The POS Software Blog
News from Tower Systems about locally made POS software for specialty local retailers.
Good POS software offer these 5 benefits. Tower Systems does.
Of course, thanks to the Tower Systems POS software, there are many more benefits than these. Now, here’s a new video from us about these 5 benefits from the Tower Systems POS software.
Rising interest rates are on the mind of everyone in Australia right now it seems. News stories appear daily about the impact of rising interest rates … for homeowners, for businesses. Everywhere we turn there is a ‘take’ on rising interests rates.
In local small business retail we can see the impact of higher interest rates through several lenses: consumer confidence, actual sales and business costs – for businesses with loan funds in place to support the business.
Our Tower Systems POS software company helps local small business retailers deal with rising interest rates in a range of ways …
We help retailers track trends on their shops. This is vital because while there is news out there and plenty of speculation, a retailer can only rely on what they bank through their register and our POS software is that register. we can help them access facts as they pertain to their business as opposed to feelings based on news and other stories. Facts matter. One retailer told us last week that rising interests rates were impacting their business through less sales. While their transaction count was down, revenue was up in higher margin areas meaning the business was banking more profit. facts matter.
We help retailers cap costs. The rental / subscription cost of our POS software has not changes since mid 2019. We have no plans to change it. Our customers know this. We are iota adding to their costs. We also help them require the cost of labour in their businesses and this can save money and free cash for other, more productive, uses in the business.
We help retailers free up cash in their businesses. And, this can help reduce their reliance on loan funds, which means a lower impact of rising interest rates. now, how do we help retailers free up cash. We do this in a range of ways, through smart tools in our POS software. We helped one business release more than $20,000 of hitherto dead money. The released funds helped them reduce their overdraft and that reduced the amount of interest the business was paying. It all comes back to using business data.
Rising interest rates are a thing. Rather than getting caught in the quicksand over them, our focus is on helping local small business retailers develop and walk through a plan for dealing with rising interest rates so that their businesses are not as impacted as they might otherwise have been.
The news out there on rising interest rates can be scary, and distracting. Our advice is to focus on that over which you have control, to understand, seek out a pathway through and to step thoughtfully along that path.
The cost of freight is increasing. Freight into Australia costs more. Freight around Australia costs more. Freight locally costs more.
Small business retailers can feel challenged as to how to deal with this, now to manage the cost of freight, how to protect their business against the cost of freight.
Tower Systems helps local small business retailers deal with the cost of freight by providing in the software the ability to easily spread the freight cost of a package containing a range of goods across the sale provide of all the goods received. This allows the business to pass on the cost, spread the cost, reflect the cost fo freight across all items brought into the business.
Too many small business retailers stress about then high cost fo freight and what to do about it. the thing is, freight is. cost everyone has. There is no such thing as free freight.
Trucks cost money. Truck drivers cost money. Warehouses cost money. Fork lift drivers cost money.
Every item in every shop in town has a freight cost associated with getting it on the shelf. There is no point complaining. It is a real cost, a universal cost, one that is best managed efficiently, and spread across the sale price of every inventory item that you have in the shop.
Use your POS software to do this. Tower Systems helps local small business retailers deal with the cost of freight. We do this through software facilities in the POS software as well and through advice on how to use the POS software and business management advice. This is where we leverage our experience as retailers to provide practical advice ion the test way to deal with the rising cost of freight in small business retail.
Once you discover that it is easy when receiving new inventory into your business to spread the cost of freight, you can systemise the process, structure it, make it part of your operational processes. This takes the emotion out of the situation. It stops you having tom micro manage it. You benefit and the business benefits.
Freight is a cost all businesses confront. There are myriad ways to deal with it, manage it and leverage it sol that it is not as problematic for the business as it may seem.
Tower Systems is a full service POS software company focussed on local specialty retailers in selected retail channels.
The Tower Systems POS software integrates with the Linkly EFTPOS platform to make it easier for local retailers to take credit and debit cards for over the counter purchase payment.
The Linkly POS software integration has been part of the Tower Systems software for many years.
There is no additional cost for retailers to use the Linkly POS software integration from Tower Systems.
