were already ahead technically and that we should leverage that advantage to reach even further ahead.

Within a year, the other business was in retreat from the retail channel we dominated.

While it sounds cliché, I learned the value of staying the course, being true to the goal of the business regardless of the scale of a competitor confronting you.

In my experience, small businesses are more nimble, innovative and efficient than big businesses. Typically, they will be more profitable. I suspect this is because everything matters and everything is noticed in a small business, whereas inefficiency can go unnoticed in a big business.

Technology makes it easier for us to do more in our small businesses with less and to do so with less risk.

A benefit of being small is easy differentiation, thanks to your people, their knowledge, and their approach to transacting business. In a big business, such personalisation is systemised to be average and, ultimately, lost.

If you value independence and understand the importance of differentiation through personal service, you’ll probably be happier and more fulfilled running a small to mid-size business than chasing scale.

Don’t be told what to think or do. Reach your own conclusion as to what is right for you.

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Local retail management advice: don’t be the shop living in the past

May 22, 2024
1 Min read
L

Hi, my name is Mark Fletcher, the Managing Director of Tower Systems. I recently visited a regional town to talk with an innovative retailer, a newsagent who had transitioned their business way beyond tradition. On the same road was another shop, a newsagency that has not changed with the times, a newsagency that was living in the past. I made a short video about this that you might find interesting.

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Small business retail advice: step off the treadmill

May 21, 2024
3 Min read
S

Hi, my name is Mark Fletcher, managing Director of Tower Systems. We make POS software for small business retailers. Today I share with you a story about local small business retail and someone I met with plenty of times. I hope you find it helpful. here’s the story:

Alan had worked in his dad’s thriving shop in Sydney for 25 years and had pretty much run things for the last 10 years. He had spent more than half his time in recent years looking at changes they could make to enhance the relevance of the business. He went to retail conferences and trade shows. He took meetings in the shop with people who could help.

I met Alan at conferences and in the shop. Each time he was full of questions about retail trends that relate to his type of business and ideas he could implement.

I loved talking with him because Alan loved talking retail. He had excellent insights and some terrific ideas for transforming the family business.

When the shop lease came up for renewal a couple of years ago, they did not take the option to renew. Even though the business was successful, and Alan had a kit full of ideas on how to navigate changes to their type of business, they gave up and walked away.

Alan never implemented any of his ideas. It turned out he liked to think and talk about change. He and his family closed a shop doing more than $1.5 million a year in product sales.

When it came time to commit, they decided they did not have the energy to engage in change.

They’d overthought change, considered too many options, created an out-of-control project, and all the while not implemented even the simplest of changes in the shop.

There is a saying in the start-up world: Launch early and launch often.

Some repeat a related saying: Fail often.

It is the fear of failure that can get in the way of even the simplest of changes being implemented. I think that is what blocked Alan and his family. They were stuck on a treadmill that went nowhere.

If you know you need to make changes in your business, start. That’s it, start. Do something. Take a step forward. Make a change. No matter how small, it’s a start, and that’s what matters. That action fights back against any fear of failure or other hesitancy.

If you have more ideas beyond one small and simple change, embrace and implement them. The act of making changes will help you develop your plan.

In some retail settings, it is the regular small changes that bring shoppers back. They know that something will be different each time they visit.

Small changes are manageable, often affordable, and measurable.

Big changes can feel daunting and be expensive and, therefore, riskier.

Personally, I like do-it-yourself changes, things we can do in the shop without bringing in an expert.

Alan and his family made good money from their successful business over many years. Had they acted years before the lease renewal on some of the changes Alan had developed, they would have had a business to sell.

Next time you are at a conference or trade show, look for the two or three easy things you can implement at a low cost that have the opportunity of a good reward.

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