The POS Software Blog

The POS Software Blog

News from Tower Systems about locally made POS software for specialty local retailers.

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Comparing Tower Systems Gift Shop software with Vend, Lightspeed and others

January 14, 2022
3 Min read
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The POS software for gift shops from Tower Systems offers a feature-rich business management solution for local gift shops.

Made and supported here in Australia, this gift shop software is different to Vend, Lightspeed and other overseas products pitched to three local retail businesses in the gift and homewares space.

Priced at $159.00 a month (Vend is currently $179.00 a month paid monthly), paid monthly and cancelable at any time, gift shop retailers have easy access to:

Awesome software made for gift shops, which includes:

  • Running on as many computers in the shop as they have for no additional cost.
  • Serial number tracking for no extra cost.
  • Loyalty tools (points and other options) for no extra cost.
  • Launch services: Setup help, guidance, advice and training for no extra cost.
  • Direct EFTPOS link to all major banks – you choose what’s right for you.
  • Direct link to Xero for easy accounting.
  • Direct link to Shopify, Magento or Woo for selling online.
  • Help desk support.
  • Software updates.

When you compare this gift shop software from Tower Systems in terms of functionality, price, backup service, business advice, online selling or customer service, we are sure you will appreciate what Tower Systems offers. This is a competitive product from a competitive local software company that understands local Aussie businesses.

The Tower Systems gift shop software has a range of facilities that are truly unique, through which local gift shops can more easily connect with shoppers, grow their business and encourage a more sustainable business story. These are tools retailers can use to differentiate their businesses, to leverage points of difference local shoppers look for and will appreciate.

But good POS software is not just about the software. It is about the support services too, the help the software company offers to help local retailers get more from the software. here at Tower Systems personal service is available easily, from our leadership team to the awesome members of our front line help desk. Our service is authentic tic, engaged and local. This is a very different approach for software companies. Here at nTower Systems, you are talking with local people who do understand the needs of local businesses.

If you are considering vend, Lightspeed or other software for your gift shop, take a look at Tower Systems and see if our $159.00 a month gift shop software may serve your needs. we’d be happy to arrange an obligation free demonstration. for your: 1300 662 957 or sales@towersystems.com.au.

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6 things any local retailer can do for a more enjoyable 2022

January 13, 2022
2 Min read
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Advice to benefit any local specialty retailer … for a better 2022.

  1. Touch data less. Every time you touch data, entering an invoice, entering accounting data, it’s an opportunity for mistake or, worse, fraud. 
  2. Manage stock in one place. If you sell online and in a physical shop, manage your stock in one place. Double handling is fraught, and it wastes time.
  3. Add a revenue stream. Seek out new products or services. Broaden the appeal of your business. Broader appeal = stronger foundations.
  4. Leverage you. It’s likely your knowledge and passion are a key difference for your business. Share it. Your competitors can’t compete with you.
  5. Copy less. Big retailers advertise loyalty programs to trick shoppers to think points are a reward. Be different, run an honest loyalty program.
  6. Be authentically local. When you buy local, talk about it, celebrate it and, show shoppers with the local message on products tags and more.

We make POS software for local specialty retail. Find out more: email sales@towersystems.com.au or call 1300 662 957.

Click on any link below to see a video of a demonstration of our software. We don’t ask for your details, you don’t have to register, just click and watch.

Tower Systems is not your usual POS software company. Our videos feature real people from inside our business. We don’t animate to hide or hire actors to play us. No, we’re authentic, as is our software … because local small business retail is authentic every day. This is what separates local small business retail from big business competitors.

We are sincerely grateful to only serve small businesses, independent businesses, local businesses – and only in the retail space. This specialisation helps us be better at what we do, it helps us focus.

Being Australian matters to Australian local retailers.

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Staying close with our POS software customers

January 12, 2022
1 Min read
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We posted a print newsletter to our customers early last week.

While weekly email is our prime outbound contact, we find a regular print newsletter is appreciated by plenty. We have some terrific news to share about 2022 plans as well as a resider of our customer service contact points and more.

