Tower Systems helps retailers and their families enjoy the time they save with smart POS software
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Five ways suppliers to small business retailers can increase sales using smart POS software
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Suppliers serving independent small business retailers can sell more product without a doubt if they are smart in the way they engage with retailers. Suppliers who do not engage with these opportunities miss sales and often find themselves without customers.
Do these five things and expect to sell more to small business retailers:
- Provide electronic invoices to an acceptable EDI standard.
- Provide an electronic version of your stock file.
- Provide an electronic version of catalogue data for seasonal catalogues.
- Handle electronic orders.
- Receive and manage an electronic flow of sales data to improve just in time supply models.
These tips are offered as part of a series from Tower Systems, a POS software company serving more than 3,500 small business retailers with specialist POS software for a range of retail niches.
Every day through our software, advice, support and training we provide help beyond the software, help to make a genuine difference to the small retail businesses we serve.
Plants Plus loyalty is a breeze for Plants Plus retailers thanks to Tower Systems
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Tower Systems is helping Plants Plus retailers to transition from the group run loyalty program to the Tower Systems Garden centre software loyalty offer, to retail existing customer balances, make offers easily and leverage the long-developed loyalty database for the benefit of each Plants Plus business.
The work being done by Tower Systems in this area is comprehensive, beyond the software. We are working with HTH and Plants Plus retailers to ensure a smooth hassle-free transition that does not let one Plants Plus customer slip through. We are leveraging years of working in the loyalty space in several retail channels with diverse requirements.
The work being done by Tower Systems above and beyond the software is the type of work the company offers retailers in all channels in which it serves.
Helping regional newspaper publishers navigate price changes
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Tower Systems is working with several regional newspaper publishers to ease the introduction of price changes through their retail network. As our newsagency software is the industry standard we work with these publishers as we do with other suppliers to help newsagents handle newspaper cover price changes with ease.
We are grateful to the publishers who share price change information long in advance so we can develop appropriate messaging to make the change simple.
Five unexpected ways smart POS software backed by good support can help small business retailers
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Retailers think about POS software systems as all being the same. Usually, they look upon them as a cash register replacement. While that is true,, good POS software does considerably more than this. Good POS software delivers benefits deep within a retail business.
Specialist POS software for specialty retailers such as garden centres, bike shops, jewellers, pet shops, newsagents and others benefit from software tailored to their needs beyond the cash register function. Usually, such specialisation includes linking to suppliers and serving mutual needs.
Here are five of many unexpected ways the Tower Systems specialist retail channel software helps small business retailers:
- Cut theft. This usually happens by the software revealing situations retailers otherwise would miss.
- Easier to sell. A retail business using specialist POS software well is easier to sell because it is easier to operate.
- Freed up cash. Cash is too often wasted in small business retail. Following the recommended processes in our software will see you buy better and this will result in less stock purchasing failure.
- Power. Retailers using our software tell us they feel more powerful when negotiating with suppliers thanks to the data they have at their fingertips.
- Comfort. While many worry about stress that could come with installing a computer system, they often, unexpectedly find comfort from the structure, ease of use and value from the Tower software
- Expect more. Yes, this is a sixth way. From your software company, expect more. Seek their help and insights and these are sure to help you get more from your business.
These tips are offered as part of a series from Tower Systems, a POS software company serving more than 3,500 small business retailers with specialist POS software for a range of retail niches.
Every day through our software, advice, support and training we provide help beyond the software, help to make a genuine difference to the small retail businesses we serve.
Five ways small business retailers can reduce labour costs
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Next to rent, labour is the next largest cost faced by small business retailers. Too often, retailers do hot manage labour as effectively as they can. In our work with small business retailers across a number of channels we have developed ideas on reducing labour costs. Here are five ideas we see work well:
- Roster by revenue. Plot revenue by hour and roster shop floor sales staff according to the sales volume.
- Roster to an hourly cost. Use smart roster software, like our free eziroster.com.au, and roster to a budget.
- Track sales by employee. Report on sales by employee by hour worked and assess the contribution they make to the business.
- Time shift tasks. Most away from rostered hours work that can be done without a labour cost. For example, backing up data or linking to your accounting software – both can be done without any labour cost.
- Eliminate manual processes. Get suppliers to provide electronic invoices, stop pricing everything you sell – use shelf labels, don’t count stock manually … to name a few tasks you can eliminate entirely.
