Shopping local warms out heart
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Aussie made and supported POS software for fabric shops helps these local businesses thrive
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Fabric shops help those who love sewing to make the most beautiful and functional clothing for family, friends, and customers. Local fabric shops help people express themselves.
From handling the sale of fabric by length, or weight, our POS software for fabric shops and for sewing shops helps these specialty retail businesses to leverage their specialisation, to feature what makes them different, and valuable.
Here are some of the ways our POS software for sewing shops helps fabric shops:
- Sell easily, including by length.
- Sell accurately.
- Know what’s working, and what’s not.
- Reduce time on paperwork.
- Get accurate insights into business performance, easily.
- Rare visit loyalty. We are told that customers visit a fabric shop infrequently compared to other retail settings. Our software offers subtle loyalty tools that encourage more value from each visit.
- Sell online. Connect your fabric shop POS software to a beautiful Shopify website offering your fabric and other products to shoppers anywhere.
- Pre-orders. Easily manage selling products before you have them in-stock. Someone planning a project can order through you and pay prior to the fabric arriving in-store.
- Buy Now Pay Later and LayBy. Through our software you can have both.
- Manage browser shopping. Fabric shoppers can wander, ask you to hold an item, wander some more, bring something else back to hold and this cycle can go for a while. Our Fabric shop POS software tracks these purchases.
- Repairs management. If you do repairs type work, like dressmaking in house, track the project from the moment it starts.
- Club / collector marketing and support. Leverage clubs and collectors with offers and pricing. Nurture the love of home sewing and connecting to this community, and growing the size of the community.
- Special orders. With some items ordered in for a customer request, managing these types of orders helps the business to manage opportunities and to capture revenue in advance.
- Serve fabric care details. You can code care details by product and include this on receipts.
- Sell by length. This may seem basic. It’s not in some software. In the Tower software, you can sell by length, including fractions.
Our Australian made and supported fabric shop software does much more than this.
One of the biggest benefits of our fabric shop and sewing shop software is the inventory management facilities. With inventory, like fabric itself, being the biggest investment in the business, it takes time and effort to manage this well and effectively for the business to be successful.
In our fabric shop POS software we track all products that come in and go out. We can instantly report on the value of inventory, what’s working, what’s not working and show trends. All of this information can feed into better business decisions, and make the fabric shop more successful.
From managing inventory to tracking customer engagement to selling online to leveraging community groups and clubs, the fabric shop software from Tower Systems is fit for service and ready to help your business thrive.
We are grateful to serve local fabric and sewing shops and thank the owners and staff members for their advice and support.
We Aussies love out dogs
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We help fishing bait & tackle shops sell memories
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Small Business Retail Advice: making your business more secure
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Security is important in any retail business. Over the years, in our work with local small business retailers and in our own shops we have collected advice on shop security. Here are some built point tips you may find helpful from the basic and simple to the more tech. oriented:
- Know how many keys there are to your premises and who has them.
- Keep a spare key is a safe place away from the business.
- Change the most powerful / valuable password for your computer software monthly and share it sparingly. Passwords should be complex. Check the strength of your password here: https://howsecureismypassword.net
- Keep a current data backup off site, in the cloud preferably. Regularly check that you can restore the data from your backup and that the data is current.
- Regularly check the use of your business software for the deletion or alteration of sales as this could indicate employee fraud.
- Have current reputable virus protection on all your computers.
- Have current reputable firewall installed on your network.
- Never open a zip file sent by email.
- Never open an email from a bank, the ATO or the police.
- Be discrete when talking about the business and its performance.
- Do not do the banking at the same time every day or every few days. Do not follow the same route. Do not carry the same bag.
- Have a camera system installed to get a good shot of the faces of everyone entering and leaving the business.
- Consider registering your CCTV with the local police – this is an option in some jurisdictions.
- Ensure customers can see they are being filmed.
- Train employees to make eye contact with customers.
- Train employees on emergency procedures for handling: theft, aggressive people, shoplifters.
- Use the full stock control facilities of your software to understand the financial cost of shoplifting.
- When doing magazine returns, check discrepancies weekly to understand magazine theft.
