We love looking at good local retail, like Labour and Wait in London
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Here’s an easy local small business retailers can better connect with their community
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Community connection is vital in local small business retail, authentic community connection at a level that is loved by folks in the community.
Back in the day, sponsoring a local sports club, donating prizes for a raffle or helping the local Rotary or Lions were the go to ideas for retailers. And while those ideas continue today, there are another local small business retailers can engage in providing community support that is funded buy the community itself.
Through our loyalty tools and, in particular the discount voucher tech we offer, local small business retailers can reward shoppers and they can offer in store a way for these shoppers to pay it forward, to support a local charity or community group organisation.
The Grill’d burger chain was an early adopter of something similar with their bottle caps and giving customers the caps to vote for one of three local charities the store would donate cash to.
Our suggestion is to invite shoppers to donate their discount voucher to one of several local charities in your business, which you could have every month or so, accruing the value of the vouchers for a gift card donation to the charity, or you making a cash donation of a portion of the voucher value to the charity.
It pitched well this could see people who support the local charity shopping with you so that funds are raised for the charity.
We know form years of data that around 20% of all vouchers handed out to shoppers are used by those shoppers within 28 days. This means there are other vouchers that expire unused. A nuanced campaign in-store connected with loved local charities and community groups could drive engagement, do good in the community and show the business as community connected in a fresh and loved way. That is the goal here.
Of course, the execution will be different in each location. Our job as a tech company is to provide opportunity. Our job as retailers ourselves is to share what we have seen work well, and what we have learned.
Your job as a local small business retailer is to make decisions that are right for you and your situation.
Using the discount vouchers generated by the software in this way, to support loved local community groups and charities, could be the reset you want, the engagement driver the business needs. The beauty of it is that it is low cost, self funding and truly community focussed.
We are grateful to the feedback from our customers and this has guided our own activity in this space of local community group connection.
Join us on a visit to Marby and Elm, a wonderfully unique stationery shop in London
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6 best-value insights that will benefit any local small business retailer
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Retailers in local small business shops can feel alone sometimes when working on their business. They can sometimes get lost in a cave of thoughts without seeing a way out.
We thought about this and considered the thousands of different retailers in our POS software user community, and we developed the Insights Dashboard in our POS software, to deliver easy access to local small business retail insights that any retailer could leverage, regardless of size, location, specialty area or setting.
We wanted to ensure that what we delivered would be useful regardless of level of business management literacy and financial management literacy. We wanted to deliver the insights without the retailer having to seek them out. We wanted to genuinely add value to what a local small business retailer could gain from using our POS software.
So, via the Insights Dashboard in our POS software, we provide insights in six broad areas – with the insights delivered visually.
Where Are We Today
Gives you a snapshot of the overall sales & liabilities as it stands today.
You can access additional options by clicking the … symbol next to Todays Sales.
- Date Range – Expand the sales period covered by changing the start & end dates.
- All Locations – Multi-store locations can use this option to include/exclude other locations from the sales figures.
- Show Gross Profit Values – This option will show / hide GP values in the Daily Sales Dashboard, which you can access from the Point of Sale screen by pressing [Ctrl] + [D] on your keyboard.
What’s Not Selling
This gives you a visual understanding of what is not performing in your business. Deadstock in any business is lost cash. This report gives you the ability to make decisions on this underperforming stock whether it be discounting or other stock reductions strategies to unlock this lost cash.
You can click any stock item listed to show a graph of sales of that item broken down by month.
There are a number of options available to filter the stock items that appear in the list:
- Date Range – Limits the list to stock that has not sold in the amount of time specified.
- Listing Bottom – Maximum number of items to list.
- Rank By – Determines the order that items appear on the list in.
Click the … symbol for additional options:
- Departments – Select between showing stock from all departments or tick the desired departments from the list.
- Suppliers – Select between showing stock from all suppliers or tick the desired suppliers from the list.
