The POS Software Blog
News from Tower Systems about locally made POS software for specialty local retailers.
In our work with Australian newsagents, one of the specialty retail channels in which we serve, we shot a video recently where we look at 2018 so far and offer commentary on the latter half of the year. Here is that in-house produced video:
Tower Systems launched scale integration for its POS software more than two years ago. Today, it is widely and successfully used to help small business retailers sell more accurately and confidently.
Our POS software scale integration helps small business retailers better serve their customers.
Developed in close consultation with retailers, these tools are established, proven and stable.
The integration with scales for the Tower Systems POS software provides retailers with options for how they sell. While selling packaged goods is no doubt faster at the sales counter, offering ‘bulk’ prices can change the pitch of the business.
In each case while the business may be significantly different, the principle is the same – the software handles the sale of items based on weight and this is a terrific differentiator for plenty of businesses that want to sell items by weight and thereby offer a volume type of pricing.
The POS software scale integration completed by Tower Systems has gone through the processes required for authentication and certification. This enables us to sell it to small business retailers with confidence and certainty. This is vital to their leveraging the facilities for their business.
Scale integration is one of a range of specialty integrations in the Tower Systems software to help small business retailers drive better business outcomes. We are experts at delivering seamless trusted integrations that serve the needs of our large small business retail community.
The powerful POS scanner/scales hybrid that we recommend installs directly into your counter top and provides:
Our expert POS software staff can install and activate the scales integration module into your Tower Systems retail software remotely. We can do this in any of the specialty retail businesses that we serve.
We are thrilled to offer more free live POS software training workshops for ur customers this month:
The POS software you choose for your business is an important decision. Get it right and the business could prosper and become considerably more valuable. Get it wrong and it could cost you plenty.
In thinking about the software you want, think about your business. Here are some headline level thoughts and suggestions.
Think about these things and think about what you want in software in your business to help you stand out.
There are many generic and cheap point of sale systems in the marketplace. Price does matter. You would know that in your business. Think about the shopper who wants a full kit but says they want the cheapest. Think about your advice to them. If you say price does matter and that you get what you pay for, the same is true with retail business software.
A small higher price today for the right software could save many times the gap between it and cheap generic software.
So, work out what you want. This must come first, ahead of any budget.
Given that you can lease or even rent software, the capital cost is best assessed as a weekly cost on the business. This makes comparing systems easier. Once you work out the weekly cost and tote up what you get for this in terms of support serves and software functionality you can reasonable compare the different systems.
If you are not sure whether a software package will serve your needs, don’t choose it. You are better off saying no than fighting with the software and the supplier to get it working exactly as you want. However, it is likely that you will need to change some business processes to suit the software you do ultimately choose.
Be flexible. Once you have chosen software, follow the advice provided by the software company and the expert they send to your business to train you. If they suggest changes to your business processes, embrace them. While changing what you do can be frustrating, software designed specifically for retailers specialist in nature and it does what it does based on years of development and feedback from many customers.
Be disciplined. Software is like a machine. It needs the right fuel. For software, that fuel is data. Ensure everyone in your business is disciplined in how the software is used. From the moment stock comes into the business to when it is sold. Track it. This will help you make better business decisions.
Be engaged. Your software company will want a two-way relationship If you have suggestions, share them Play a role in the continued evolution of the software. This helps you and other businesses in your channel.
Save time. The right software will help you eliminate manual processes. Embrace these opportunities as much as possible. Time saved is time you can invest in yourself or in the business. Seek time saving opportunities out.
Be realistic. Any new software will be a challenge. Know that you will have some rough days learning the new things. Accept these by focussing on the main goal of enjoyment and efficiency once you know the software well.
The software you choose reflects your business. Take your time. Be certain about what you want. Invest well and the right software will easily pay for itself.
We are thrilled to be hosting a POS software bootcamp in Melbourne tomorrow with retailers flying in too join us. Here is a short video we produced in-house a few weeks ago to promote this POS software Bootcamp event.
We integrated our POS software with Shopify more than two years ago. We have many websites directly connected with terrific online sales success.
One of our competitors bagged Shopify publicly. It is hilarious that they have quietly announced a Shopify integration. It had to happen. They had no choice. They lost two years in the meantime.
Our POS software Shopify integration is beautiful, direct and beneficial for our small business retailer customers. We now have years of experience demonstrating what we can do, how it can benefit our customers. Plus, as retailers ourselves who use Shopify we can speak to experience in a way that is practical and under the hood. We walk in your shoes every day.
Shopify is an easy to use e-commerce platform. We think anyone can setup a Shopify site for themselves. Linking the site to our retailer software is also easy. Shopify is a great place for a business to start on their online journey. You can control pages, products, look and plenty more. Shopify is not as complex as Magento and other more comprehensive website platforms.