- Ensure your windows are not cluttered. The police advise cluttered windows are a security risk because of what they can hide.
- Ensure there is good lighting outside if the store is locked up when it is dark.
- Ensure you have the best possible sight lines of the shop from the counter.
- Have a no personal items at the counter policy.
- If you catch someone in the act of shoplifting ask them to wait in the store, and call the Police. Also (advice from NSW govt. Crime prevention):
- Tell them who you are.
- Tell them why they have been asked to stay in the store. o Advise them that Police have been called
- Ask the person to surrender any property that doesn’t belong to them. Remember, retailers and other citizens have no legal right to search a person.
- Most importantly, do not put yourself at risk.
- Have a clear refund processing policy and ensure all employees are trained on this.
- Track all sales by employee code.
- When hiring: ask if applicants agree to a police check, check their references, do not hire friends of employees, explain your commitment to zero tolerance re employee theft.
- Have an employee theft policy in full view.
Some of this may read like common sense. We continue to be surprised when hearing of a business that has experienced a security breach that has not considered most of what is on this list.
Develop your own list. Check it regularly. Follow your own advice.
We are a POS software company, making and supporting POS software for specialty retailers in Australia and New Zealand.
Small Business Retail Advice: rules of this business
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Every retail business needs rules of this business, rules everyone working in the shop is asked to follow, rules to guide behaviour.
Business without rules can function okay, until that one time when someone behaves in a way that is unacceptable.
here are some suggested rules that we have used in our shops over the years. they include some rules we have seen others use successfully in their local small business retail settings.
- Customers come first. Please treat them with respect. Appreciate them.
- We value your opinion. If you think there is something we should stock that will sell, please tell us. If you think we are making a mistake in running the business, please tell us. if you see a colleague misbehaving toward work colleague please tell us. If you see theft, please tell us.
- This is a safe place. Thank you for helping us ensure that.
- No staff member is permitted to serve themselves, ever. If you do purchase from then business, purchase from the customer side.
- Any staff discount is not to be added to already discounted items unless a manager agrees.
- If you want to buy something you do not take it off the shelf until you are ready to pay for the item. NO setting items aside.
- You are not permitted to buy something on a staff discount for someone else.
- No personal mobile phones at the counter.
- No reading behind the counter.
- No bags at the counter.
- Do not sit behind the counter.
- When a sale is over, COMPLETE THE SALE. Shut the cash drawer. Do not leave a completed sale on the screen.
- Only a manager permitted to remove money from the register during trading.
- Never put anything aside for someone who calls unless you know them and they are a regular shopper.
- The computers in the business are not to be used for personal use unless approved by the owner or manager.
This is a retail business.
Customers are our only source of revenue. Greet them with a smile. Thank them for shopping with us when they leave. This means the shop floor is the hub of our operation. Your focus on the shoo floor and our customers helps the business and this helps you.
If there is anything we can do to help you enjoy working here more, please let us know.
Every day we try and help our 3,000+ POS software customers beyond the software itself. We know that the stronger our own retail community the stronger we are as a company.
Bankable Advice for Small Business Retailers
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Engaged local small business retailers know that everyone’s got an opinion on how to run a shop. But what’s the best advice for small business retailers?
Here’s our top 7 tips, based on our own experience and decades of working with small businesses in providing POS software and even running shops ourselves:
- Use your data. Your POS software can tell you a lot about your business, from what products are selling to how often your customers visit. Use this data to make better decisions about your inventory, marketing, and staffing. yes, this sounds boring. But, it’s true. How your business has performed can be the best guide as to how it could perform.
- Connect your systems. The more you can automate your processes, the less time you’ll waste on manual tasks and the more accurate your data will be. less keystrokes = less mistakes = time saved = better business decisions.
- Look under the hood. Good POS software can give you insights into your business that you might not even know you need. Ask your POS software company what kind of data their software can track and report on.
- Set goals and measure performance. What do you want to achieve with your business? Once you know your goals, you can track your progress and make sure you’re on track. Our POS software can measure and report on valuable local retail business goals.
- Reorder what sells. Don’t waste time and money on products that don’t move. Keep an eye on your sales data and reorder the products that are selling well.