- Exclude Recently Added Items – Exclude stock items that were added to your system inside the time period chosen in the drop down box.
What Am I Missing Out On
This give you a list of items that have sold out and potential missed opportunity. The visual sales history will assist in ensuring the right items are restocked to ensure future revenue is not missed out on.
You can click any stock item listed to show a graph of sales of that item broken down by month.
There are a number of options available to filter the stock items that appear in the list:
- Date Range – Limits the list to stock that has sold more recently than the amount of time specified.
- Listing Bottom – Maximum number of items to list.
Click the … symbol for additional options:
- Departments – Select between showing stock from all departments or tick the desired departments from the list.
- Suppliers – Select between showing stock from all suppliers or tick the desired suppliers from the list.
- Exclude Recently Added Items – Exclude stock items that were added to your system inside the time period chosen in the drop down box.
What Sells With What
This gives you an insight to consumer basket analysis. Through this you will see exactly what stock items sell with other stock items and from this you will be able to leverage upsell opportunities, co-location and promotion opportunities. This also shows the sold alone percentage so you can see item upsell efficiency.
You can change the period of time in the Date Range to limit the data to the period chosen. The ten items displayed are the ten best selling items by quantity for the selected time period.
Is Theft An Issue
This provides a in-depth visual overview of all the retailer audit log records by reason, number of occurrences by time day. This will assist in identifying staff theft/training issues that may need to be addressed within the business.
You can change the date range to limit the data to the time period chosen. Changing the time increment alters the lengths of time each day is broken up into.
You can view more complete records by using the Audit Log directly. Please contact Tower Support for help using the audit log.
When Are We Busiest & Quietest
This is a visual overview used to detect any quiet or peak times in your business by displaying over the week as well as detailed by hour.
You can change the week ending date to see data from other weeks. Next to chart value type, you can choose to measure by sales value or number of sales.The top graph shows sales broken down by day of the week. You can change the type of graph used to display this data by clicking the diagram type in the bottom-right. The bottom graph shows sales broken down by time of day. You can change the type of graph used to display this data clicking the diagram type in the bottom-right. You can also view this data as a table by clicking the table symbol in the top-right.
Join us on a visit to Hunca Munca’s, an awesome toy shop in Beacon, New York state
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Aussie make POS software severed local Aussie retailers
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Tower Systems adds ChatGPT AI integration to POS software.
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We have integrated ChatGPT from OpenAI with our Retailer POS software.
In this first cut, using the optional integration, ChatGPT can generate for extended product descriptions and web descriptions. This is based on the product title that you enter. We have tested it with a range of products. It is a significant time saver.
AI is impacting business is many ways, faster now than a few months ago, and it will be faster in a few months than today. Every business will be impacted, whether they know it or not.
While publicly the stories have been about ChatGPT doing homework or passing exams or writing blog posts, there are plenty of smarter business-case uses, like what we have done here.
This ChatGPT integration is in our next update. Businesses will need an OpenAI account. Cost wise, there are multiple models, each with different capabilities and price points. Prices are per 1,000 tokens. You can think of tokens as pieces of words, where 1,000 tokens is about 750 words. This paragraph is 35 tokens.
You can configure a usage hard limit in your billing settings, after which they will stop serving your requests. You may also configure a soft limit to receive an email alert once you pass a certain usage threshold.
We stress – this integration is optional. For us, it is a starting point. We see plenty of opportunities for AI to save time for you and increase the value you leverage from using our software.
There is considerable debate about AI and its use. We don’t see our job as being a controller of access. We build tools and right now this is a tool more snugnesses want to play with. hence this integration.
Tower Systems launches weekly POS software user Q&A session for all
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Tower Systems is grateful to be able to launch a weekly POS software user Q&A session fort all comers, all users of the software, from any business using the software.
This session is a natural progression from our regular live Zoom sessions for customers. It not schedules as weekly’s every week of the year, so customers have certainty that it’s on.
