CategorySmall retail business management advice

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.

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.