Our approach to Shopify / POS software integration is holistic and can include graphic design, content writing and site structure. Our customers choose the services they use of ours. We can offer the full one stock shop when it comes to web development. We have built these skills here in Australia based on years go work, years of successful website implementation for our customers.
Our POS software integrated websites serve a single inventory database between physical store and online store.
The Tower Systems web development team is skilled in WooCommerce, Magento and Shopify. The company has plenty of sites it can show in a live portfolio of successful e-commerce sites, serving shoppers in Australia and internationally.
Small business retailers can benefit from the retail management experience at Tower Systems experience that helps deliver a more retail focussed solution.
The Tower web team is also skilled at SEO and SEM services that help raise the website rankings in key search engines, ensuring the site is found ahead of others.
But best of all, Tower Systems provides professional advice and guidance to small business retailers keen to build their online presence. Our commitment is honest transparent advice on which any small business retailer can rely.
The Tower Systems web development team is Australian based, working out of the company’s head office in Hawthorn. This is important as many web development businesses are overseas. While you might have a locally based contact person development too often is done overseas, leading to challenges with delivery and usefulness.
The 2017/18 financial year has been terrific for us and we hope so for you too. May the 2018/19 year be your best ever!
Subscriptions are bigger than ever in retail and our POS software is ideal for handling subscriptions. We are expert in the area and have solutions to suite a variety of needs.
Subscriptions can take multiple forms and payment can be handled in multiple ways. They can be a powerful way to cement a relationship with a shopper for the long term. They can also offer you a wonderful gift to sell to someone. Indeed, subscriptions can be as long-term valued and appreciated by your business as they can be by your customers.
Thanks to flexibility, power and that the software we sell is made and maintained by us, we have capacity to serve the subscription need in retail in multiple ways.
If you offer subscriptions in your shop or offer subscription services in one way or another, talk with us as our retail management software may be suited to your needs. For sure we will let you know if our software does not meet your needs.
Tower Systems helps retailers tap into wonderful and current day subscription opportunities.
For several years Tower Systems has been a trailblazer in connecting independently owned stores into single brand websites, thereby enabling hundreds of small business retailers to trade as one big business. It is an approach that has enabled independent small businesses to beat big businesses through the power of many being better than the power of one.
What we pitch here is not new for us. We have had websites achieving this for years, making money for small business retailers for years.
As well as offering POS software designed for your specific type of business, Tower Systems provides websites seamlessly connected to the shop floor, giving you a single management view.
We develop websites for our customers, in Magento, Shopify or WooCommerce.
Our websites are POS software connected, offering 24/7 selling with payments through PayPal, Oxipay (interest free buy now pay later) and credit cards.
Our websites leverage online purchases as well as click and collect. They also drive basket depth with up-sell options and handling coupons for special deals.
If you are in a banner group or a marketing group, we can provide a single website to represent all stores in the group. We do this today for one group, through five websites we created – each easily found through Google thanks to our SEO work.
Each store in a banner or marketing group gets their own page, which they can easily promote. For a single business, the POS connected website promotes their business.
We know from experience that:
We can network stores from a banner or marketing group into a single website. Thereby leveraging the power of the group of independently owned small businesses to be stronger and more useful than a big business competitor. This is how small businesses can win online.
Let us show you how together we can do this, how we can bring single stores online as well as whole groups online … through webstore connected POS software.
Not only do we create the website and the POS software, we ensure they can be found. This is key as a website that cannot be easily found through Google is a waste of money.
We would love to show individuals privately or members of your group, if you are in a group, the POS software connected websites we have created. We would take you behind the curtain, showing not only the tech. but explaining the business approach, outlining what we have done to create successful online businesses.
Fulfilment can be a challenge. We can help here too thanks to our integration work with Australia Post, Sendle and others. We can help you reduce friction with fulfilment and see you benefit from incremental online business.
Online is about a race to the cash. By this we mean that an online shopper is more likely to be ready to purchase. The first business to take their cash wins. This is where POS integrated websites can win. We can show you how.
The latest release of our POS software introduces a web dashboard to help in-store online sales fulfilment. This, coupled with inventory integration, accurate stock on hand data, professional image handling and smart SEO work helps you create and run an efficient, integrated physical and online business.
Whether you run a single store or operate as part of a marketing or banner group, Tower Systems has a track record of success you can leverage for your success. Let us show you how.
Tower Systems continues its commitment for accessible free POS software training for small business retailers with new training opportunities launched for July 2018.
We have been running free training for years and continue to do so because our small business retailer customers love it. They especially love the open ended Q&A available at the end of each session.