Each session will be open for at least 45 minutes every Thursday. One of more of our POS software specialists will be in the Zoom room to answer questions and share insights. The goal is for open two-way discussion. Having the right people from our team there will drive the value of the sessions. We will demonstrate local retail knowledge and the value of local support compared to offshore call centre support.
We are open to covering POS software training, answering support queries and exploring enhancements in our POS software.
By offering the sessions via Zoom with no cap on attendees we demonstrate, again, our openness and transparency and the ease of accessibility for all of our customers regardless of location, support coverage status and more.
By making this open to everyone, those who like to listen to the queries of others and the answers provided will be satisfied. We think this openness will help us explore topics way beyond what me might set if we were in control of the agenda ourselves.
The goal is an enhanced customer service experience, something unique among POS software companies.
We know the closer we are with our customers the better the experience for them and the better for us. This is why our leadership team will regularly be available for these sessions, as they have been for our other customer Zoom meetings.
These weekly customer meetings will differentiate our Aussie POS software company and offer our customers another free training opportunity that will help them get more from their investment in our technology.
People participating will not have to register or jump through hoops. Accessing the session will be easy, fast and secure.
Tower Systems serves several thousand local retail businesses today. This new weekly customer free training and Q&A meeting initiative is another way we are demonstrating our commitment to engaged and easily accessible customer service.
Loving POS software updates
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In addition to the usual email outlining what is in a POS software update, often, different colleagues here at Tower Systems will create a video of what they like in an update. Here is one such video for an update we provided to our customers a few weeks back. We share this to show the engagement of folks here at Tower Systems in what we make and support:
Tips on common pitfalls retailers make when having websites developed for their businesses
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Too many local small business retailers make common mistakes when having websites developed for their businesses. We see this often when called in to fix issues with a website created elsewhere. Our web dev team provides a thorough honest assessment of websites and lays out a pathway to a better solution for the customer.
It surprises us to see some awful websites, built on plenty of mistakes that stem from poor outlines of requirements.
For what it’s worth, here are the top 7 mistakes we have seen retailers make when setting up a website for their business.
- Not knowing the target customer. The target customer for a website connected to any shop should not be considered to be the person walking through the r=front door. rather, it should be the person you want to reach, the person who would never walk past your shop. Knowing who they are, where they are and what they could be looking for is key.
- Making the website a copy of the physical shop. If you copy what you sell in your shop online you are not likely to find new customers and the best website for a shop is one that finds new customers for the business. Nice is best. Niche is appealing and easily found through online searching. Stand for something – not not everything you currently sell.
- Thinking it is easy and once the site is live you are done. Creating and maintaining a website is hard work, relentless work. Think of a website and a hungry beast, and you have to feed it.
- Believing a web developer knows what is best for your business. Web developers are not retailers. They may have opinions about what looks good or works well, but do these opinions match the needs of your business. It is best to find a web development who genuine understand your type of business and what you want to achieve online.
- Failing to understand the total cost of ownership. Paying for a website to be developed is on thing. What is the cost of maintaining it. be sure to have this documented before you begin because once you are into it you are on the hook for future costs. Knowing this upfront is key.
- Different is good. Too many retailers are lazy, loading images and product descriptions from suppliers. Search engines see this duplication and mark sites down that copy others in terms of content. The more of your own content the absolute better for you and for your business. Sure, this is hard work, but it pays off.
- Your website is not a destination. Okay, it is a destination for online shoppers, hopefully. But, it is not your online end point. The website will have to evolve and, eventually, be replaced. Go into it knowing it will not be your final online presence, that it is, rather, a stepping stone on a pathway.
Take your time to figure out what you want, but not too long as what you launch will quickly change as change is critical in retail business websites.
Footnote: we know about this because we have created plenty of websites for our retail businesses and for hundreds of our retail POS software customers. The most useful ones have been those that failed. The successes are terrific. But it’s the failures that are educational.