Being accessible to our small business retail customers is key, and even more so in the disrupted situation of local business today. As a human contact business and this newsletter is another example of our commitment.

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First major POS software update for 2022 almost ready

January 7, 2022
1 Min read
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We are grateful to kick off this New Year with a major POS software update that delivers several new facilities we know local small business retailers will love.

In the field testing is set to ramp-up. We’ll have this update in the hands of our customers in no time.

We’re so excited to share with you what we have made.

In the meantime, we have scheduled a live preview / demonstration for all of our customers next week – the first of our regular POS software customer Q&A opportunities for 2022.

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Hiring ReactJS developers for our Melbourne software company

January 6, 2022
1 Min read
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We are looking for more ReactJS (Typescript) developers to join our team. Being in Melbourne would be a plus, but we will absolutely consider interstate candidates.

Working within our agile team you will be encouraged to offer suggestions, provide input from past experiences, and truly own what you code. We are not big on hierarchy or position titles. Our only goal is to create a truly unique product and experience for our customers. If you see yourself as the type of person who can work closely with our small team, enjoy being challenged and want to be the pedals rather than just a link in the chain we encourage you to apply today.

About you

  • 2 years’ minimum experience in developing software using ReactJS (Typescript).
  • Experience in front-end development is a must.
  • Experience in back-end development is desirable.
  • Understanding of AWS Architecture, GraphQL, REST APIs, and offline storage.
  • Ability to work in a highly agile, non-prescriptive environment.
  • Must be able to work autonomously and with high level directives.
  • Ability to work from home is desirable.

Tower Systems is a Melbourne based POS software company developing software solutions for local small business retailers.

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Made in Australia: POS software for produce / farm supply / stockfeed businesses

January 3, 2022
2 Min read
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POS software for produce / farm supply / stockfeed businesses
$199.00/month. Unlimited terminals. No lock-in contract.

We are grateful to the many local produce and farm supply businesses that have guided us in evolving this software and those who will help in the future. Your advice is appreciated and valuable.

See this software it for yourself. Click on the QR code for a 1-hour demo of the software.

We don’t need your contact details, you can watch it right away. If you’d like a personal demonstration in which we explore your specific business needs, please call us on 1300 662 957 or email our team on sales@towersystems.com.au.

Using this software you can handle customer special orders, quotations, varied price models, product use and care notes and plenty more.

This month, we launch enhanced dispatch and delivery facilities. Our customers can access updates for no additional cost.

We also develop POS software connected Shopify websites. Check out:

$199.00 a month for the Tower produce / farm supply / stockfeed business POS software delivers valuable benefits.

This is a total package software rental solution including produce business software, updates, help desk support, supplier invoice imports and knowledgebase access.

There is no extra cost for more terminals, no fee based on transaction or sales volume.

This software is made for produce / farm supply / stockfeed businesses, made to help you maximise GP%, made to help you promote your USP, made to help you easily encourage shoppers to return sooner.

We’d love to find out about your software needs. That’s where it begins. We start with your needs as it’s possible our software is not a good fit for you – we will never push or pitch our software if we feel we’re not the right fit.

To talk to one of our produce / farm supply business software experts, please call 1300 662 957 or email sales@towersystems.com.au.

Tower Systems serves more than 3,000 local small businesses with retail management POS software, specialty businesses with needs unique to their channel. We only sell to small businesses, ensuring our focus on the most valuable type of retail businesses in the country. We are grateful to our customers for their support.

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2021: what a year!

December 31, 2021
1 Min read
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In our small business POS software company, which only serves local specialty retail small businesses, we are grateful for 2021 and the abundance it has delivered.

We are grateful for many new customers.

We are grateful for new team members.

We are grateful to be offering new products.

We are grateful to have been able to shepherd plenty of local businesses online.

We are grateful for health.

We are grateful to finish the year is such good and happy shape.

What a year 2021! Thank you for all you have brought our way!

