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There is a trend among POS software companies to get you signed up without looking at the software, their chasing a rooftop without first ensuring that the software and the retail business are a good match.

Here at Tower Systems, our preference is to demonstrate the software to you – once we understand your business requirements and what you personally want to achieve from POS software. It really does start with understanding your needs because it’s possible we are not a good fit for you.

Every one of our prospective customers has access to a personal live demonstration of the software. We do this at a time to suit. And, we record the demonstration and provide a copy of the demonstration to the prospective customer for them to share with others in their business.

We also offer access to pre-recorded demonstrations of the software. These are on our website and can be watched by absolutely anyone – without the need to login.

But, it’s the personal one-on-one demonstration that works best, that offers conversation about business needs and the exploration of these needs through the software itself. It is best to show an answer to a query rather than telling – anyone can tell, showing shows the real solution.

Anyone considering the Tower Systems POS software has access to a live demonstration without obligation or cost. Indeed, they have have 2, 3, 4 live demonstrations because we want to ensure that anyone choosing Tower Systems POS software makes an informed choice, a choice based on certainty that our POS software is a good fit for the needs of their business.

if you are considering POS software and the supplier is not keen for a live demonstration with you, if their approach is sign up and see if you like it, we suggest you pause and consider whether this approach serves your needs.

What is it you want? That is what matters most to your business. Signing up and using software through trial and error makes it harder for you. It makes you discover for yourself. It shows you what to expect from the POS software company down the track.

Here at Tower Systems we prefer a more personal approach, an approach that is rooted in the personal service we provide.

Through our POS software for toy shops, POS software for newsagents and Shopify connected POS software we help retailers sell many products, including these fun and joyful Squish-A-Boos from Ty.

These soft, cuddle and squish toys are a treat that plenty are loving right around Australia.

Howe the Tower Systems POS software helps sell these Squish-A-Boos is a story about software integration and software smarts that help the retailers to do better at serving the needs of customers, through serving product use and care information.

The link between the POS software and multiple Shopify websites as well as though to a professional and multi retail business connected Magento website makes these plush and squishy toys easily available right around Australia.

It’s our smart technology that enables this for retailers.

In addition to developing and selling POS software, we offer a tech. bridge to websites, awesome websites for immediate and easy selling by local small business retailers.

What’s key here is that we make it easy for people to find products and to purchase them, saving retailers time and hassle – by using best practice tech. like Magento and Shopify, platforms far superior to other platforms out there. More cost effective too.

Some software businesses think that selling online is all about putting products online, and that’s it. They are wrong. It’s about the words, the flow of data on a two-way basis, the ease of navigation of the website, the speed and accurate transacting of the purchase and the post-sale followup, through to fulfilment. This is where a smart POS software integration matters considerably to retailers.

We are often asked by retailers about POS software connected websites. here are some common questions, with our answers:

1. What’s the typical cost for a website? Tower offers a fixed price of $6,600.00, or $550.00 a month paid for 14 months.
2. How long does it take to get we website setup? If your data (stock descriptions and images) is all setup, it could be live in a few weeks.
3. Do I have to sell online or can the website show what I have in the shop? It’s easy to have the website show what you have in the shop but not sell online. Plenty of retailers do this.
4. Do I have to sell online what I have in the shop today? No, you can sell anything you want online, as long as it is legal.
5. Why Shopify? It’s easier to use ands maintain than WooCommerce and other platforms. But, WooCommerce developers will disagree as they make money maintaining sites. With Shopify it’s that easy that you can do it yourself.
6. How can I get my website to be ranked high in Google? Hard work, consistent hard work. There is no shortcut.
7. How much can I expect to make online? That all depends on your niche and the time (and money) you invest. We know retailers making $300,000 a year online, others easily making $50,000 a year and others making nothing.

Retailers selling cute online, like the Squish-A-Boos mentioned here, can find it easy and accurate with our smart webstore integration.

Retailers are loving the latest POS software update from Tower Systems. Here is some of the announcement email sent to customers weeks ago:

Insights Dashboard.

This new dashboard focuses on 6 critical areas of retail to assist you on making key decisions by representing data in a graphical & easy to understand format. We think these 6 metrics are among the most important metrics that Retailer should be focusing on to import the profitability of their businesses.

