The POS Software Blog
News from Tower Systems about locally made POS software for specialty local retailers.
We have added a couple more software developers to our team already this year in an expansion of our skillset as we surge on several fronts in the development of our specialty retail POS software and other products we are creating.
2022 is off to a terrific start, and we are grateful.
We are grateful to have been able to find a UI/UX specialist for a new role we have created in the business. This expands our software development skillset and will benefit several of our products.
This new hire is on the back of two more in recent months, as we enhance our products for the small business retail community we serve.
We are grateful to have added to our software development team with a new hire joining us on a new project.
Software development, especially vertical market software development is many marathons, run back to back.
We love marathons.
There is no such thing as a free lunch, there is always a catch, always a way you pay.
Businesses that offer free POS software are paid in other ways, they have to be – otherwise, how do they pay their software designers, software developers, support people, sales people and more?
People like to be paid. It puts food on their table. A business offering you free POS software has to find another way to pay for its people because free POS software has a cost to develop, maintain and support, making free POS software not free once you work out who is actually paying.
Software development is expensive, this is especially true for good POS software. It requires specialist services, experts, working hard to make beautiful, fast, secure and stable software. This software, this specialist software is not something you want to be free.
So, when you see free POS software promoted, think carefully about value because it would be hard to find value in something that cost nothing to make and nothing to support.
It’s not free. Follow the money because it will be there. Someone, at some point, will be paying so that those developing, selling, supporting and promoting the software get paid so they can eat and have a roof over their heads. Yes, follow the money and see why free POS software is not really free. Once you follow the money, you can make an informed decision.
Tower Systems does not offer free POS software. We make and sell awesome specialty POS software for a range of retail niches. We are good at what we do and have a long track record of success in service of independent retail business channels.
Our focus is on delivering commercially valuable software to businesses that understand business and the importance of being paid for good business services. We pay our people well because they are good what what they do. We expect people to pay for our software so we can do this. This is at the core of all businesses that respect themselves and their people.
We get that free POS software is desired. However, as we said at the beginning, there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Specialty retailers are specialty for a reason, they go deep into a product category, as you would expect from a specialist.
The challenge for specialty retailers is that their specialisation attracts shoppers interested in and buying for their specialty product category. This is good in the usual world. In this corona world with movement challenged, specialisation can be challenging for local businesses.
This is why we think the covid pivot opportunity for specialty retailers can be helpful. We are not suggesting retailers seek to profit from corona or that they are profiteering. Rather, through a covid pivot, we are encouraging small business retailers to broaden the appeal of their businesses, to make their businesses more attractive beyond the community they currently serve.
A covid pivot could see a business remain the same to shoppers who visit and that it uses the back office infrastructure to serve an online only operation in their covid pivot strategy. This can see the business leverage existing overhead of space, labour and accounting infrastructure to effectively open a new business and through this to find new shoppers.
This type of covid pivot move can make the business more resilient through a time of change or challenge, like corona.
We think a covid pivot is a smart move for specialty retail as it spreads the risk, strengthens the foundations of the business and provides learning opportunities that themselves could help the business further evolve.
Using business data, smart tech and POS software connected websites, a specialty retail business can find, through a covid pivot, new customers, new efficiencies and new energy for forward momentum and this is the core goal … taking those steps ahead.
The whole corona situation is challenging. It would be easy to sit and wallow., and we get that for some that is what they choose. In covid pivot our focus is on pursuing forward momentum and doing this through a data driven and tech implemented pivot for the business for a better back half of 2020 and a solid 2021.
Bottom line: there is good news out there for specialty retailers who are making these opportunities for themselves through a covid pivot. We are sincerely grateful to have seen plenty do this, plenty find new shoppers and plenty learn new skills and categories through to expand what are effectively new start up businesses within their specialty businesses.
We are screening candidates for our Melbourne based web development team. Thanks to a wonderful group of candidates the culling process is proving to be tough.
We are grateful to have many good quality candidates keen to work with us on our small business focussed projects.
We added to our software development team to enable us to be better resourced in new areas of pursuit.
It is a thrill to bring a new voice to the product creation side of the business as it expands our perspective of the world as well as helping us to deliver beautiful products to our customers.
The one constant in our business is change, change we pursue through fresh products being driven through the use of innovative tools being worked by a skilled set of professionals.
Slush is an extraordinary business conference. There is nothing like it on the calendar, anywhere. Here in Helsinki, assembled for Slush, are 17,000+ entrepreneurs, business managers, inventors and financiers talking about the future.