- Place products together. People often buy products that go together, so place them near each other in your store. This will make it easier for customers to find what they’re looking for and increase your sales.
- Train your staff. Make sure your staff know how to use your POS software and how to provide excellent customer service. This will help you create a positive shopping experience for your customers and keep them coming back.
Following these tips can help you run a more successful and profitable small business. Use your data, connect your systems, and look under the hood!
Now, for some extra advice:
- Be customer-centric. Put your customers first and everything else will fall into place.
- Be innovative. Don’t be afraid to try new things and experiment with different marketing strategies.
- Be persistent. Success doesn’t happen overnight. Keep working hard and never give up on your dreams.
Tower Systems is grateful to serve 3,000+ local independent small business retailers in a variety of specialty retail channels.
Advice for small business retailers on dead stock
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Dead stock has no value in any retail business. Indeed, it has a cost as it takes up space and needs labour to keep it clean at least. It sits there, occupying this space, not being bought, paging with each day.
What constitutes dead stock will vary by type of retail business. In some, stock has an expiry date, making that the drop-dead date for the stock. In other businesses, stock is dead when a new version or new release of an item is out.
For the purpose of the advice we provide here, our definition of dead stock is that which has not sold whatsoever in six months or more. The is, you have a quantity of an item on hand and have not sold any of then in six months.
Knowing what stock is dead in your small business shop is critical. It is the start, the beginning, of resolving the issue of dead stock.
Our Tower Systems POS software helps local small business retailers easily identify dead stock. You can decide what constitutes dead stock in your business and list it, bring it up on the screens for attention.
Start there, start with your definition. next, use your software to identify what’s dead. Once you have this information you need to jump, what for some, is a hurdle … you need to decide to quit that stock.
Some retailers are adamant that they need to make a profit on everything they sell. These retailers don’t like discounting to quit dead stock. The thing is, the stock on the shelf is worthless until someone pays you something for it.
In our pragmatic view, getting something, anything just about, is for stock that is dead is better than waiting longer and getting nothing for that same dead stock.
Quitting dead stock is best considered a freeing cash move. That’s what we say getting anything at all is better than the stock sitting on the shelves and not moving.
Use your POS software to identify the dead stock and then jump that hurdle and quit it, quickly, freeing the space and allowing you to focus on what’s next.
In our Tower Systems POS software, the Stock manager tool is best for identifying stock that is dead. You can easily see when you last arrived stock, what’s on hand and when it last sold. In seconds you can have a hit list of stock that could benefit from action. Stock manager operates in a way that any retailer could use it. It’s not complex, not daunting. We have a terrific video showing how to do this with Stock manager. We also have a wonderful advice sheet.
Retail businesses exist to support those who rely on them for income. Dead stock is not helping with this.
Unfortunately, too many small business retailers do not actively engage with the opportunity of dead stock.
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We are grateful to serve more than 3,000 local and independent small business retailers here at Tower Systems. Our POS software community is diverse and very much appreciated by us for their support and feedback.
The advice we share here comes from our years of engagement with them and our own experience as engaged retailers ourselves.
We help small business retailers stand out from the crowd
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Helping small business retailers take the gamble out of decision making
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Small business retail advice: How to manage community group donation requests
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Requests from schools, charities, and other local community groups can be a challenging, difficult, for small business retailers. If you don’t have a structured approach, you’ll end up giving away a lot for little or no return.
Guilt is a powerful emotion, and some representing charities and community groups know this. Take a beat and think through how you want to handle such requests in advance of them coming your way. If you have a process you can deal with the requests consistently and with less stress.
Here’s our advice for local small business retailers on handling community group donation requests:
- Manage your philanthropy like any business activity. Decide how much money you’re willing to donate each year, and then stick to that budget.
- Get on the front foot. Write to community groups at the start of the year and ask them to submit a proposal if they’d like your support. This way, you can choose the groups that are a good fit for your business and your community.
- Support the groups that support you. Look for groups that have members who are also your customers. This way, you’re helping both the group and your business.
- Let your shoppers choose. If you offer discount vouchers, you could let customers donate their vouchers to a local group. This is a great way to get your customers involved in your community giving.