Using the Linkly POS software integration, retailers can take payment without re-entering same amount details. There is an integration between the Tower POS software and the credit card terminal and through the Linkly connection, processing of the sale is accurate, fast and easy … providing for a smooth transaction flow at any sales counter or elsewhere bin the business.
Tower Systems first worked with the Linkly business many years ago when it was called PC Eftpos. That work continues through their transition to the rebrand as Linkly.
We don’t force our POS software customers to use Linkly. It is 100% optional, like any of our EFTPOS handling integrations. We create the solutions and let our customers choose those that work best for them in their circumstances. Customers like this, that we do not require them to use one company or another. They like the purity if us focussing on what we make rather than forcing them down a payments path that is not ideal for them but which may enrich the POS company – yes, we have seen that happen.
The integration in our POS software with Linkly is in all options of our software, for all marketplaces. This means our customers across a diverse mix of specialty retail situations can rely on the POS software tinkly integration to provide a stable and secure solution for handling the processing of credit can debit card payments in the business.
We have no commercial terms with Linlky. The relationship is purely Technical ical, in service of our POS software customers, local retailers serving local communities. we will continue to support the Linkly POS software integration since so many of our customers rely on this. It is important to them, which makes it important to us.
in addition to the link itself, we provide advice, help and support for our customers, to make using it easy and certain. This is what good POS software customer service looks like.
EFTPOS fees are a pain point for local small business retailers. They are a cost of business, eating into already tight margin. Talk to any local small business retailer and it is likely they ill complain about high EFTPOS fees.
In some cases, it is EFTPOS fees that are tied to other services that can negatively impact them the most.
In the POS software marketplace, for example, there are POS software companies that offer their software at a reduced price if you sign up for their integrated EFTPOS solution. In two instances we have seen this week, the EFTPOS fees in these situations are higher than the usual market price – making more money for the POSt software company and costing the local retail business more.
How can I cut EFTPOS fees is a common question from retailers. It is a question that comes with urgency, need and emotion. It is a question we understand we own shops as weak, 4 shops in fact where more than half our revenue is settled by way of EFTPOS. We understand the challenge of high EFTPOS fees and have found ways to satisfactorily address this in our shops.
We have found a way to cut the cost of EFTPOS fees for our local retail businesses.
If you want to cut EFTPOS fees for your shop, it starts with understanding more about how the fees accrue. This is where Tower Systems can help.
Oh, and by the way, we do not require you to sign up for a specific EFTPOS provider. Our advice is neutral, balanced and focussed 100% on your needs. Sure, we have relationships that could save you money too, but there is no requirement. All Tower Systems customers have free access to our advice and assistance to cut EFTPOS fees in retail. We know the more we help our retailer business customers do this the more we are able to deliver practical benefits that will encourage our customers to stay with us.
If you think EFTPOS fees in your shop are too high, consider how Tower Systems might be able to help you. Our POS software is awesome. Our retail business management advice and support is valuable. Everyday we leverage our retail business experience beyond the POS software itself. This helps our customers save money and make their businesses more valuable.
Can I cut EFTPOS fees in my shop? Yes, we think you can. Let us help. sales@towersystems.com.au
Oh, and if you signed up for EFTPOS services in return for a lower subscription or rental cost of your software, check to see what your EFTPOS fees are, compare them against the marketplace. If you are like the two businesses we were contacted by this week it could be you signed up for a higher transactional cost in return for a small discount off the software cost … resulting in higher costs for you. yes, that is what happened.
You know you are being stalked by a competitor when they copy your 5-step initiative, step by step. We appreciate the recognition.
We are grateful to have welcomed more retailers to the Tower Systems POS software community from the MYOB Retail Manager software.
With MYOB making their intentions re the future of Retail Manager clear, retailers, community groups, clubs and others using the software are looking for alternatives, solutions o9n which they can rely into the future.
Tower Systems has helped many businesses and groups move from MYOB Retail Manager to the Tower Systems POS software. We do this in a structured and methodical way, working with our customers to bring across what they trust and helping them setup in a new world with fresh data fresh settings and, best of all, comprehensive training and one-on-one support.