These sessions are live, online and fully interactive. There is no cost for participation. We fund the call and the tech at our end to make all this happen for you.
Here are the July sessions available for booking now:
Free training is a hallmark of the Tower Systems small business POS software offer. These group sessions are only part of the story. Every Tower Systems customer has access to free one on one training with our customers as and when they want. Booking is easy. This one on one training is on any topic to do with using the Tower POS software.
Tower Systems serves in excess of 3,500 small business retailers in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and elsewhere. We are grateful to our customers for their support and engagement.
Book here for awesome and free POS software training for the end of the financial year.
Every day in our POS software company we see and hear examples of optimism in small business retail from a boost in traffic to an increase in sales revenue to an increase in the overall average gross profit percentage achieved by a business.
We are thrilled to play a part of helping independent small business retailers realise their dreams through our software. We are grateful for the opportunity to share optimism among our customers.
These good an optimistic stories help others navigate change and lean into opportunities through which they can themselves find good news, find optimism.
We provide save and private places our customers can share their good stories with other customers of ours. We have done this for years and it works a treat at building optimism.
Optimism matters because it fuels small businesses, retail businesses that are independent of the usual support networks big businesses can access. We preference small businesses and do work hard ton help and encourage them to be stronger, better and happier laces, more optimistic places.
In one situation we learned how a retailer using our software achieved thousands of dollars of incremental business in a three month period by using a facility they had never used before. By turning on this facility in their software, for no additional cost, they were able to achieve sales they were up until then losing. This was done with no increase in inventory investment.
Small business retailers can increase sales through smart shopper engaging tools in our software. Beyond the usual help desk facilities, we enjoy talking business management with our customers – to help them leverage even more value from their relationship with us.
Here at Tower Systems our focus is solely on independent small business retailers in a select number of retail channels. This helps us provide specialist advice to our specialist retailers.
We are providing free flu shots for Tower Systems team members today as part of our employee care program. yesterday it was free pizza for lunch. Today flu shots. Maybe beers tonight.
Beyond our awesome POS software we create collateral any small business retailer can use to spread the small business message.
Small business retailers using the repairs management software from Tower Systems can rely on the software to streamline operations, reduce paperwork, improve customer service and deliver outcomes that help the businesses grow repairs revenue.
The repairs facilities in our software have been developed in close consultation with customers across a variety of retail channels. Plus, the repairs software is regularly enhanced – too deliver evolving solutions to meet evolving needs.
Some of the functions our specialist retail software’s repair features are being used for include:
Repairs management software is flexible, serving a range of needs outside managing the actual repairs themselves. The flexibility in the software enables it to be used in different businesses for different purposes – from job management, to workshop management and traditional repairs management.
The software tracks the labour and resources used from a billing and inventory management perspective. It also handles allocation of repairs or parts of a repair to venues outside the business (for contracting and supplier exchanges or repairs for warranty issues, for example) and tracks repair staff and couriers used in shipping repairs. Once the repair is ready for pick-up by the customer, the software finalises the billing and advises the customer by SMS or another preferred method. Payments are processed with the usual depth of our retail software’s point of sale functionality – customers can make multiple payments against a repair or a specialist manufacturing, pay through cash, EFTPOS, PayPal or other methods.
Tower Systems streamlines the repairs process, facilitates good communication and helps bring management certainty to the overall repairs process in your business. It helps local independent businesses provide the kind of professional, personal and efficient repairs services that major corporate stores and online-only offerings can only dream of.
Serving a number of specialist retail channels gives Tower Systems the opportunity to provide more comprehensive and flexible repairs/job/manufacturing management software. Our customers continue to provide feedback and influence the development and support of this software feature, from firearms stores to bike shops and more.
We love opportunities of demonstrating our POS software in a head to head comparison with the Retail Express POS software.
We are happy to visit businesses to show our software on the table next to Retail Express. Function by function this type of comparison is really valuable as it lets the software speak for itself. Comparison is useful as there you are in control from a user perspective.
Our service is personal. If you are interested in our software our if you purchaser our software, we visit your business. This personal approach is ideal for comparing our Tower Systems POS software with retail Express. We are happy to be there the same time as Retail Express. This approach puts the customer, you, at the heart of decision making. It allows you to make a decision based on the facts.
We have not used Retail Express just as Retail Express has not used our software. We cannot, therefore, speak to comparison knowledge. This is why we suggest a head to head in-store comparison. You pick a function and we will show you how our software works and you compare the exact same function with Retail Express. This is a perfect opportunity for you, to be sure that you are choosing the software that is right for your business.