Happy New Year to all …

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How the Tower Systems POS software helps local small business retailers leverage Boxing Day sales

December 27, 2021
2 Min read
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Local small business retailers using the Tower Systems POS software and following retail management advice from us have had access to terrific tools with which to leverage the Post Christmas sale opportunity. Our training, support and retail business advice platforms have aligned to help retailers make the most of the seasonal sale opportunity – well in advance of the big day.

This year is no different. For weeks we have been prompting and advising our POS software customers, prepping them for the opportunity.

Businesses in the city and country, mall and high street have terrific tools to leverage this traditional sale season in the retail year.

While Black Friday, Cyber Monday and other events have grown in popularity, in Australia the Boxing Day / post Christmas sales continue to be an important feature of the retail calendar. We help our retail community make the most of the opportunities.

Our focus has also included training and guiding new retailers and those who have never undertaken such sales. Owning our own retail businesses for years, we have been able to drawn on our own advice to to speak from personal experience, to help those new to the Post Christmas sale opportunity to help it work for them.

From loyalty discount facilities to inventory opportunity discovery to targeted marketing tools, our POS software is an ideal platform through which to drive additional revenue this time of the year.

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Small business POS software help desk coverage over Christmas and the New Year

December 24, 2021
1 Min read
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The Tower Systems POS software help desk will close at 12 noon December 24 and reopen at 8:30am December 29. Here is what we announced first to our customers early this month – the Christmas New Year hours (In Australian eastern Summer Time):

  • December 24. 7am to 12 noon.
  • December 25. Closed.
  • December 26. Closed.
  • December 27. Closed.
  • December 28. Closed.
  • December 29. 8:30am – 5pm.
  • December 30. 8:30am – 5pm.
  • December 31. 8:30am – 2pm.
  • January 1. Closed.
  • January 2. Closed.
  • January 3. Closed.
  • January 4. 8:30am – 5pm.
  • January 5. 8:30am – 5pm.
  • January 6. 8:30am – 5pm.
  • January 7. 8:30am – 5pm.
  • January 8. Closed.
  • January 9. Closed.
  • January 10. 7am – 6pm.

The Tower Systems help desk after hours numbers and escalation points will continue to operate throughout.

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Tower Systems POS software help desk Christmas and New Year hours

December 24, 2021
1 Min read
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The Tower Systems POS software help desk will close at noon December 24 and reopen at 8:30am December 29. Here are the Christmas New Year hours (In Australian eastern Summer Time):

  • December 24. 7am to 12 noon.
  • December 25. Closed.
  • December 26. Closed.
  • December 27. Closed.
  • December 28. Closed.
  • December 29. 8:30am – 5pm.
  • December 30. 8:30am – 5pm.
  • December 31. 8:30am – 2pm.
  • January 1. Closed.
  • January 2. Closed.
  • January 3. Closed.
  • January 4. 8:30am – 5pm.
  • January 5. 8:30am – 5pm.
  • January 6. 8:30am – 5pm.
  • January 7. 8:30am – 5pm.
  • January 8. Closed.
  • January 9. Closed.
  • January 10. 7am – 6pm.

The Tower Systems help desk after hours numbers and escalation points will continue to operate throughout.

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POS software helps local retailers embrace pop-up retail

December 23, 2021
2 Min read
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Retailer Roam, the portable POS software from Tower Systems is perfect in a pop-up retail situation.

Where a pop-up shop needs to be up and running quickly, easily, with low cost and with a small footprint, Retailer Roam delivers on all these fronts and more. It is a perfect solution for pop-up retail shops.

Retailer Roam is serves retailers looking to take their business transactions to customers no matter where they are … local markets, on the farm, from the back of a truck, pop-up stores and more. Retailer Roam is truly portable POS software thanks to smart app development from the Tower systems web team working closely with the POS software development team.

This is why retailer Roam works well in a pop-up retail situation. It is POS software ideal for pop-up shops.

With pop-up retail more popular than ever, our pop-up retail POS software solution helps retailers to be up and running quickly, easily, safely and with an easy step to a m ore permanent future. Retailer Roam is made for pop-up retail … and more.