I am thrilled to be part of such an extraordinary event, for the networking opportunities, for the learning and for the inspiration.
How companies like ours do business has changed. Change is the new normal. And I am not talking about basic software update change. No, this is real change at the core. Slush is all about this, leaps occurring across industries thanks to new technologies and new business paradigms.
It is a privilege to be at Slush this year as part of a small Australian contingent.
To show how different Slush is to other business conferences, here is part of the kick off from Wednesday morning:
This is not the place for us to be specific about take-aways from Slush. However, they are many and we are only at the end of day two – we participated in the pre opening events yesterday.
Launching new products this year as we have done, we understand, in a small way, the challenge of the start-up and have an appreciation for many issues involved.
Slush is providing us opportunities to explore these and related topics further.
Here are some photos from day one of the main conference.
We are thrilled with feedback from retailers using our POS software webstore integrations. The best feedback of all is the news of sales they are achieving that they would otherwise not have achieved.
Through websites we have developed and connections back to high street retail businesses using our POS software we have helped small business retailers achieve significant sales from shoppers interstate and overseas.
The sales success is as much a testament to our search engine work as it is to our web development and POS software / webstore integrations.
What is most interesting is the sales we are helping our customers achieve outside their usual trading hours. A retailer arriving in the morning at 6am to three sales totaling close to $1,000 is exciting. We hear about it because our retail partners like to share with us the success they are having. And we gratefully receive stories of their success because we know their success feeds into our success.
We have wonderful reference sites doing good business online thanks to the technology and backup business strategic advice we have provided.
Small business retailers can compete online, they can achieve sales they otherwise might have missed. They can reach into geographic locations where they are not known. They can easily serve these locations thanks to smart tools that make shipping each, transacting payments easy and providing personal customer service easy.
Helping and independent small retail business add thousands of dollars of gross profit to their bottom line in a year is a result we love here at Tower Systems. It is real thanks to the professional work of teams within our company in pursuit of our mission to help our small business retail customers to make money.
A team from Tower Systems further benefited from participating in the Atlanta Gift Fair last week, networking with small business gift and homewares retailers as well as their suppliers – including suppliers from Australia. Thanks to contact since the show, the benefits are being realised quickly.
This large gift fair – representing 7,300 brands – is attended by thousands of retailers. It is the gift and homewares retailers the industry’s largest event featuring the most comprehensive collection of home décor, furniture and gifts. The venue spans multiple buildings and multiple floors in each building – it is many times larger than the largest gift fairs in Australia. This is what makes it an exciting event for us – a real eye-opener.
The range of products on show is more diverse and the types of businesses attending is equally diverse. This is why attending has been beneficial for the Tower Systems team as they have been able to expand their horizons as to how our POS software can better serves the needs of growing gift and homewares businesses.
We are not detailing takeaways here for obvious reasons.
Just a note to say thank you for the update. I love it and I love being a beta test site. I can see the hard work that has gone into the software, loving it even more.
We love getting feedback from our customers. All feedback inspires us to work harder for the close 3,500 small business retailers we serve.
The latest update is settling in well, even over the Christmas / New Year period. Wide release will commence shortly with our users having the opportunity to choose when to install.
While we welcome the innovation statement by the federal government this week, we think they could have done more in support of Australian owned software companies supporting efficiency improvements for Australian businesses.
Take what we do here at Tower Systems – we help small and independent retailers run more efficient, and therefore more profitable, businesses. The economic benefit is considerably beyond the cost of the software.
Being 100% Australian owned, long established and self-funded, we would use a benefit, such as a tax break, to invest in more software innovation. This means more jobs and more benefits for our customers.
We think this type of support would have a more immediate economic benefit. Indeed, the benefits would be upstream and downstream.
We are thrilled our latest POS software is starting a managed beta release. This update is extraordinary in what it delivers. Enhancements go to the core of our POS software. We are excited for customer reactions.
Finding retailers keen to participate in the beta program leading up to Christmas was not difficult.
Tower Systems is proud of its work with graduates and the opportunity it provides for real-world experiences to further the development of Australians preparing for the work force.
We loom for opportunities for graduate roles where we allocate time and resources necessary for real-world experience development in advance of more direct customer roles.
Being a full service software company encompassing design, development, UI engagement, testing, training, deployment and follow-up support, we have a broad range of IT skills areas where graduates can learn.
Our support for graduates makes us a richer and more diverse company. Crucially, it makes us more aware of cutting-edge trends that can better inform our decisions and the work we do on behalf of ur customers.
Being located in Hawthorn places us within easy proximity of several top IT focussed universities.
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