Aussie made software for jewellers helps local independent jewellers compete with big chains
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Local independent jewellers can compete with big groups and national retail businesses by offering good products backed by good service and supported by competitive offers.
The Jeweller POS software from Tower Systems helps them do this.
Our software for jewellers continues to evolve. Here are enhancements from 2023 already:
- Smart Pay integration offers free EFTPOS.
- Barcode lookup offers access to an international products database.
- Our new Big Commerce integration opens selling online through them, joining our integrations with Shopify, Woo and Magento.
- Image flow to e-commerce has been enhanced.
- Easy and auto background remover for images now integrated.
- Easy email marketing to customers based on purchases.
- 25 new self-serve training videos have been added to our library.
- A new dashboard offering visual insights into business performance, revealing easy win business decisions.
$185.00 a month (inc. GST) is the total cost. This includes up to 2 hours of our time installing the software. You can choose to access our self-serve training library, or purchase personal training time. It’s 100% up to you.
We don’t pay any marketing group a commission for endorsement.
We are grateful to serve hundreds of local independent jewellers today with our jeweller POS software, in Australia and New Zealand. This is a marketplace we have served for more than twenty years.
Using this software for jewellers, you have access to:
- Loyalty facilities through which you can genuinely differentiate your business, … shoppers respond to the levers you can pull.
- Sell online, easily. Our Shopify integration is seamless, official and easy to use and manage.
- Special orders: sell in advance of having physical stock to sell.
- Repair facilities through which you can track and manage repairs.
- Secondhand goods. Easy accurate record keeping.
- Colour / size / style: smart and efficient inventory tracking.
- Event marketing through which you can create contact lists of customers based on anniversary, birthday and other life event dates.
The rental can be cancelled at any time. There is no annual payment.
Jewellers love that they have control over learning the software, that there is no mandated requirement as to training they must undertake. That they are in control demonstrates a respect between their business and the Tower Systems business.
Indie retail advice: let’s not get sucked in by downcast sales forecasts by big retailers
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Some big retailers are predicting flat or declining sales through 2023 and into 2024 in the US and some here in Australia. There are forecast reports of comp (comparable) store sales, we tend to call these same store sales, of 3% to 5%.
The challenge is that journalists and news editors hear this and attach the downward forecast to all retailers.
I know plenty of independent retailers in Australia who are forecasting growth over the same period. Okay, not massive growth, but growth nevertheless.
In my own local retail stores, I am planning for 5% growth and hoping for closer to 10%. But more important than the sales revenue growth number is growth in business GP percentage achieved. Growing that several points is more important than revenue growth.
If you grow business GP% by, say, 3% and overall revenue by 1% the bottom line benefit to the business would be considerably magnified compared to no change in GP% and 1% revenue growth.
Retailers can think of GP% growth being achieved by buying better, which, for sure, is true. Often, there are opportunities for a small increase when pricing items to build in better margin.
The other opportunity here is stock turn. Working inventory to turn faster is a terrific bottom line benefit.
There are many growth opportunities in indie retail channels, many opportunities to achieve good growth in revenue and in gross profit percentage performance.
How do we achieve that?
Look at your current sales data, look for green shoots, indicators of opportunity for you. In a retail newsagency these are typically in cards, magazines and stationery. Sales in these departments can indicate opportunities outside of them, maybe in new areas for the business, better margin areas for the business.
Every retail business has green shoot indicator categories.
I know of many retails where this approach of data lead range review and gross profile percentage growth is successful.
Covid.
One of the consequences of Covid was that many shoppers tried local retail for the first time in years. We showed that we offered diversity in products and personal service. We can continue to leverage these differences. But we have to show rather than tell.
Big retail looks like big retail. Their displays tend to be blah and their differentiator tends to be price.