A common question we get is: Does Retailer Roam Require An Internet Connection?

Yes and No. You will need an internet connection to install the app and to obtain the base Retailer data.

If the location you’re selling from does not have internet connectivity you can use the device to transact, however, you will not receive any product updates or send sales back until the connection is re-established.

There is an ‘Offline Mode’ that can be turned on in settings for a smoother no-internet-connection experience. While in this mode the user will be limited to completing sales with what data has already been pre-loaded on the device. No API calls can be made in this mode, and sales will be stored locally until they can be synced.

There is an option to download all stock-data on the device; so, it can be used offline.

Retailer Roam is portable POS softeware for retailers on the move.

This is a wonderful solution for retail today, for businesses that want flexibility as to where and when they trade. It is continuing to evolve too as we discover more variations to the pop-up retail business model.

Check it out, on the App Store.

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How to reduce employee theft in your local retail business

December 22, 2021
3 Min read
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Tower Systems has been helping local retailers reduce the impact of theft, including employee theft, for many years. Through its POS software to working with police and to being expert witnesses at trial, the Tower team is skilled and capable of helping local retailers in a variety of situations to reduce employee theft in retail.

The actual financial cost of  employee theft is often under considered by small business retailers. We think  this is because of denial. However, given that the amount that can be taken in one hit or in micro amounts over a long period of time can be considerable once toted up.

Here are steps we have found to be useful in many different retail settings to cut the cost of retail employee theft:

  1. Track all stock. From what comes in to what is sold to what is returned. Track everything. Have clear processes for everyone to follow.
  2. Track each sale by employee. This makes each accountable for their sales.
  3. Use your software. Use it for managing the end of shift balancing. Use it for tracking petty cash out. Feed all your data automatically to Xero or other accounting software. Eliminate all manual processes that relate to cash.
  4. Do spot cash balancing. Unexpected checks can uncover surprises.
  5. Change your roster. Sometimes people work together to steal.
  6. Setup a theft policy. Ensure staff read it and sign up to it.
  7. Keep the counter clean. An organised counter reduces the opportunity for theft.
  8. Have a no employee bags at the counter policy. This makes it harder for them to hide your cash.
  9. Beware employees who carry folded paper or small notepads. These can be used for them to keep track of how much cash is in the register that is theirs – i.e. not rung up in the software.
  10. Advise all job applicants that you will require their permission for a police check. From the outset this indicates that you take your business seriously. In many situations applicants who have been asked for permission to do a police check advise they have found a job elsewhere.
  11. Do not take cash out for your own use in front of employees. If they see you take cash for a coffee or lunch some will see this as an invitation.

All it takes is one organised employee to spot a gap in your processes through which they can get the cash they want for lunch each day or for some other purpose. Your processes determine if this gap exists and the extent of it. Structure and consistency are key to reducing the cost of employee theft in any local retail setting in our experience.

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How small business retailers can cut shopper theft with POS software from Tower Systems

December 21, 2021
3 Min read
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Theft is local retail businesses is expensive for retailers. But, this theft by shoppers if often not considered or acted-on by retailers until they understand the real cost of this theft by shoppers.

From what we see, theft by shoppers can cost retailers between 3% and 7% of sales revenue in value. We have seen this across a range of retail business types and in a range of retail situations.

This year, in 2021, we have seen some evidence of co-ordinated theft, groups working together to shop for products they can flip online and air local markets.

The key to reducing theft by shoppers is through a managed process, adopted by the business leaders and implemented by everyone working in the business.

Here are seven steps we suggest to cut the cost of shopper theft in your retail business. While there are other steps you could take, these seven are most valuable from our years of working with retailers.

