Reasons retailers choose Tower Systems
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The thing most small business retailers ignore, to their loss
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POS Software for Game Shops: Helping Local Game Retailers Make the Most of 2026
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Games are having a moment. In 2026, game sales are strong across Australia and New Zealand, and local game shops are growing as a result. We have seen this in the latest Circa data prepared for the ATA.
More people are looking for screen-free time with friends and family. Game nights, clubs and tournaments are bringing new players into shops every week. For independent game retailers, it’s a real opportunity.
Making the most of that growth takes more than good stock. You need to know what’s selling, look after your regulars and give new players a reason to come back.
Generic POS software isn’t built for that. Tower Systems software for game shops is. Here’s how it can help your shop grow, starting with the parts of the business that matter most.
Age restricted products
Some games carry age ratings, and some products can’t be sold to younger customers. Getting this wrong is a risk for your business.
Our software lets you flag age restricted products. When one is scanned, staff are prompted to check the customer’s age before the sale goes through. It takes the guesswork out of busy periods and helps protect you and your team.
Special orders for customers
Game shoppers often know exactly what they want, even when you don’t have it in stock. A new expansion. A hard to find title. A pre-order for a release next month.
You can record special orders against the customer, track them through to delivery and let the customer know when their order arrives. Nothing gets lost on a sticky note, and the customer leaves knowing you’ll follow through.
Games bundles
Bundles are a great way to lift the average sale. A base game with an expansion. A starter set with extra dice and sleeves. A gift pack for Christmas.
You can create bundles in your POS, price them to suit and track how they sell. Stock is managed for each item in the bundle, so your inventory stays accurate.
Sales by genre and manufacturer
Knowing what sells is the key to buying well, especially when the category is growing. Our reporting lets you look at game sales by genre and by manufacturer.
Are strategy games growing while party games slow down? Is one publisher earning far more than its share of shelf space? With clear data, you can buy with confidence, adjust your range and have better conversations with your suppliers.
Supporting games clubs
For many game shops, clubs and game nights are the heart of the business. They bring people in the door regularly and build loyalty that online stores can’t match.
You can record club members in your POS, track their visits and purchases, and offer member pricing or rewards. That helps you see the value your club brings and give members a reason to keep coming back, and to buy while they’re there.
Loyalty for infrequent shoppers
Not every customer is a regular. Some visit a few times a year, often for a gift or a new release. With so many new players discovering games, this group is growing.
Our loyalty tools let you reward these shoppers in ways that suit them, not just your most frequent customers. Points, vouchers and targeted offers can bring an occasional shopper back sooner. That’s good for them, and good for your business.
Built for game shops, supported by people
Game shops are growing, and the right tools can help yours grow faster. Tower Systems is a vertical market software company. We build software for specific retail channels, and we work only with independent retailers in Australia and New Zealand.
Our training is personal and tailored to your shop. Our help desk starts with a conversation. When you need help, you can talk to a person who understands how game shops work.
Talk to us
AU: 1300 662 957
NZ: 0800 444 367
Email: sales@towersystems.com.au
Contacting a human is easy.
The Independent Retail Markets We Serve at Tower Systems
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Tower Systems is a vertical market software company. We don’t make one generic POS system and hope it fits. We build software for specific retail channels, and we work only with independent, specialty and small business retailers in Australia and New Zealand.
Today, thousands of local retailers use our software. Here are the markets we serve.
Gifts, fashion and lifestyle
Toys, games and hobbies
Garden, outdoors and rural
- Garden centres
- Produce and rural supplies stores
- Pet shops
- Fishing and outdoor stores
- Swimming pool parts and care
- Bike shops
- Firearms dealers
Everyday local retail
Technology and mobility
Community retail
Why this matters
Each of these markets trades differently. A bike shop needs serial number tracking and repairs. A health food shop may need scale integration. A garden centre has seasonal peaks. A charity shop handles donated, one-off stock. A newsagent juggles a mix of categories with very different margins.
Because we focus on specific markets, our software, training and support are shaped around how these businesses actually work. The people who help you understand your type of shop.
Don’t see your market?
If your business isn’t listed, talk to us anyway. Many other independent retailers use our software successfully. We’re always happy to have a conversation about what you need.
Talk to us
AU: 1300 662 957
NZ: 0800 444 367
Email: sales@towersystems.com.au
Contacting a human is easy.
Personal Service Matters in Retail. It Should Matter in Your Software Company Too.
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Good retailers know the value of personal service. They live it, deliver it, every day.
A customer walks in looking for a gift. You ask a few questions. Who’s it for? What do they like? What’s the budget? You show them a couple of options, they think it over, and you go back and forth until they find the right thing. That conversation is often the reason they come back.
Running a retail business is personal in the same way. Every shop is different. The owner, the staff, the location, the shoppers and the product mix all shape how the business works. Plenty of retailers and retail staff understand this.
At Tower Systems, we understand it too.
Training is personal
Our training is delivered by people, not videos you’re left to work through on your own. It’s tailored to your business and the way you trade.