Tower Systems today serves in excess of 3,500 customers. These are all small business retailers in selected retail channel niches. Our software is socialist for each of these retail channels. We continue to tailor it deeply to the needs of each of these retail channels. This provides a better and more personal outcome for the retailers in these channels. This is also a reason we are happy for a head fro head comparison with Retail Express.
To book in an obligation-free in-store head to head POS software comparison with Retail Express call us, email us or visit one of our local offices. We;d love an opportunity to personally show you what we do and help you compare our POS software with POS software from Retail Express.
CALL A TOWER NEWSAGENCY EXPERT TODAY: Please call our sales team at 1300 662 957 or email them at sales@towersystems.com.au.
I am amazed that I can call and speak to someone in Australia, someone who understands me and my type of business. You have no idea how relieved I feel.
This is a note from a customer who switched to our small business POS software from a cloud based POS program that was not supported in Australia. Their business is in Australia. It is a business in one of the specialty retail channels we serve.
I am surprised at the specialist facilities in the software. They fit what I need well. I should have gone with you guys first.
We love customer feedback and that our specialty software is loved by specialty retailers in the retail channels in which we serve.
We are grateful to the 3,500+ retailers we serve.
What a great way to celebrate Friday, celebrating our customers.
2018 is not even half over and already it has seen considerable attacks on computers and on websites. Each attack reinforces the need for all businesses, including small businesses, to have appropriate security and backup measured in place to protect business data.
Appropriate backup means:
Our advice is that you use a cloud backup service, like the Tower Backup service we offer. It works in the background, backing up without you having to do a backup. If your business is attacked, getting back to a clean and safe place is easy. Any reputable backup service should be able to offer similar to you.
Please do not put this off. Get protection for your business and your business data. You don’t want to be the person who does this after you have been attacked.
At the very least, backup every day, onto a USB stick for that day. While this is an old-school approach, it is better than nothing at all.
But let’s be clear, cloud backup is our recommendation. Our service provides you with a local backup and an offsite backup, in the cloud. This gives you two backups, excellent protection. We monitor the backups to ensure they are working. If we find an issue, we proactively call you. This is rare from a cloud backup service provider.
Here at Tower Systems we take data security seriously. We provide best-pracie advice. Our customers are welcome to use our service or another, our recommendation, however, is that they do something – to be protected.
Too often small business retailers think about data security after they have been affected. Hence this advice here and in our weekly emails and elsewhere in our touch points with customers.
Small business retailers tend to like marketing they can see. Like the ad in the local paper or the catalogue in letterboxes.
You seeing your own marketing is irrelevant. In fact, it is as irrelevant as many catalogues stuffed in letterboxes.
The best marketing today is about entertainment, accurate engagement measurement, faster delivery and more immediate in-store engagement.
Take the old-school catalogue . Artwork, printing and delivery will take three to six weeks and cost you or your marketing group around $1,500, maybe more.
In many locations, that $1,500 could have funded 60 Facebook campaigns reaching 2,000+ people, carefully targeted with accurate data on engagement.
While catalogues play a role, that role today is far less than two years ago.
A retailer told me they liked the catalogue because they could see it whereas they could not see a Facebook post. This is an old-school view.
Wwe are proud of our Aussie Pet Shop Software.
Here at Tower Systems we create and support POS software, Point of Sale software, specifically for small and independent retail businesses in Australia.
We only work with small and independent retail businesses. This keeps us focussed on these types of businesses rather than confusing focus with big businesses.
We develop what we sell. This is our software. Created over many years. Regularly enhanced to keep up to date with technology and capabilities. By selling what we develop we know what we are doing, we know it is current and we know how we can change it if needed.
This is not overseas software made to look local. This is not software backed by an international call centre.
We are local and focussed 100% on local businesses. This is what local small business retailers look for in a business partner. It is a Tower Systems difference that is valuable for our customers. We love the point of difference and focus on it ourselves.
About Tower Systems
Tower Systems International (Aust) Pty Ltd was established in 1981 by Mark Fletcher.
The company was created to develop specialty software for small businesses in selected vertical markets. It remains true to that mission today.
Mark remains the owner and Managing Director. The company has a strong leadership team across the technical, customer service and creative areas, ensuring it is not reliant on a single person to lead the business.
Tower Systems develops and supports retail management software to over independent 3500 small business retailers across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific in a limited number of retail niches, channels.
We employ 35 information technology professionals working out our company offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Auckland.
We develop and support our own retail management software as well as cloud based e-commerce sites. We stand by what we offer.
Our development team is made up of qualified and skilled software developers. They are managed by a committed Software Development Manager with years of experience with our software.
Many Tower clients have been with the company through a variety of retail businesses, choosing Tower again and again. We value long term relationships and this is reflected in our customer retention rates.
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