In local retail, displays that are more fun, appealing and enticing can work well. back this with shop floor knowledge and genuine personal service and price is a secondary factor. people want to enjoy shopping. They want to walk out of the shop feeling good. That feeling is currency, it pushes pure price to a secondary consideration as value is felt in other ways.
The economy.
Yes, there is pressure in the economy because of rising interest rates. There is still plenty of money around for what people want. Want is a big driver for spending. It’s the emotional purchase where you have good opportunity. Especially as a skilled local retailer who is able to feed into the want.
You.
The reality is that there will be more tough economic news and negative reports about retail. You can choose to watch that and worry, or you can create the retail experience that is an oasis of happiness, a place locals enjoy and are happy to spend. Every day, choices you make in your business determine this.
If you do what you’ve done every day for years, your results will be what you are used to. I think indie retailers can do much better than that.
Our POS software helps local indie retailers save time and money
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Our POS software helps local retailers help those they care about
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POS software integrated quote and invoice management software helps retailers win more business
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The Aussie newsagency has changed, it’s not what you might think it is
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The Aussie newsagency today in 2023 is a very different retail business than what you may have found in 2019 or earlier. The Aussie newsagency today often sells unique gifts, collectibles, sensory items and more. Some don’t sell lotteries. Some even don’t have papers or magazines.
Mount Lawley News in Western Australia is a small shop located a ten minute or so drive from Perth CBD. We mention that to reflect that this shop is surrounded by competition.
What was a traditional newsagency has been transformed by new owners Matt and the team over the last year. This is a good example of what I’d love journalists and other who talk or write about Australian newsagencies to think of.
What an awesome looking business.
A year ago this shop looked very different. Today, it is attracting new shoppers. New shoppers are the lifeblood of retail. Better still, the change in mix of products drives a change in the GP% of the business. These are factors that play into the strength and value of a newsagency, or any retail business for that matter.
We see too many stories about newsagencies closing. Sometimes, photos accompanying those stories do not reflect the best practice retail we are seeing from plenty of newsagents, like Mount Lawley News.
Tower Systems is proud to serve more Aussie newsagency shops than all other Aussie newsagency software companies combined.
How our Aussie made and supported POS software helps charity shops, op. shops and community enterprises better help those they serve
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Tower Systems has been serving local charity shops, op. shops and community enterprises for years with POS software that serves a variety of retail needs in this broad charity shop space. the latest release of our software serves this space well.
We know from experience that charity and op. shops are unique and loved businesses, providing valuable service to the local community and to those supported by the charity. We are grateful to serve these community enterprises with our POS software:
- Easy shopper loyalty. While the software offers a loyalty points system, we have found the cash-off approach in our loyalty tools works better in local retail. People understand money. A receipt showing an amount they can save on their next purchase gets, usually, at least 20% of people spending more that visit.
- Manage what you sell your way. You can sell by barcode, products code, department, category within department, price point. You can sell, measure and report at the level point appropriate to your needs.
- Easy to learn by volunteers. We have found that in community enterprises easy to learn / easy to use really does matter. Volunteer turnover makes this essential. We can record training specific to your needs and make these videos available for future volunteers.
- Secure for your peace of mind. You can lock down parts of the software to secure them for management access only.
- Check and balances. This software guides processes. It also provides hidden tracking so you can investigate should the need arise.
- Club / group marketing and support. Leverage clubs and community groups with offers and pricing just for them.
Our Australian made and supported charity / op. shop POS software does much more than what’s on this list. See it for yourself, live and obligation free, to see if it could serve you and your business. We’d be glad to show it to all involved in the operation.
While we serve many charity / op. shop retail stores in many different situations, we know this every shop is unique, with its own requirements. Our goal is to offer charity shop software that is as useful as possible, while being affordable for these tight budget businesses.
Here are answers to some of the questions we have been asked about our Charity / Op. Shop Software over the years.
When you are ready, we’d love to show you our Charity / Op. Shop Software and through that show you answers to other questions you have.