We have many customers in many different retail settings who have made the switch from MYOB Retail Manager before. They can speak to the software as well as our support processes that have helped them land where they are. People switching from MYOB Retail Manager today can rely on the experiences of others. They can also trust the Tower Systems commitment to continual evolution of its POS software in service o0f the needs of specialty retail.
Like any new installation of our POS software, we start the relationship wanting to ensure we understand the needs of a business. This actually starts before prospective customers even sign up with us. We want to make sure we can meet their needs. So, we start a discovery process before anything else. If our software does meet their needs, then it’s full steam ahead with comprehensive training in how to use the software and easy to access customer service for any query customers may have once the training is completed. We make it easy to learn and easy to continue to learn long after the software is being used in a business.
We differ from the old MYOB approach in that we provide all our own training, we are very accessible – through to our leadership team, our software is regularly enhanced, documentation is regularly updated, and, support access is easy and direct … by phone, email in person, text message or through social media. We make it easy for you to reach us when you need us.
If you are using MYOB Retail Manager in your business and you want to consider an alternative, Tower Systems is here for you. We’d love to find out more about your needs: 1 300 662 957 or sales@towersystems.com.au.
Not all POS software tracks serial numbers.
The POS software from Tower Systems does track serial numbers, and here’s how:
This new short video is another in our series for our POS software customers and our sales prospects. It’s another way we remind local small business retailers the value of our locally made and supported specialty retail POS software.
Ideal for jewellers, pool maintenance businesses, firearms dealers, bike shops, pet shops, appliance businesses.
By tracking serial numbers using the Tower Systems POS software, retailers can provide a level of service to customers they will appreciate. Serial numbers are listed on receipts. They are recorded, too, for later use should the item be stolen from the customer and they need to do a claim.
Tracking serial numbers in this Tower Systems POS software also sets your business up for longer term tracking of the service history of an item. This can be a valuable way to differentiate the services provided by your business.
The serial number tracking tools are part of the POS software for specialty retail settings such as jewellers, bike shops, pet shops and more. It is included in these products at no extra cost, no additional monthly fee.
Embedded in the Tower Systems POS software for a range of specialty retail marketplaces, the serial number tracking tools are a genuine value-add without any additional cost., They are a core part of the Tower software, able to be used at any time. This is key in that retailers will appreciate not having to pay extra to use serial number tracking tools.
In the pet shop channel, the serial number tracking tools are used to record pet microchip details as they, in an of themselves, are a form of serial number. Being able to track pet microchips in this way, using the serial number tracking tools, helps pet shops to provide a service pet owners and lovers certainly appreciate.
The serial number tracking tools in this software are another differentiator, another benefit for local business retailers through which they can provide an appreciated level of service to customers.
Tower Systems is grateful to its customers for their support in helping us reach more local retail businesses.
We are grateful to welcome a new team member today, to another new role in the business.
While plenty have found the pandemic to be challenging, we have leant into opportunity, and this has helped us flourish.
Making what we sell is good for local small business retailers and all here at Tower Systems who depend on us.
Rewarding shopper loyalty in retail businesses has become industrial in scale, which means it is less personal, and more about the retail business than the shopper.
Too many local small business retailers think the best way to compete with big business loyalty offerings is to copy them, which means offering points to shoppers that they can then use somehow in the business.
What are points worth?
That’s the million dollar question. or, maybe, the million point question.
Because … in one shop a point is equal to a dollar, in another, it takes 1,000 points to equal a dollar, while in another it takes 10 points to equal a dollar for selected items in the shop but not everything they have available.
No wonder shoppers are confused as to the actual value of loyalty points. They are confusing.
While our awesome local retail POS software serves a points based loyalty offering, because our POS software customers wanted that, we also have an awesome, and better we think, loyalty solution that is $$$ based, that shoppers understand, and love – we say love because we have seen and heard shoppers say this. Better still, we see shoppers love our $$$ based loyalty solution through their spending patterns.
What we offer in our POS software loyalty solutions is flexibility, transparency and easy engagement.
You can have your Tower Systems POS software loyalty solution live in minutes.