These tips are offered as part of a series from Tower Systems, a POS software company serving more than 3,500 small business retailers with specialist POS software for a range of retail niches.
Every day through our software, advice, support and training we provide help beyond the software, help to make a genuine difference to the small retail businesses we serve.
Five free forgotten marketing ideas for small business retailers
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Retailers often forget these marketing opportunities they have everyday in their businesses, opportunities to make a pitch at no cost that can have shoppers more engaged with a business.
- Pitch on your receipt. Sure, it is a record of a purchase. It is also a valuable advertising platform.
- Pitch by time of day. Some days are slower than others. Some times of the day are slower than others. Promote based on the low times to drive engagement.
- Add value. On the receipt with a purchase automatically include care instructions or other advice to add value to the purchase. Show your customers why purchasing from you is different, better, than if they were to purchase from elsewhere.
- Be smart with placement. Use your business data to see what sells with what. Place commonly purchased together items next to each other and drive sales.
- Thank your customers. Email customers a thank you note based on a recent purchase and they will be back. Your software can make this type of marketing easier.
These tips are offered as part of a series from Tower Systems, a POS software company serving more than 3,500 small business retailers with specialist POS software for a range of retail niches.
Every day through our software, advice, support and training we provide help beyond the software, help to make a genuine difference to the small retail businesses we serve.
30 Christmas marketing ideas for any independent retail business anywhere – Sunday retail management advice
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Tower Systems works with more than 3,500 small business retailers in speciality retail niches including jewellers, garden centres, bike shops, toy shops, gift shops, newsagents, pet shops, adult shops and more. We offer these ideas as our Christmas gift to you.
- Be community minded. Choose a local charity or community group to support through Christmas. Consider: a change collection tin at the counter; a themed Christmas window display; promotion on your social media pages; a donation to their work; a collection point for donations from customers.
- Facilitate sharing stories. Find space in your shop for customers to share their Christmas stories. It could be a story wall inside or in front of the shop. This initiative encourages storytelling by locals and better connects the business with the community.
- Award a prize at a local school. Fund a year-end prize at a local school. Attend a school assembly to award the prize. Work with the school leadership on a prize appropriate to your business.
- VIP preview. Host a VIP shopper preview night when you show off your Christmas ranges ahead of being available to the general shoppers. Respect and reward your local shoppers with deals and the opportunity to preview ahead of others.
- Leverage Christmas traffic. Encourage the Christmas shopper traffic surge in after Christmas. Give them a reason to come back. A coupon promotion or a discount voucher on receipts could be the enticement to get shoppers back in-store. Note: the Tower POS software produces discount vouchers to rules you establish.
- Become a gallery. Work with a school, kindergarten, community group or retirement village to bring in local art for people to come and see through Christmas. A small space commitment can drive traffic from family and friends of those with art on show.
- Dress the shop. Fully embrace Christmas. Create a Christmas experience such that shoppers know they have stepped into somewhere special this Christmas. Go for more than some tinsel and a tree. Fully embrace the opportunity.
- Make your shop smell like Christmas.
- Send cards. Send Christmas cards early in the season to suppliers, key customers and local community groups. This connects you with Christmas. Invite all team members to sign each card.
- Host a Christmas party. For shops nearby. You are all in the season together – let your hear down before things get crazy.
- Ensure you have gifts targeted at occasions. For example: Kris Kringle, by price point and by recipient. Make it easy for people to know what they could give.
- Stocking stuffers. At your counter always have one or two stocking stuffers for impulse purchase.
- Offer gift vouchers – for someone to give when they are not sure what to give.
- Be local. Ensure you have a selection of locally sourced products available for purchase. Make it clear in-store that these products are sourced locally.
- Tell stories. On your Facebook page, talk about what is important to you at Christmas. Personalise the season and deepen the connection with those who could shop with you.
- Offer a free gift. Bulk purchase an item to offer those who spend above a set amount. For example, spend $65 and receive XX where XX may have cost $5.00 but could have a perceived value of $20.00.
- Keep it fresh. Every week make significant change to your Christmas displays and promotions to keep your offer fresh.
- Share Christmas recipes. Each week for, say, four weeks, give customers a family Christmas recipe. This personalises Christmas in your business, creates a talking point and makes shopping with you different to your bigger competitors.
- Free wrapping. Sure, many retailers offer this. Make your offer better, more creative and more appreciated.
- This is essential in any business. Manage it through your computer system with strict rules.