  1. Use your POS software. Spot stock take. Understand the cost of theft. This is critical for once you understand the scope of theft by shoppers in your business you are more likely to act. In our experience the evidence is that items being stolen are not those you think are being stolen. Data is key here. hence our advice to use your POS software.
  2. Look at people as they enter. Eye contact is key. Ideally, say hello to them. The more they think you have seen them the better.
  3. Have a screen near the entrance / exit so people can see that you filming them with your security cameras. The more people think they will be caught they less likely they are to steal.
  4. Work on the shop floor. That is unpack and price new stock on the shop floor, and not in the back room. This puts you or your employees among shoppers and heightens the chance of detection of theft.
  5. Walk the floor. Every so often, do a circuit. Be present. Talk to people.
  6. During peak shopping periods, station someone outside the business looking. Ensure they are trained on appropriate action should they see misbehavior.
  7. Bring in a security guard on a casual basis during your most busy periods. A good starting point here is to hire someone to look at the business under-cover, to see what they see, that you are not seeing.

The more likely people are to be caught the less likely you are to experience shopper theft.

Tower Systems has many years of experience in helping independent small business retailers mitigate em ploy theft and shopper theft. We leverage this experience for our customers through excellent POS software, free training, group training workshops, data analysis and expert witness support for authorities in specific cases.

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How POS software integrates Shopify websites help small business retailers thrive

December 20, 2021
3 Min read
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A POS software integrated Shopify website delivers plenty of benefits to local small business retailers beyond the expected, beyond what you may expect from an awesome website.

While selling online, reaching new shoppers, adding icing on the cake revenue to the business and leveraging exisiting overheads for this new revenue are valuable benefits, it is through the smart POS software / Shopify website connectivity and integration that a local small retail business really benefits.

This is what Tower Systems does – it creates beautiful Shopify websites connected to its specialty retail POS software, for its POS software customers. In the back end, though, it helps in myriad ways:

  • Reduced mistakes through synchronised data sharing.
  • Time saves through using the POS software inventory data.
  • Inventory managed in one place.
  • Accurate selling what you have in-stock thanks to auto-syncing.
  • Better management fulfilment through the POS software connection.
  • No double handling of inventory and sales data.
  • Easier order management through the integrated dashboard.
  • Smart management of variants through the sync between POS software and Shopify.

These are just some of the benefits Tower Systems brings to the table through its POS software connected Shopify websites. Tower Systems has been delivering to small business retailers in this space for many years, we are a Shopify partner and are grateful to leverage their expertise for our local retail customer community.

Best of all, our customers have the ability to tune their websites, to evolve them over time. This is something to love about Shopify – it’s easy for non-tech people to engage with. It is a reason to love it, as many of our customers do.

A Shopify site, like any website, is a hungry beast. By this we mean that it  needs to be fed, with new content and changes, regularly.

  1. Continue to add products and ensure they are named and described how people would search for them.
  2. Refresh your collection / category landing page descriptions. A landing page is a collection page on which you have items for that collection. Write 3 or 4 crisp sentences of 15 or 20 words each with the sentences punching keywords people are likely to search for. Remember, you are writing more for the search engines than humans.
  3. The best photos are those you take, of single products. A photo of a display is not easily understood by humans or Google.
  4. Add articles. Your knowledge could be what differentiates your business from any competitor. Indeed, non-product content will most likely drive more traffic than product content.
  5. Get suppliers and others to link to you. The more the better.
  6. Sell products on additional channels: Facebook, Instagram & eBay.
  7. Regularly pitch your site on social media.
  8. Use Shopify’s abandoned cart feature to push sales.
  9. Pitch promotional discounts to draw in new customers.
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Log4j advice for small business retailers from our POS software company

December 17, 2021
1 Min read
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Here is part of the advice we shared with our POS software customers yesterday about the Log4j exposure:

The Australian Cyber Security centre has published comprehensive information and advice about about the Log4j zero-day flaw. We recommend you read this.

ZDNet has also published a good explainer.

Our Retailer POS software is free from this exploit as we make no use of Java whatsoever. On your network, however, you may be at risk. Some routers, for example, use the problematic code. We are checking all our internal systems and hardware that could be exposed. Our hosting partners are doing the same.

Here’s what you need to do: Run every security update you are told to run, and do this for the next few weeks. If you can, check for security updates for your routers and other devices attached to your network.

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