It costs nothing to setup.
What you invest in it is 100% your call.
What shoppers get from it is 100% your call.
It’s a standard part of our POS software – you don’t have to pay us or anyone to participate.
Shoppers don’t need to register, which means more will engage.
This is about driving sales, as that’s key in any retail business.
Sure, likes are nice and follows are great and having plenty of members in a loyalty program makes your chest puff out … b u t what really matters, what matters the most in any shop, in any retail business, is the business you put through your register and it is this business, what you sell and what you make from all that, which pays the bills, pays your people, pays you.
The Tower Systems approach to shopper loyalty through its local retail POS software offers a points based solution. but, better still, is the $$$ based offer that any customer can understand and with which any customer can engage, including those one-time customers you will never see again – those customers can do 2, 3, heck, even 4 transactions in a single visit. That’s what we have seen when retailers turn on our awesome POS software loyalty solutions.
Tower Systems makes POS software for local specialty retailers like jewellers, garden centres, bike shops, pet shops, newsagents, toy shops, sewing shops, homewares shops, gift shops, firearms dealers, adult shops, bookshops, farm supply businesses, mobility scooter businesses and pool maintenance and supply businesses.
It is this specialisation, this service of local small business retail that helps us provide solutions for shoppers who do shop local and who can be loyal, providing wonderful and valuable business to the local high street retail economy.
See it for yourself:
We are adding to our POS software development team, in the React space. We have several roles requiring skilled, commercially experienced, developers. here’s what we are looking for in candidates:
Tower Systems is grateful to support local IT professionals with leading edge opportunities.
If your shop sells online and in a physical store, how easy is it for you to report on sales revenue by location of the sale?
How easy is it for you to report in-store sales versus online sales?
We think this should be easy.
Online sales have a different set of costs compared to in-store sales. There are different customer acquisition costs, too, and different fulfilment costs.
By separating out the reporting of sales based on the platform through which sales are transacted, Tower Systems provides retailers using its POS software with insights that could be valuable in better understanding the business, and thereby better taking those next steps in the business.
This level of reporting in the Tower Systems POS software is differentiating for the business, it is helping Tower Systems to win customers, for which we are sincerely grateful.
When we shared our innovative approach with our customers, there was much joy. The enhancements were not sought out by our customers. We did it because we saw the need in our own retail businesses. So when the enhancements were released in an update a while back, customers were surprised. It was like giving them a nugget of gold that made their use of our POS software even more valuable. We are so proud of delivering this and delivering what’s next in this space, and next again.
While our POS software connected Shopify, Magneto and Woo customers can get the online sales data from those platforms, by bringing it together in the POS, which manages data for all sales – in-store as well as online – made sense to us. It’s a time saver for retailers and retail business managers. It is a good decision feeder by placing this data, these insights, in one place.
This is a good POS software move, a value-add, a way the Tower Systems POS software enhanced the user experience and the value they can mine from their use of our POS software.
Maybe you can tell we are excited. Well, that’s because of customer feedback. Yes, it’s been terrific, for which we are even more grateful.
2022 is a good year for local small business retail and we are happy to be part of the story evolving in many main street settings in Australia and New Zealand.
Good POS software offer these 5 benefits. Tower Systems does.
Of course, thanks to the Tower Systems POS software, there are many more benefits than these. Now, here’s a new video from us about these 5 benefits from the Tower Systems POS software.
In many different ways in our POS software we help local retailers pitch local, and this matters to many in local communities.
Of course, the more more keep local jobs, the more the local economy thrives, and Thi sis good for everyone.
So, in our POS software, we make it easy for local retailers to shine a light on locally made.
And, outside our POS software, we promote local, in support of our retail customers.
This video is another way Tower Systems goes beyond what is traditional for a POS software company. We are proud to do this, and more.
Vape Shop software made here in Australia for local Australian vape shops.
Australian made. Australian supported. $155.00 a month.
Thanks to the work Tower Systems does in a range of regulated specialty retail spaces, we have software ideal for vape shops, as current vape shop software customers tell us. Find out more here: www.towersystems.com.au/vape
Here are 5 more reasons to love our Vape Shop Software:
Our Vape Shop Software costs $155.00 for each 30 days. The $155.00 is for access from as many computers as you have in the business.