- Work the floor. Increase time on the shop floor. Be present to manage shopper flow and to facilitate purchases.
- Christmas is crazy busy I most retail situations. Give yourself and your team members sufficient time to recharge so the smile greeting shoppers is heartfelt.
- Keep a secret. If yours is a business selling gifts a partner may purchase for their loved-one, create some mystery with a closed off display for the shopper to see the products.
- Free assembly. If you sell items that require assembly. Offer to do this for free.
- Free delivery. Offer free Christmas Eve delivery for items purchased for kids for Christmas.
- Sell training. Leverage the specialist knowledge you have in your business by selling as gifts places at classes you run sharing your expertise.
- Hold back. Don’t go out with everything you have for Christmas all at once. Plan the season to show off what you have as the season unfolds. This allows you multiple launches.
- Share a taste. Regardless if your type of business, bake a family recipe of Christmas cake, Christmas pudding or Christmas biscuits and offer tastings to shoppers on select days. This personalises the experience in your shop.
- Offer hampers. Package several items together and offer them as a hamper. Time-poor shoppers could appreciate you doing this work for them. We have seen this work in many different retail situations.
- Buy X get Y. Encourage people to spend more with a volume based deal. Pitched right, this could get customers purchasing items for several family members in order to get the price offer you have. Use your technology to manage this.
Christmas is the perfect time to plan for next year. It is the time to do everything possible to leverage bonus Christmas traffic to benefit your business through next year.
Tower Systems offers Point of sale / retail management software tailored for your specific type of retail business. Our software can help you leverage Christmas traffic for year-long benefits.
We provide you with loyalty facilities that are fresh and small-business focussed, loyalty facilities through which you can pitch a point of difference compared to big business competitors.
One of our retail experts can help: Please call our sales team at 1300 662 957 or email them at sales@towersystems.com.au.
Free small business retailer training on the new loyalty
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With evidence that discount vouchers drive a better commercial outcome than points based loyalty program, the free training Tower Systems offers to retailers on its unique and successful POS software integrated program is popular.
The new loyalty. This is a fresh approach to loyalty for small business retailers, something genuinely unique and through which engaged retailers can guide shoppers to spend more in a visit as well as to encourage shoppers to return to the business.
The new loyalty is a suite of facilities and a business management approach through which chance can be affected on a business that will drive sales and encourage customer happiness. It is a whole of business approach – that can make an extraordinary positive contribution to a business.
The new loyalty is part of the Tower AdvantageTM. It is unique to us and our coustomers.
POS software for whole foods retailers helps drive sales and cut wastage
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Tower Systems is thrilled to welcome more whole foods retailers to its growing POS software user community.
Thanks to several unique facilities in the Tower software the company is able to serve needs unique to whole foods stores. Our service of the niche whole foods retail channel is another example of the value of small business POS software specialisation.
Specialisation is something we do well thanks to deep consultation with current and prospective customers in selected retail channels. This and not specialising too far and wind keeps the company focused on serving the needs of specialist retailers.
Whole foods retailers can rely on the Tower software to continue to develop to serve emerging needs in this important retail niche.
Helping develop good IT talent in Australia benefits our POS software
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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.
How second hand goods software helps retailers manage and sell secondhand goods
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The secondhand goods management software within the Tower systems POS software helps secondhand retailers to meet their regulatory obligations in tracking these goods.
While developed initially for jewellers, the facilities have been enhanced over time to serve more retail channels offering secondhand goods. As the retail channels in this space have expanded so has the knowledge available to Tower systems to better serve the needs of the retailers.
From buying to shop floor management to selling, we track the goods in an accurate and data valuable way – serving the retailer and the customer through along the way.
Retailers benefit from time saved in record keeping as well as from maintaining best-practice records. This is invaluable in times of dispute.
Secondhand goods retail is a specialist field and Tower Systems is thrilled to bring its specialist POS software facilities to this specialist field.
POS software helps retailers with scale integration
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The POS software scale integration facilities in the Tower Systems small business POS software are helping retailers across a variety of retail channels.
Produce stores, confectionery stores, whole foods stores, independent supermarkets, garden centres, greengrocers and other retailers are loving the seamless integration between the POS software and counter scale facilities.
Any store selling products by weight can rely on the integration with scales for producing accurate selling by weight.
The outcome is time saving for retailers. It also ensure reduces keystrokes and with every keystroke eliminated is the potential for a mistake eliminated.