- Reward engagement. You could offer a discount to customers who are members of a local group. This would encourage them to shop at your business, and it would also support the group. This is critical advice. There has to be a commercial benefit for your business if you are to be able to help these community groups into the future.
- Educate groups about good engagement. Let groups know that you’re looking for ways to work together to benefit the community. You could ask them to do things like promote your business on their social media pages, or write about you in their newsletters.
- Write about your engagement. Once you’ve chosen the groups you’re going to support, write about it on your website and social media. Don’t be boastful or arrogant, be grateful. This will help to raise awareness of the groups, and it will also show your customers that you’re committed to giving back to the community.
Remember, your giving should serve both your heart and your business. By following these tips, you can make sure that your donations are a valuable investment for both you and your community.
Here are some additional tips:
- Be clear about your expectations. Let groups know what you’re looking for in a partnership, and what you expect from them in return.
- Be professional. Even if you’re dealing with a small community group, it’s important to be professional in your dealings with them.
- Be grateful. When a group partners with you, be sure to thank them for their support.
By following these tips, you can build strong relationships with community groups and make a real difference in your community.
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Why this advice from our POS software company matters.
Every day we connect with small business retailers about their businesses, through our help desk, in sales situations and elsewhere. Owning and running a local small business retail shop is challenging, time-consuming. Coming up with fresh ideas is hard. It’s necessary though. The ideas we share here are things we have tried, and found to work.
Small business retail advice: nurturing happiness in your shop
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Let’s talk about happiness in retail, in local small business retail especially.
There’s no doubt that being happy in your work makes a big difference to your overall wellbeing. And in retail, it’s especially important to be happy, because your mood can rub off on your customers and your colleagues.
But happiness isn’t something you can just decide to feel. It takes desire, planning and commitment.
Here are a few tips for finding, nurturing, and managing happiness in your local small business retail shop:
- Create a happy place. From music to scent to shop layout to lighting to things shoppers can engage with, make decisions that lean into happiness. These are physical things you can control, things that can easily tell everyone in the shop that this is a happy place. In our view, this first tip is by far the most important.
- Have good data. This might sound boring, but good data is essential for making informed decisions about your business. And when you make good decisions, you’re more likely to be happy with the results.
- Be in control. Don’t let suppliers or other people push you around. Use your data to make your own decisions, and don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself.
- Price for margin and turn. This means setting prices that will give you a good profit margin, but that will also sell quickly.
- Lean on others. Don’t try to do everything yourself. Build a team of happy and talented people who can help you run your business.
- Set your narrative. In your marketing and social media, be positive and optimistic. This will help to create a happy and welcoming atmosphere for your customers.
Of course, there are also some more practical things you can do to create a happy retail environment.
Happiness is good for business, and it’s good for you. So make sure you’re taking steps to find and nurture happiness in your retail shop.
Cheers! 🍻
P.S. Don’t forget to smile! 😃
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Why this advice from our POS software company matters.
Every day we connect with small business retailers about their businesses, through our help desk, in sales situations and elsewhere. Owning and running a local small business retail shop is challenging, time-consuming. Coming up with fresh ideas is hard. It’s necessary though. The ideas we share here are things we have tried, and found to work.
Small business retail advice on how to handle and leverage low margin products
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We know that low margin, high volume businesses can be tough. The traffic is good, but the profits are slim. And it can be hard to know how to make the most of those low-margin products and services.
How do we know this you ask? Here at Tower Systems we serve thousands of local small business retailers. This provides us with broad experience. It is surprising the crossover value of knowledge across retail channels. As well as helping retailers leverage our POS software we are grateful to share this business management advice.
No, back to low-margin products and how dealing with them can feel challenging for small business retailers.
Don’t worry, we’re here to help. We’ve put together a list of five must-do things to leverage your low value traffic.
- Place at least one offer or stand at the door. This is a great way to catch people’s attention as they’re leaving. Make sure the offer is clear and relevant to people walking in or walking by.
- Use a portable table for pricing stock. This is a great way to keep your stock looking neat and tidy, and it also gives you a chance to upsell other products to customers as you are pricing items.
- Pitch other products to customers who are buying low-margin items. This is a great way to increase your average order value. Like, use the traffic of low-margin product to sell other things.