Where Are We Today – Gives you a snapshot of the overall sales & liabilities as it stands Today, this powerful tool can also be expanded to a desired time period.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When Are We Busiest & Quietest –   This is a visual overview detect any quiet or peak times in your business by displaying over the week as well as detailed by hour

Making POS software is one thing. Helping local small business retailers leverage this for success in their businesses is another.

Tower Systems does this every day by going beyond the usual POS software training, by providing context for why this or that is done, bu explaining the business reason for data points and how they may or may not serve the needs of a business.

The new Insights Dashboard released recently in our POS software is an example of merging our business advice and support with awesome POS software to provide local retailers with easy and ready access to visually represented data they can leverage.

Showing a retailer opportunities lost could make a massive difference in a retail business. 

The Tower Systems POS software does this. It shows what a shop could have achieved has they had access to the stock that might have sold.

Showing a retailer possible theft situations could be revealing.

Too often small business retailers don’t catch theft early because they do not want to see it, they do not what to, for a second, think it could happen to them.

What’s not working?!

Stand in your shop and look around and ask yourself that question, ask what’s not working. What you see could be constrained buy how you view your business, by what you want to see. Software will not edit what it sees. The Tower Systems Insights Dashboard shows good and bad, it shows the truth, revealing what you need to know about the business. The what’s not working tab is revealing to the businesses we tested it on. Some were truly shocked to discover what they did not know about their business.

Good retail management is about making the right decisions for a business at the right time. This needs to be done without emotion, without fear, without bias. There is where good POS software can play a role and where the new Insights Dashboard is a true help for local retail businesses.

So, what’s our Friday advice for local small business retailers? Use your software, work it, leverage it, feed of the insights it provides. Revel in the facts is provides access to and make business decisions based on these facts. Doing this, rem moving emotions and feelings from plenty of the decisions you make in your retail business will make a difference.

Of course, we are biased. As an Australian POS software company we want to see Australian businesses thrive over overseas competitors, especially if their tax arrangements do a disservice to everyday Australians by minimising their contribution to government revenue.

But that aside, here is why we think Australian made POS software is important to local Australian retail; businesses and Australia more broadly …

1. Software is like storytelling. It helps retail businesses craft and serve their narrative. Local Aussie businesses craft and serve an Aussie narrative. Our software, being Australian made and supported, does this well, with focus. Software made overseas with have that focus – from simple terminology used through to retail strategic focus. retail is different country to country.
2. Retail in Australia is different, especially small business local retail. Software from a big US company is less likely to have the focus a local retailer will want, less likely to care about that shop turning over $300K – $500K a year when the software company itself counts its revenue in hundreds of millions of dollars. Local retail is about personal service. here at Tower Systems where we only focus on local specialty retailers, we understand personal service too.
3. Be heard. Retailers using the Tower Systems POS software have direct and easy access to our leadership team, to the top. It’s rare any POS software company offers this and even less so for big overseas POS software companies.
4. Retail is changing. And, the nature of change and pace of change varies country to country. This further reinforces that the needs of Aussie retailers will vary to those of overseas retailers.
5. Your voice matters. if you use software from a local Aussie software company you will matter more to them than if you use POS software from a massive overseas company. With the local company you can make suggestions that are more likely to make their way into the software.
6. Local software companies support local skills development. Software programmers flourish from real world experience and there is nothing like a local Aussie software company for gaining this. We have seen this at Tower Systems many times over the years.
7. Aussie taxes pay for education, health and infrastructure. Every dollar of revenue sent offshore diminishes the resources of federal and state governments.
8. Because you care. If you want your shoppers to shop local, it starts with you and the purchase choice you make for your business.

We could go on since there are many reasons for local Aussie and Kiwi retail businesses to use local Aussie and Kiwi made and Aussie and Kiwi supported software in their businesses.

Tower Systems makes world-class specialty retail POS software for selected marketplaces. We are not offering POS software for everyone. If we’re not right for you, we will say so and wish you all the best. If we feel we are right for you, we will make an offer and 100% leave the choice to you to make, in your own time.

We are proud to be a local Aussie POS software company with our supported locally by people who understand d local Aussie and Kiwi retail.