Does the software support community group member pricing? Yes.
We work on behalf of several local charities. Can we track purchases by their members as a fund raising tool? Yes.
We have a lot of volunteers, is the software easily learnt? Yes.
We report to a board, are there good checks and balances? Yes.
Do we have to barcode everything we sell? No.
So when we don’t sell by barcode how do we track what we sell? You decide the level of reporting you want and that determines the best sales tracking approach.
Can we compare the performance of different categories of what we sell? Yes.
Can we report on sales by product type so we can understand the categories that sell? Yes.
Does the software produce WAS / NOW price labels so we can show what something would cost in a regular store?Yes.
Our manager is off-site. Can they access the software from there? Yes.
Does the software support a loyalty program? Yes, there are several loyalty options that work in different situations from infrequent shopper visits to regular shopper visits.
Can we set a quantity purchase price for items? Yes.
Can we bundle items together, like into a hamper, and easily sell that? Yes.
Can the software handle tracking sales to group members to calculate a rebate for the group?Yes.
Can I include product care instructions on the receipt? Yes.
Does the software track where I have stored a box for an item? Yes.
Does the software handle LayBys? Yes.
Does the software connect with my website? We partner with Shopify, Magento and WooCommerce and offer direct links to these.
Can I email receipts? Yes.
Can I track where my customers come from? Yes.
Do I have to pay for software on additional computers in my business? No.
Can I connect with my EFTPOS terminal? Yes. We have a direct link to Tyro and through Linkly we connect to all major banks.
Can I use my existing hardware? Yes, as long as your hardware meets our minimum standards.
Can I use my existing data with the software? Yes. We’d like to check your data to be sure. We will advise what can be safely brought across.
Does it integrate with Xero? Yes.
Find out more at www.towersystems.com.au/charity.
Aussie made jeweller software that jewellers love
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Here are some other benefits of the Tower Systems jeweller software:
- Jeweller stock management, including stone details.
- Club pricing: Helps you attract community group members.
- BOGO: Increase sales with buy this and get that bundling.
- Warranty: Track details and leverage this for customer service.
- Sell anywhere: Using our Retailer RoamTM sell anywhere app.
- Seasonal reordering: Reorder inventory based on seasonal sales.
Using this software for jewellers, you have access to:
- Loyalty facilities through which you can genuinely differentiate your business, like seriously … shoppers respond to the levers you can pull, and your business benefits.
- Sell online, easily. Our Shopify integration is seamless, official and easy to use and manage.You can pass images and data to the website. Sales come back into the Tower software.
- Special orders: tools that enable you to sell in advance of having physical stock to sell.
- Repair facilities through which you can track and manage in-house and offsite repairs.
- Colour / size / style: smart and efficient inventory tracking.
- Event marketing through which you can create contact lists of customers based on anniversary, birthday and other life event dates.
No extra cost for extra licences. No locked in contract. No locked in EFTPOS fees.
This software is made for local jewellers.
Loving our latest POS software update
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We share information on POS software update enhancements with our customers in a number of ways, including this 5 minute video outlining some of the highlights.
We have awesome colleagues here at Tower Systems.
AI can’t compete with what sets small businesses and local retail apart – being personal
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ChatGPT is being talked-up everywhere, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook and more. It and AI more broadly are being pitched as time-savers, new tools for business owners and leaders.
While, for sure, ChatGPT and other AI offer tools of interest, they cannot compete with what matters most in small businesses and local retail keen to differentiate.
People are what matter most. People are our difference. The in the moment experience based on human to human connection are what can make a business shine.
Big businesses see people as a cost, a burden. This is why they obsess more about AI. Profits matter more than people and if they can cut costs it’s the win.
So, yeah, I have played with ChatGPT since late 2022, and will continue to play, but the most important investment I make in my tech company and in my retail shops is in people. People are our difference.
