CategoryWebstore POS integration

Click and collect is a key offer of genuine omnichannel businesses and Tower Systems is proud to have POS software integrated websites it developed that offer genuine click and collect solutions.

Our click and collect solution is proving to be popular with online shoppers and that is the ultimate test.

The Tower Systems POS software webstore integration is mature yet constantly evolving, bringing to small business retailers the ability to compete with big business through the more level playing field of online.

Click and collect is live right now on Tower Systems small business POS software integrated websites.

We take our engagement with the Shopify e-commerce platform seriously here at Tower Systems. We link our POS software directly and seamlessly.

One way we stay ahead in our knowledge and strategy is by directly working with the folks at Shopify, being aware of developments and future plans.

Two of our leadership team are at Unite 2017, the Shopify international partner conference, which is on in San Francisco this week.

This is providing to be a valuable experience not only in terms of our Shopify knowledge but from the networking with other e-commerce practitioners as we share ideas, accomplishments and future plans.

We are grateful for the opportunity to be here and to learn so we can better serve our customers.

Tower Systems first linked multiple stand alone small business retailers to a Magento website in late 2015. Today, we have this running for several websites, enabling independently owned small business retailers to transact from a central site yet remain independent in their retail businesses.

What Tower Systems has done is ground breaking. We have lead others in how to achieve this and make it easy for small business retailers to trade online with confidence and ease.

With many retailers engaged in the various sites and a good range of different products being sold there is excellent experience on which were can draw for a range of retail situations.

The transaction volume is testament to the tremendous success of this initiative for small business retailers.

This is another Tower Advantage.

Thanks to full integration between the Tower Systems POS software and the Shopify and Magento platforms, Tower Systems is making it easier for its retail customers to get online efficiently and for a low cost compared to having the website developed externally.

The money you use a second software company to do the website you encounter additional costs and the possibility of a disconnect.

With the Tower software works with many different web platforms, it is the Woo, Shopify and Magento platforms that are the move valuable in terms of user numbers. Tower has solutions for all three, delivering easy and stable access both ways between POS software and the e-commerce platforms.

AheadWorks recently published the results of research covering market share of e-commerce platforms.

These results reinforce the importance of the decision early on by Tower to focus on Magento, Shopify and Woo Commerce for our direct integrations and a more generic yet accessible solution for other links between our POS software and websites.

By offering the website development service as we do for Shopify sites and Magento sites we offer a one stop shop solution with one company responsible for the delivery and performance of the POS software and website integration.

Having done this for our own retail businesses we have live experiences and examples on which to draw.

A good website has a number of costs associated with it. POS software company Tower Systems has a track record of developing POS software integrated websites, helping small business retailers to leverage wonderful omnichannel opportunities.

A business website is not an off the shelf product. It is something finely tailored to the needs of the business it represents.

1. What a website includes. What a website includes depends on the requirements of the business. Many small business retailers want an online advertisement for their retail shop. That is not an e-commerce site. An e-commerce site promotes online commerce. That is the focus of the Tower Systems work. A typical e-commerce site includes the following pages and facilities:
   1. About. About the business, personalising what you stand for. Humanising the business. Building trust.
   2. Products. Products assembled by category. Photos. Descriptions. Pricing. Data creating these entries can flow from your retailer software – depending on the extent of the data you have setup including images.
   3. Purchasing. A shopping cart into which people can purchase and checkout. Automatically managing freight, collecting payment and providing you a back end for managing orders.
   4. Payment gateway. This is the back end management of payments and the depositing of payments into your bank account. We currently support Pin Payments and PayPal. You would establish your own account for one or the other – we do not want your funds passing through our accounts.
   5. Location. A placemat page showing where the retail business is located and its hours, if applicable.
   6. FAQs. A page where you pre-answer the questions shoppers are likely to ask. You would provide the text content for this. Part of the backend management facilities would enable you to change this at any time.
   7. Overall design. This is the visual aesthetic representation of your online business. We have choices you can make based on work we have done. That said, our goal is to create something that professionally represents your business, that you are happy with.
   8. Hidden code. Behind every page on the website and for each product is ‘hidden’ code used by Google and other search engines for indexing the information and enabling it to be found. Get this wrong and your products will not be easily found online.
   9. Administration page. This is a page only you could access where you can change information about and settings for the site.
2. Website development. For a basic site with the ability for you to load product descriptions, images prices, sell items and include text about your business as well as running two email addresses through the site will cost less than what small business retailers think. The fixed-price package includes consultation, programming and design elements to provide you with a professional site, but not a complex site. It does not include us writing the content for the site. We would expect you to provide all content.

The typical basic site would cover the pages / points all listed in point 1 above – to varying levels of detail.

Note: there are websites that cost $15,000 and more. This is too expensive in our view. The price varies according to complexity.

3. Domain registration. We would guide you on this. A www name will cost around $50 for two years – paid to the registration company. This is something you would register so you have absolute control over it at all times. We have seen web companies register domains for businesses and hold the to ransom when the businesses want to go elsewhere.
4. Website hosting. This is usually a per month cost. A basic site with around 500 items will cost around $220.00 a month to host. Hosting means the site running on a computer in a secure server farm. This is not a Tower Systems location but rather a location created solely to host thousands of websites. The hosting fee does not offer any labour for loading products or actually managing the site.
5. SEO – Google ranking activity to help the site be easily found. We do this work through bursts with each burst professionally organised and managed. A burst involves creating backlinks for the site or for specific pages on the site that guide Google to list the site in terms of its rankings. Typically, a new site would have this work done twice in the first six months. We ask you questions about your competitors. Knowing what or who to target in dong SEO work is vital. Targeting is all done based on keywords that people will use when searching for a business like yours.

We have been successful in boosting several sites to the front page of Google rankings.  Type in POS software to Google and you will see us listed on the first page immediately below Xero and MYOB. This is excellent positioning for a company our size. Getting to this position takes work. Maintaining it takes even more work. This is the SEO work to which we refer here.

We are thrilled with the growing revenue being achieved by small business retailers using websites we have created, websites that seamlessly connect with the bricks and mortar POS software used in retail businesses that we serve.

While some retailers we are working with are new to online retail, for others our involvement in second and third generation for them. In each situation we are able to bring diverse experience to the table to help all sorts of small independent retailers to enhance their online e-commerce situation, attract new shoppers and drive the value of the retail business.

Our diverse experience in several retail channels sets us up to be able to help retailers reach beyond what is traditional for their specific channel.

With our Tower created website pool growing we have excellent reference sites to share to show indie retailers what is possible.