- Have an offer at the counter that’s unrelated to the low margin purchase. This is a great way to tempt customers into impulse buys.
- Establish a floor unit to guide counter traffic. This is a great way to showcase your products and services, and it also helps to keep your customers moving through your store.
Oh, here’s a bonus tip. Offer a sample, a taste, or a feel (if appropriate). People engaging with a product are more likely to purchase. We have seen this happen in a. range of different types of retail businesses.
We know that these tips might seem like a lot of work, but they’re worth it. By following these tips, you can increase your profits and make your low margin, high volume business more successful.
If you need any help, we’re here for you. We have awesome tools to help low margin, high volume retailers, and we’d be glad to give you some practical advice.
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Why this advice from our POS software company matters.
Every day we connect with small business retailers about their businesses, through our help desk, in sales situations and elsewhere. Owning and running a local small business retail shop is challenging, time-consuming. Coming up with fresh ideas is hard. It’s necessary though. The ideas we share here are things we have tried, and found to work.
Thanks for reading.
Small business retail advice: how to discover fresh ideas
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You know what’s important, especially in local small business retail? Coming up with fresh ideas. Big ideas, small ideas, ideas for new traffic, products, and services.
But it can be tough to come up with new ideas, right? Sometimes you feel like you’re stuck in a rut. Sometimes you feel alone. Sometimes you feel like you are growing in … stuff!
Well, we’re here at Tower Systems to help you out. We serve thousands of retailers and have experience in local small business retail ourselves.
Here are some suggestions for ways to clear that blockage, to discover fresh ideas:
- Try a sensory deprivation tank. It’s weird at first, but it’s a great way to relax and let your mind wander.
- Cook a complex meal that you’ve never cooked before. Or bake a cake. Or do a jigsaw puzzle. Or build a model. Just do something that you’re not used to doing.
- Go to a ballet or opera. Or a comedy show. Or a walk in the forest. Or sit in front of the ocean and look out to the horizon.
- Shut yourself in a dark room and put on your favourite music and sing along. Or try yoga, or meditation, or have a massage.
- Read a novel from cover to cover without interruption. Or do some gardening or other backyard work, or go for a long drive.
- Have a romantic dinner with your partner at a place you’ve never been before. Or take an unexpected day off and treat yourself to some guilty pleasures.
The point is to get lost in experiences that are unrelated to your business. By getting lost, getting truly lost, ideas have a better opportunity of surfacing.
So go out there and have some fun! The great ideas will follow.
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Why this advice from our POS software company matters.
Every day we connect with small business retailers about their businesses, through our help desk, in sales situations and elsewhere. Owning and running a local small business retail shop is challenging, time-consuming. Coming up with fresh ideas is hard. It’s necessary though. The ideas we share here are things we have tried, and found to work.
We love trying new things as we have found that in those unknown places creativity thrives.
Advice for small business retailers on the best value approach to decision making
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How decisions are made in local independent retail businesses can determine the value of those decisions, the consequences on those decisions.
Too often in our work with small business retailers we have seen decisions based on emotion rather than evidence.
The POS software we make for specialty small business retail collects and curates business data that can inform decisions. New have seen wonderful and valuable success flow in retail businesses that make decisions based on evidence is this data.
A common situation of poor decision making is buying stock. Too often we see small business retailers buying because they like a sales rep or because they like the look of something when their own business data indicate that buying that stock is not the right move for their retail business.
In our POS software we make it easy for local retailers to access this data about stock performance, we make it easy for them to have the evidence of their own data to better inform decisions they are considering. retailers who do this, who rely on the evidence in their own business data, tend to run more successful and valuable retail businesses. They tend to enjoy their businesses more too.
Buying stock has to be black and white: will this decision make money for the business in the time that the business needs? As a retail business trades using POS software like ours it builds up knowledge in its trading, knowledge that can be accessed, analysed and understood by the POS software itself to make it easy to see the right stock buying decisions to make.
We upset a retailer a while back when they happened to mention that products from a supplier were not working for them. They were unhappy when we showed them their own data that disagreed with their opinion. It turns out that their opinion was based on a dislike of the manager of the supplier business. They were letting their emotion get in the way of facts. The situation turned out well, the business made more money as a result.