Beware comparison website www.compareposquotes.com.au since they have not compared anything
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The folks are at it again today, if you do a Google search for Tower Systems, an ad comes up for www.compareposquotes.com.au.
They are encouraging those searching for Tower Systems by name to look at comparisons. But, the www.compareposquotes.com.au business does no such comparison. You have to do that work.
Theirs is an ad platform that other businesses pay to be part of to be found when people are looking for a business, like Tower Systems.
We think it is lazy advertising to directly target us and to use our name or part of our name in their advertising.
The best way to research POS software is to do your own research, and not use a faux comparison website, like www.compareposquotes.com.au. Since it costs money to list with them, the businesses that do list with them have an advertising cost that they would surely want to recoup somehow. Businesses that do not pay to list with a comparison website may not have these costs.
One of the main drawbacks of using comparison websites like www.compareposquotes.com.au from Comparison Advantage is that they often only display a limited number of options. This means that shoppers may not be aware of all the options available to them, and they may not be able to find the best deal for their needs. Additionally, some comparison websites may only display options from certain companies or providers, which can bias the results in favor of those companies.
Another issue with comparison websites is that the information they provide may not always be up-to-date or accurate. Since the websites rely on the companies themselves to provide information about their products and services, there is a potential for bias or even misinformation. Additionally, prices and other details can change rapidly, so the information on a comparison website may not always reflect the most current situation.
Furthermore, using comparison websites can also be time-consuming and confusing. Consumers may have to sift through a lot of information and compare different features and prices in order to make a decision. This can be overwhelming, especially for people who are not familiar with the products or services being compared.
If you click on their ad it costs them money, which is something we suppose.
If you are looking for POS software for your retail business, take your time, figure out exactly what you want, search for yourselves for the software that serves your needs.
We are enjoying Toy Fair
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Toy Fair is under way in Melbourne and it’s a terrific event, even though today is the first day.
It’s terrific catching up with old colleagues, and meeting plenty of new people.
We are here for our shops, in which we sell toys, our websites that offer toys and to pitch our toy shop software.
The software, including support, is only $155.00 a month, and you are not locked-in. The only other cost is for our one-on-one training.
Here are some questions we are asked, and our answers:
Can the software manage special orders for customers? Yes.
Can I report on past sales monthly for a year to guide what to order? Yes.
Does the software let me buy in bulk and break up to retail packs? Yes.
Does the software produce WAS / NOW price labels? Yes.
Does the software manage time-based catalogue pricing? Yes.
Can I pre-sell items? Yes.
I sell high-end toys with serial numbers. Can I track these? Yes.
I have multiple shops, does the software handle this? Yes.
Does the software handle club and group pricing? Yes. Attract community group and local club members and help them raise funds for their group.
Can I load electronic invoices and stock files? Yes.
Can I sell gift cards for my business? Yes.
I sometimes sell away from the shop, can the software do this? Yes, our Retailer RoamTM option manages selling from anywhere.
Does the software have a facility for encouraging infrequent shoppers to spend more? Yes, it’s proven to work well at achieving this.
Can I include product use instructions on the receipt? Yes.
Does the software track where I have stored packaging for an item? Yes.
I have similar items from several suppliers. Can I compare suppliers? Yes.
Does the software handle LayBys? Yes.
Can you create and manage quotes? Yes.
Can you reach back out to customers based on past purchases? Yes.
Does the system handle account customers? Yes.
Does the system produce invoicing and statements? Yes.
I sell clothing, can I manage this by colour, size and style? Yes.
Does the software connect with my website? We partner with Shopify, Magento and WooCommerce and offer direct links to these.
Can I email receipts? Yes.
Can I track where my customers come from? Yes.
Do I have to pay for software on additional computers in my business? No.
Can I connect with my EFTPOS terminal? Yes. We have a direct link to Tyro and through Linkly we connect to all major banks.