There is no long-term contract. You can cancel at any time. There is no finance application.
We understand the controversy around vaping. Our commitment is to provide specialty retail POS software for legal specialty retail businesses. Should legal settings change and result in selling vaping products be illegal in Australia, we will stop offering our software.
When comparing POS software for your retail business be sure to look at the total cost of ownership.
If there is a fee per transaction, work out what you would be paying for the software based on your current transaction volume level.
One local retailer recently discovered that they would be paying $5,000 a year more for another POS software product compared to going with Tower Systems. This is despite the other company saying they were low cost. Once they added up the software rental cost, the per transaction cost, the EFTPOS cost and the cost for additional support to match what we consider to be basic support, the cost was even greater.
We all have EFTPOS costs so comparing the companies on that net each other off. The real differences were in the per transaction cost – we don’t have one – and the cost for extra support – there, it’s all included.
Taking a moment to more completely research the cost of POS software can reveal significant cost differences.
Another company said their rental was $50 a month less if you sign ups for their payments platform. You had to dig a bit to see the actual costs of that. What we found in that situation was that their payment costs were 33% above market cost, meaning a business that signs up for their payments platform would pay far more to use their POS software than if they went with us, where costs are transparent and fixed.
The retailer being hit with these costs, once they discovered the extent of them, was horrified at what they had been paying.
Here at Tower Systems we are a POS software company. We are not in the business of setting our price based on your transaction volume or how people pay. Indeed, it frustrates us when local retailers discover how much extra they have paid because they signed up to a transaction fee arrangement as most we have spoken to who did this did so without understanding. They thought it was a saving. They tend to feel dudded and this negatively impacts how they see all POS software companies.
All of us in business owe our customers transparency when it comes to pricing. Charging per transaction or charging based on the use of a payments platform is not transparent based on what we can see, or not see as the case may be.
We are grateful to win for retailers to the Tower Systems POS software thanks to our easy to use approach for loading supplier electronic invoices and stock files.
This happened again a couple of days ago when a retailer switched once they saw how easy we made it to load electronic invoices. They were tired of not being able to do this and appreciated that we make it easy.
here;’s the thing though – we have been doing this for years and years.
Saving time for retailers is a key goal. Couple this with data accuracy and it is a no brainer for POS software companies to make loading electronic invoices and stock files easy. we are grateful when. People switch to our POS software for this and are proud to deliver them with even more facilities they can love.
While it doesn’t make sense to us when we see POS software that does not make it easy to load invoices and files, we leverage the opportunities competitor missteps provide.
A couple of us were fortunate to spend time visiting a range of innovative local small business specialty retail in Los Angeles. In this new video, we share some of what we saw.
We are grateful to be at the Reed Gift Fair in Sydney. We are 2 days in and we have met so many gift shop owners, newsagents and other local small business retailers. It’s a wonderful opportunity to show off our POS software.
Being the only POS software company here is a treat,
Our stand is in a good position, which is a bonus.
The mood of people at the gift fair is terrific, optimistic. People have an appetite for change. Very few talked about wanting things to be the way they were. They are looking ahead, evolving, planning business moves for the new normal rather than the old past.
We have had so many good discussions, useful discussions and what’s interesting is people are up for it, they are up for a chat to explore business. It’s this face top face that people have been missing and to be there at the first major show on this scale in 2 years is a joy, a delight and a wonderful opportunity.
We are glad to have invested the money to be here, to meet face top face with retailers.
What’s particularly interesting about this gift fair is that it has attracted a diverse mix of retailers, most of whom trade in retail channels we serve: jewellers, garden centres, gift shops, homewares shops, toy shops and newsagents. This has made the show even more valuable for us, which we sincerely appreciate.
Our Aussie made and supported POS software for local specialty retailers is software to love and here’s why …
Uploading supplier data is easy, as is sharing data with Shopify websites – through two-way traffic.
All of this has been on show at the Reed Sydney Gift Fair.
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