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More small business and local retailers are selling online with beautiful websites created by the web development team at Tower Systems, working in close consultation with the POS software development team at the company.

In 2021, having a website, a beautiful website, for online sales is like having a fax machine or a photocopier was all those years ago in retail.

Through a consultative process, the web specialists at Tower help small business retailers using its POS software to discover how they can genuinely differentiate online to attract new shoppers, especially shoppers who are not local, shoppers who may otherwise not know the business exists.

By researching current search engine data as to what people are searching for, Tower Systems has been able to help small business retailers pivot online while using the existing business for labour and other overheads.

While the temptation is for represent to represent their existing physical retail business online, the most success is had by retailers who treat their website as a start-up, a new business. This is where the comprehensive keyword research by Tower can help unlock commercially valuable opportunities.

One small business retailer in Numurkah Victoria created a beautiful baby website, helping that business to expand their baby gifts and products offering and through this to find many shoppers interstate, adding genuine bottom line value. Today, the website for that retail business is one of the best you will see in that category.

All website development is done in Australia by the Tower Systems web team. They have delivered many websites for retailers. They have also delivered five websites through which members of a group sell collectively, to reach an even bigger audience.

While Tower Systems partners with the Shopify, Magento and WooCommerce e-commerce platforms, it is the Shopify platform that is most widely used for small business retailers.

The Tower web experts can offer guidance on shipping, methods of payment, marketing, pricing, product category structure, photos and more. They guide retailers from beginning to going live.

By connecting their website seamlessly to the Tower POS software, small business retailers are able to manage inventory and data efficiently and accurately.

We are grateful for all the retailers engaging with our web strategy and for their pursuit of sales growth through a diverse mix of retail opportunities.

The Sunday Age today has a story from Dominic Powell and Simon Johanson about retail and the new normal. It speaks about how retail has changed through Covid and that many changes will stick:

From smaller shops to major chains such as JB Hi-Fi and Coles, the exodus from Australia’s inner cities is just one of the many effects of the coronavirus pandemic shopkeepers fear could persist well beyond the six to 12 months until the world has its vaccine.

As the article notes, there is no doubt that the surge in online will continue.:

Broader changes, like the rapid acceleration of online shopping, will be widespread and unstoppable. Retailers are already re-assessing their moribund bricks-and-mortar stores and spending millions on online platforms. “Omnichannel” (along with “resilience”) has been the jargon du jour for merchants through the recent corporate reporting season.

There is also no doubt, in our view, that the migration away from malls to the high street and regional, will continue, too.

We think that retail has fundamentally changes. Indeed, we saw this months ago ourselves in sales on our POS software. That surge, especially in niche retail channels and outside of shopping malls was an insight, which was inspiring to us and encouraging, too.

People working from home will want to stay working from home. So many benefit from this, they like it, the flexibility it offers. Businesses, too, like this as it plays well as to operating costs as in other ways in which the business operates.

We are an Aussie POS software co serving specialty retailers with locally made and supported POS software and beautiful connected Shopify websites.

We are grateful to be playing a role in helping small business retailers configure their businesses to adjust to serving these and related changes ion the high street and in regional and rural Australia.

The new normal is a more diverse, a more spread out, country. This is great news for our small business retail community.

We offer a fresh approach to POS software and selling online.

We’re not your usual POS software company. As retailers ourselves – 3 gift / pop culture shops and 6 online businesses – we know how we like to be sold to. we have our approach with our POS software.

Back in March we pitched a package of stimulus ideas to federal politicians and here with little interest. Today, we pitch a modified version, reflecting feedback from small business retailers in our POS software community of 3,500 businesses.

These are ideas from people living it, not economists. They are immediately and locally beneficial successions designed to serve local communities and retailers in those communities.

Covid stimulus package for local small business retailers and the communities in which they serve.

Small business retailers are nimble and able to lift local economies faster than big businesses and certainly better than online businesses.

Here are six tips for politicians on steps they can take, decisions they can make to help lift retail, especially small business retail, as well as those local businesses with which small business retailers can quickly connect.

1. Local shops refresh grant. Give every local retail business a grant of at least $25,000 with the stipulation that it is spent locally (at least within the state or territory) on capital works for the shop, to improve the shop. It could be for painting, carpentry, electrical, new aircon, new carpeting, staff training or similar. Proof of local spending in the form of an invoice from a local tradesperson or small business company with and ABN and more than a year of trading as recognised by the ATO – to avoid fraud. The management of this should be online with quick approval and payment. Note: the $25,000 is suggested to provide sufficient local economic stimulus.
2. Local visual merchandising support. Keeping in-store displays can be a challenge for small business retailers. Fund a network of merchandisers to make a 2 hour call weekly on qualified independent small retail businesses, sub $1M retail product turnover (i.e. not including agency), ABN registered, trading for six months or more. With each visit to be about visual refresh of the shop. Cap the campaign at six months and then assess the economic value. Only local merchandisers to be used – i.e. not an overseas agency who hires local contractors.
3. Local artists grants. Offer cash grants to fund buskers for local high streets, to make shopping locally more entertaining. Make the application easy. Focus on local artists entertaining in their local community. This serves the dual purpose of injecting cash locally as well as fostering the local arts. The application process should be online, approval fast and payment immediate.
4. Direct all politician electorate spending to be with local small businesses. For printing, subscriptions, gifts, parties, cards, everything for a year purchased through a politician’s electorate to be through a a business in their electorate. Have the results assessed independently. Ensure that spending is fair, too, to benefit a variety of local businesses, and not dolled out as political favours. Shop local, shop small.
5. Run a national shop small shop local ad campaign. Make it educational, smart, encouraging … guiding Aussies on the value to them from shopping local, shopping small. Help to understand the true value of shopping local, shopping small compared to the alternatives. The ad campaign should run regionally across multiple media platforms, giving preference to locally owned platforms with a track record for not managing their business to minimise tax. Yes, Amex does this. We need a campaign that is not credit card supported.
6. Establish local currency systems. These work overseas on regional towns where local currency has more value than the national currency. It supports shopping local through a smart value structure. the government role could be on the tech back end to manage the currency – taking away capital cost from local councils. To find out more ab9out this, read up on the Bristol Pound.

This list could be much longer. It is offered here as a start, to get people thinking of practical ways to support shopping small, shopping local.

Corona is challenging the economy. While we am not economists, we suspect that giving money to people likely to spend it quickly and spend it locally would be good for the economy and at a pace that is helpful to overall economic performance.

This is all about boosting local.