Can I use my existing hardware? Yes, if it meets our minimum standards.
Can I use my existing data with the software? Yes. We’d like to check your data to be sure. We will advise what can be safely brought across.
Does it integrate with Xero? Yes.
Awesome POS software training
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New Zealand retailers help make our POS software better
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Tower Systems is grateful to already serve many local specialty retailers in New Zealand, up and down the country.
These New Zealand based retailers cover the retail specialty areas of bike shops, jewellers, garden centres, pet shops, gift shops and more.
They use the Tower Systems POS software much in the way any retailer does, but there is a difference in NZ retail. It is more local, more engaged and more complete in their use of tools in our software to run more enjoyable businesses.
We are thankful to our New Zealand based POS software customers for their advice, and for their active participation in the constant evolution of our POS software.
From online POS software user meetings to local New Zealand user meet-ups, to trade show catch-ups (like the Auckland gift fair next week), to one on one contact, we offer many connection opportunities with retailers using our POS software.
And while we are an Australian company, our service of our NZ retailer customers is the same as it is everywhere. This is thanks to our extended operating hours and the comprehensive kit of resources we offer our POS software customers for learning, suggesting enhancements and connecting with our help desk team.
Across plenty of our specialty retail channels we serve New Zealand customers. These include: charity and thrift shops, garden centres, bike shops, toy shops, gift shops, jewellers, farm supply businesses, repairs businesses, magazine retailers, pet shops and more. Versions of our POS software are tuned for these types of businesses.
We have done New Zealand specific integrations to enable our POS software to better serve New Zealand business needs. The Smart Pay EFTPOS integration was one such project. This was delivered free to our customers once we passed the rigorous certification and in-field testing. There are other examples like this – New Zealand retailer let integrations with our POS software.
Our New Zealand customers have toll free access to our help desk and support services. Training is delivered at no telephone costs too – making it easy and low cost to access us when you need help or assistance.
Tower Systems is committed to the New Zealand marketplace. We are thankful to have served local retailer customers for more than 20 years and appreciate that we serve more customers now in early 2023 than we did in 2022.
Across at our Tower Systems POS software YouTube channel you can see more about what we offer, and how we serve our customers. You can also see recent demonstrations of our software. You’ll note that we offer easy access to these demonstrations of our POS software without capturing your retailers. That is an example of the transparency we offer.
We’re a no pressure POS software company. Take your time. Research various POS software solutions. Compare what you want and need with what we do. We will be here to help when you are ready.
Ours is not a company of computer geeks using tech-speak. No, most of us have retail experience.
Our training is one on one. This is backed by a wonderful up-to-date video training library.
Our help desk offers real human-based help, so you get the most from our software tools.
Our business advice and mentoring is available at your call to help you see new opportunities in your business.
But this is not about us, it’s about you and what you want from your business.
We help retailers turn around their businesses by saving time and by providing access to accurate data to guide better quality business decisions.
The ultimate goal is that when you come to sell your business you get a better price because of the money it’s making and the ease with which the business can be run.
Using g our POS software you can leverage benefits including:
- Attract new shoppers. We have several smart loyalty options that help drive word of mouth and word of mouth drives new traffic.
- Increase sales. We show you what to put with what, what smart product adjacencies get shoppers spending more. Front-end loyalty helps get today’s shopper buying more today. Getting rid of dead stock and buying what actually sells helps drive sales. Employee sales tracking helps you coach employees better.
- Reduce costs. Tracking sales by time helps you create a more cost-effective roster. Making less stock buying mistakes reduces costs. Streamlining the sales counter, credit card processing, Lay-By, customer accounts, product pricing and product reordering can cut labor costs and cut management time.
- Make your business worth more. New business purchasers want a business that is easy to run. We can help make your business easy to run. They also want a business that is successful. We will help you drive your success.
We have been helping retailers for many years and are grateful to serve more than 3,000 today.
Obstacles and goals
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