If you are in retail to be successful, we urge you to make decisions based on your business evidence. Our POS software can help. We back its facilities with terrific training and customer support materials that are easily accessible.
We love helping local small business retailers make good decisions. It’s something that makes us feel good.
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We are grateful to serve more than 3,000 local and independent small business retailers here at Tower Systems. Our POS software community is diverse and very much appreciated by us for their support and feedback.
The advice we share here comes from our years of engagement with them and our own experience as engaged retailers ourselves.
Candy for retailers
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Serving small business retail insights
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Tower Systems Antique Shop Software: Helping Antique Dealers Run More Enjoyable and Successful Businesses
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Running an antique shop can be a lot of work. There’s inventory to track, customers to keep happy, and payments to process. Often, depending on the type of antique business, there are many suppliers, collectors, to track and report to. Our Tower Systems Antique Shop Software helps streamline your operations and save time.
This software has sone terrific features, including:
- Inventory tracking: Tower Systems Antique Shop Software makes it easy to track your inventory, from individual items to entire collections. You can easily see what you have in stock, what you’re low on, and what you need to order. Plus, you can see the people who have provided this inventory to you, even if it is on consignment.
- Sales management: Tower Systems Antique Shop Software also makes it easy to manage your sales. You can track sales by item, by customer, or by period. This information can help you identify trends and make better decisions about your business. It’s easy to learn and therefore useful in a situation where different people work the dealership on different days.
- Customer tracking: Tower Systems Antique Shop Software helps you keep track of your customers. You can store their contact information, purchase history, and preferences. This information can help you provide better customer service and target your marketing efforts.
- Sell online: Tower Systems Antique Shop Software can also be integrated with Shopify, magenta, Woo and Big Commerce. Easily sell online.
Benefits:
- Increased efficiency: Tower Systems Antique Shop Software can help you streamline your operations and save time. You can easily process transactions, track inventory, and manage sales. This frees up your time so you can focus on other aspects of your business.
- Improved customer service: Tower Systems Antique Shop Software can help you provide better customer service. You can easily track customer orders and preferences, and you can send them reminders about upcoming appointments or events. This can help you build stronger relationships with your customers and keep them coming back.
- Increased sales: Tower Systems Antique Shop Software can help you increase your sales. You can easily sell your products online, and you can target your marketing efforts to specific demographics. This can help you reach a wider audience and boost your sales.
Our Tower Systems Antique Shop Software is easy to use, efficient, and can help improve your customer service and increase sales.
Call 1300 662 957 or email sales@towersystems.com.au for more details and to outline what it is you are looking for in Antique shop software.
Here are some additional benefits of using Tower Systems Antique Shop Software:
- Reporting: Track your sales, inventory, and customer data. This information can help you make better decisions about your business.
- Remote management: You can access your software from anywhere with an internet connection. This means you can manage your business from home or on the go.
- Helpful support: Tower Systems offers human delivered support, so you can get help you need.
If you’re looking for a powerful and easy-to-use POS software for your antique shop, then Tower Systems Antique Shop Software could be a good fit for you.
Some thoughts on news of Lightspeed charging small business retailers a ‘penalty’ if they choose to NOT use Lightspeed Payments
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Jewellery shops are unique and benefit from using software made for their needs
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Jewellers are a special breed of retailers. They need a POS software that can handle the unique needs of their business, from tracking unique types of inventory to managing repairs. The Tower Systems Jeweller Software is the perfect solution for jewellery businesses of all sizes.
Features:
- Inventory tracking: Tower Systems Jeweller Software makes it easy to track your inventory, from raw materials to finished products. You can easily see what you have in stock, what you’re low on, and what you need to order. The software even works with fluctuating raw eateries prices.
- Repairs management: Tower Systems Jeweller Software also makes it easy to manage customer repairs. You can track the status of each repair, send reminders to customers, and invoice them for the work.
- Customer relationship management (CRM): Tower Systems Jeweller Software includes a built-in CRM system (as some people call it) that helps you keep track of your customers. You can store their contact information, purchase history, and preferences. This information can help you provide better customer service and target your marketing efforts.