The scale integration offered by Tower Systems has been tested to ensure it meets exacting requirements, to provide an accurate customer account of what is purchased and thereby charging correctly for items sold by weight.
Scale integration is another valuable point of difference provided by Tower Systems to its small business retail customers.
Free training helps small business retailers embrace POS software
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Tower Systems is thrilled to announce more free POS software training for its small business customers. Here is a list of the new free training opportunities launched by the company:
- Wednesday, 11 November @ 2:00 PM. Using Targeting Marketing in Retailer. Use marketing to target specific types and groups of customers.
- Wednesday, 18 November @ 2:00 PM. The New Loyalty – Discount Vouchers. Start using Discount Vouchers to grow your business. A great introduction to this great feature.
- Wednesday, 25 November @ 2:00 PM. Information you did not know your POS software could tell you. Reports and information you didn’t know retailer could tell you about your business.
- Wednesday, 2 December @ 2:00 PM. Using Catalogues for Christmas sales. Quickly and easily setup automatic discounts for Christmas sales.
- Wednesday, 9 December @ 2:00 PM. Don’t miss a sale this Christmas. Use Gift Vouchers. Keep customers coming back to your store with Gift Vouchers, sell and redeem professional Gift Vouchers entirely within Retailer ready for Christmas gifts.
- Wednesday, 16 December @ 2:00 PM. Free Up Cash in Your Business Today. Find stock that isn’t selling and turn it into cash quickly.
How Xero is changing how small business retailers use POS software
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Small business retailers are loving Xero and retailers using the Tower POS software are loving our approved Xero integration. Saving time, cutting keystrokes and cutting accounting fees are some of the benefits being delivered to plenty of retailers partnering with us in the use of our POS software / Xero integration.
Using this ourselves in our own retail business, we have personal experience on which to draw when providing advice to our customers. It places us in a unique position for a software company and allows us to provide a level of service customers love.
Our own experience is that Xero does change a business forever. The time saving and other benefits claimed are real. We can speak to these and ensure our customers are able to leverage the time savings.
Helping small business retailers beat Woolworths in the loyalty sakes – Sunday small business retail management advice
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The new Woolworths shopper loyalty program recently released has received plenty of coverage. Now that it is live we have had a chance to test drive it and, frankly, our opinion of it is not good.
The new Woolworths loyalty program is not good value for the consumer.
We know from our own small business customers using the discount voucher facilities in our POS software that the value they deliver is, on average, twenty times better value than the Woolworths offer.
Our tip today to small business retailers is – you can beat Woolworths in the loyalty stakes and we can help you do this.
POS software users love the snail mail newsletter
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Last week we mailed, yes through the post office, a print newsletter to our 3,500+ small business retail customers. This is in addition to our weekly email newsletter.
We figured an update by snail mail would be good to catch those who do not read emails. It did. The contact from customers following the mailing has been terrific.
The experience we have had is a reminder for any company service small businesses that it is important to have more than one or two channels of communication with your customers. We are thrilled with the response.
New POS software stock files
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We have tested and loaded new stock files for the following companies suppling users of our POS software:
- Hallmark.
- John Sands.
- Modern Brands.
Tower Systems helps small business retailers with marketing video
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Here is a video created in-house by Tower Systems for use by one of our POS software customers; newsXpress Mount Morgan. We love the video for its humour, naturalness and storytelling. We are proud to have played a role in helping newsXpress Mount Morgan with this.
POS software user meetings a hit with small business retailers
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Tower Systems has now completed the last round of regional group POS software user meetings for 2015. The engagement has been terrific, enabling us to learn plenty from our customers and to share insights that will help participants get more from the software.
We are grateful to all who participated and for the opportunity to show another example of the Tower Systems difference.
Specialist software for small business adult shops
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Tower Systems makes changes to the GST easy
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Tower Systems is pleased to advise small business retail customers that and change to the GST in Australia would be easy to handle within the POS software as it stands today. no software change is necessary.
Specialist software for small business gift shops
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Terrific POS software user meetings in Auckland
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It was great to catch up with retailers using our specialist POS software in Auckland earlier this week. These meetings along with our other recent user meetings help keep us close to our customers, provide feedback on our plans and open other opportunities for us to explore as our customers take us into their confidence.
Being close to your customers is vital to any POS software company today and the best way to do this is through face to face contact between the decision makers.
Specialist software for small business pet shops
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