- E-commerce: Tower Systems Jeweller Software can also be integrated with an e-commerce platform like Shopify, Big Commerce, Magento or WooCommerce, so you can sell your products online. This can help you reach a wider audience and boost your sales.
Benefits:
- Increased efficiency: Tower Systems Jeweller Software can help you streamline operations and save time. You can easily process transactions, track inventory, and manage repairs. This frees up your time so you can focus on other aspects of your business.
- Improved customer service: Tower Systems Jeweller Software can help you provide better customer service. You can easily track customer orders and preferences, and you can send them reminders about upcoming appointments or events. This can help you build stronger relationships with your customers and keep them coming back.
- Increased sales: Tower Systems Jeweller Software can help you increase your sales. You can easily sell your products online, and you can target your marketing efforts to specific demographics. This can help you reach a wider audience and boost your sales.
We think our Jeweller Software is pretty awesome. We are truly grateful that hundreds of jewellers have chosen our software and have stayed with us for years. This year already we have welcomed a swag of new jeweller customers.
We think our Jeweller Software is terrific POS software for local independent jewellery businesses. It’s easy to use, efficient, and can help you improve your customer service and increase your sales. If you’re looking for a POS software that can help you take your jewellery business to the next level, then Tower Systems Jeweller Software is worth considering.
Tell us about your needs:
Contact us at 1300 662 957 or by email on sales@towersystems.com.au to outline your needs and explore whether what we offer could serve you.
Tower Systems at the Reed Gift Fair in Melbourne
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We are excited to share that we will be at the Reed Gift Fair in Melbourne next month at stand K34.
On our stand we will be showing the latest POS software for gift shops as well as the latest truly portent POS software for on the road, at markets, in a pop up shop and more. Both these products are fresh, Aussie made and Aussie supported.
We are grateful to so many gift shops for their support. The growth of new customers in this vibrant channel already this year is wonderful.
We will also be showing off our latest integrations and innovations for retailers more broadly. It will be an exciting few days in Melbourne, and on the back of some other terrific trade shows already this year.
How does our Aussie POS software for gift shops compare?
- Awesome software made for gift shops.
- Rent for $165.00 a month (inc. GST). That’s the real monthly price, not an annual price quoted for monthly.
- No lock in contract.
- Cancel at any time without penalty.
- You’re not required to use a specific EFTPOS provider.
- No extra cost to use on as many terminals in your shop as you want.
- Personal training included – half a day of personal, live, training.
- Training videos included. Learn anytime, at your own pace.
- Melbourne-based, human support by our own team.
- Awesome loyalty tools that offer you differentiation shoppers love.
- Included integrations: Xero, Shopify, Big Commerce, Zip, Humm & more.
- Using this software supports local Aussie jobs.
Rent our Aussie made gift shop software for $159.00 a month (inc. GST).
This $165.00 a month cost includes the software, support (Melbourne based), half a day of training, access to training videos and a knowledge base of advice.
Find out more at www.towersystems.com.au/gift.
Watch a demonstration: https://youtu.be/0kArDkAKE4E
We are grateful to already serve 3,000+ local retailers. We’d love to serve you if our software does what you need. Call us on 1300 662 957 or email sales@towersystems.com.au.
From sales to special orders to pre-orders, from Xero integration to digital receipt integration, from loyalty that works to easy shopper postcode tracking, from smart ways to pitch shop local to featuring locally made products … our gift shop software is made for gift retailers, made to help you thrive.
For EFTPOS, link to Tyro, the major banks, as well as SmartPay.
For selling online, link to Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento and Woo.
Our software does smart things, too, like making it fast and easy to remove the background of photos you take of products.
Advice for local small business retailers: how to enhance your local credentials
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In 2023, embodying the essence of local in the retail become more vital than ever. Big businesses are engaged in local, but they are using systems, processes and tech. The conundrum for genuinely local small business retailers lies in authentically cultivating a local identity.
The term local means different things to different people. It isn’t restricted to geographic proximity. Local can be perceived as the degree of personalised care you offer to your customers, the supplementary advice you give, living within the locality yourself, sourcing products locally, or serving the community on a personal level. It may also be linked to the availability of locally sourced products.
For instance, a product produced anywhere within Australia could be deemed as locally sourced. Narrating the story of where a product originates, along with the family involved in its creation, can add a local touch to it, distinguishing it from similar overseas products. This narrative is crucial because it underlines the local aspect.
Small retail businesses can leverage Tower Systems’ retail POS software to effectively promote their local attributes in various ways:
- Enhance your receipts: Use receipts to provide product care instructions, usage guidelines, or other beneficial information automatically, turning your receipts into a valuable information source.
- Disclose product origins: If a product is made by a small business or family within Australia, include this detail on the receipt. Highlight the local product, giving customers additional information to foster a local connection.
- Advocate for local shopping: Attach an image or poster promoting the advantages of shopping local to every receipt. Tower Systems offers free images for this purpose, available in the downloads section on their website.
- Show customer appreciation: Personalise a thank-you message to customers shopping with you. Sign off with your name and contact number. This personal touch is typically absent in larger businesses.
- Monitor local product sales: Keep track of local suppliers’ product performance using various reporting tools.
- Reward local shopping: Implement discount vouchers named “Thanks for shopping local” or “Local shopping reward” to emphasise the benefits of supporting local businesses. You can establish rules to offer discounts off the next purchase.
- Merely advocating for local shopping isn’t enough; you must showcase its value and integrate it into your retail business operations. The most effective approach to accomplish this is by incorporating suitable systems and procedures into your POS software.
There are plenty of ways local small business retailers can authentically pitch local. In this post we have covered just some of them. We are a local POS software company ready to help you pitch local.
How Garden Centres use our POS software in their businesses
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We are so grateful to all the garden centres that have installed our garden centre software in the last year, and there have been plenty. The last 12 months have been busy in this space.
While how the garden centre software is used in nursery and garden centre businesses varies between businesses, there are plenty of core uses that our customers enjoy.
- Quote and invoice management. Strong, flexible, fit for purpose.
- Trade pricing profiles supporting pricing flexibility for your customers.
- Customer account management: Professional and accurate control.
- Pricing profiles. You can set pricing rules based on types of customers.
- Easier deliveries. Packing slips and delivery notes.
- Sell by weight or measure, including fractions.
- Bag your own products. Bag bulk to smaller and to your own brand.
- Colour / size / style. Track what you sell at a granular level.
- Product care receipts. You control design and detail.
- Re-potting. As plants grow, charge accordingly.
- Pre-orders – pre-sell stock and be ahead of the game.
- Special orders – easily manage special customer orders.
- Awesome loyalty through which you can easily differentiate.
- Seasonal reordering. Easily reorder inventory based on seasonal sales.
- Weatherproof labels.
- Greenlife integration.
- Electronic supplier invoice support – cut mistakes and save time.
- Easy Shopify integration.
Using this retail channel specific garden centre POS software, garden centres can provide personal service for their local community. They can encode their knowledge and guide that this be served to customers based on their purchases. Through these facilities garden centres can differentiate their businesses.
Unlike traditional everyday POS software, this garden centre POS software from Tower Systems is rich in features for garden centres, loaded with tools and reports that can help garden centre owners and staff run a more efficient and successful business.
The software evolves through regular updates. Many of the changes delivered in the updates are suggested direct to our development team by our users. It’s a transparent and democratic process.
And here are some questions we get asked about our garden centre software, and our answers:
Does the software handle garden club member pricing? Yes, this can be a great marketing tool, getting local community group members support the business and fundraising at the same time.
Does the software track frequent shopper purchases, like what you see in coffee shops buy 9 and get your 10th free? Yes.
Can the software report on frequent shopper purchase items we give away, to get a supplier rebate? Yes.
Does the software have a loyalty facility? Yes, there are several options – you can choose the one that works best for your needs.
Does the software let me manage my own time-based catalogue pricing? Yes.
Can I sell gift cards for my business? Yes.
I buy products in bulk and re-bag them to retail size. Can the software handle this? Yes.
I buy several products in bulk to mix to create my own brand of feed. can the software handle this? Yes.
We are thankful to our garden centre customer community for their support and encouragement.
We help local retailers find local opportunities
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What Tower Systems looks for in local small business retail POS software customers
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