A newsagent with a busy card department needs different help to a garden centre preparing for spring. A new owner taking over a shop needs different help to a long-time customer adding a new category. We start by understanding what you need, then train to that.
Our help desk is personal
When you contact our help desk, you can talk to a person. It starts with a conversation. We listen, ask questions and work through the problem with you until it’s sorted.
We’re a vertical market software company. We build POS software for specific retail channels and work only with independent retailers in Australia and New Zealand. That means the people helping you understand how shops like yours actually work.
Compare us on service, not just software
If you’re considering a change of POS software, compare our personal approach with any other software company on your list.
The tech stack is one thing to compare. Features matter, and we’re proud of ours. But software is useless without the level of service you need to get value from it. The best system in the world won’t help if you can’t get someone on the phone when your shop is busy and something isn’t working.
Ask each company you’re considering a few simple questions. Can I talk to a person when I need help? Will my training suit my business? Do your staff understand my type of shop?
We’re happy to be judged on our answers.
Talk to us
AU: 1300 662 957
NZ: 0800 444 367
Email: sales@towersystems.com.au
Contacting a human is easy.
Too Much in “General”? How a Cleaner Department Structure Makes Small Business POS Data Work Harder
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Open your Tower Systems Retailer POS and look at your departments and categories. If you see duplicates, vague names, or a “General” or “Miscellaneous” category holding hundreds of products, you’re not alone.
It happens in almost every business over time. A new supplier arrives and someone creates a category in a hurry. A staff member adds a department that already exists under another name. Products that don’t obviously fit anywhere end up in a catch-all.
None of it seems like a big problem on the day. But after a few years, your data becomes hard to trust and harder to use.
Why it matters
Your department and category structure is the backbone of your reporting. When it’s messy, the reports are messy too.
You can’t see which categories are growing if half the products sit in “General”. You can’t compare gross profit across departments if the same products are split between two of them. And staff waste time hunting for the right place to put a new item.
Clean data makes your business easier to manage. It helps you make better decisions about stock, space and buying, because the numbers reflect how your shop actually trades.
How our service works
Our Department and Category Restructure service is a careful, practical clean-up, tailored to each business. This is a small business focussed service that’s helping retailers achieve a clean dataset.
We start with an AI assisted review of your full product database. From that, we create a proposed department and category structure that suits the way you sell.
We then send you a spreadsheet showing the proposed structure. You review it and either approve it as supplied or tell us what you’d like changed. Nothing is updated in your POS until you’re happy.
Once approved, we rebuild the structure in your Tower Systems Retailer POS. Duplicates are merged. Vague categories are replaced with meaningful ones. Every product ends up in the right place.
What to know before you start
Two things sit outside the service.
If you use an accounting link, you may need to update its setup after the restructure. We’ll guide you through this, but the accounting changes themselves need to be made by you or your accountant.
If you have a website, menu links that point to departments or categories may need updating. We’ll help you identify what needs to change. If you’d like us to make the website menu changes for you, we can quote on that separately.
The result
You end up with clean departments, clear categories and a logical product hierarchy. Your staff find things faster. Your reports make sense. And you have a dataset you can actually use to manage your business.
The Department and Category Restructure is currently $499, down from $999.
Find out more and book at store.towersystems.com.au/products/department-and-category-restructure, or reach out to support.
Running your shop when you’re not in it
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Most independent retailers want to be on the shop floor. Life doesn’t always allow it. A holiday, a sick day, a trip to see family, a second job. There are plenty of reasons you can be away from the shop.
Here’s something we hear often from customers. Time away is when they see the business most clearly. Standing behind the counter, you see the next customer and the next delivery. Step back, and you see the patterns.
Remote management is normal in small business retail
Managing remotely is common in our part of retail. Some owners hold down a job elsewhere while the shop builds. Others own two, three or more shops and can only be in one place at a time.
How you manage remotely is your call. So is whether you group several shops together for a single view of the numbers. Some owners want everything combined. Others prefer to keep each shop separate.
We’ve built Tower Systems to be as flexible as possible here. The setup you start with can change as your needs change. Add a shop, step back from the counter, or bring in a manager, and the software adapts with you.
Our software also runs in-store or in the cloud. You choose what suits the way you work.
The numbers come to you
You don’t need to be in the shop to know how the day went. Business intelligence reports and management functions are available wherever you log in.
Some of it happens without you lifting a finger. When a staff member closes the register and runs the end-of-shift procedure, the day’s sales and key figures are emailed to you straight away.
If the cash or EFTPOS balance is out, you know that evening. Not at the end of the month, when it’s harder to track down.
Alerts when something doesn’t look right
The software also watches for unusual activity in-store. If a staff member discounts a big-ticket item too heavily, or cancels more sales than usual, you get to find out without having to jump through hoops.
You can log in, look at the transaction and deal with it quickly. Small problems are much easier to fix before they become habits.
Admin on your own time
Remote access also means you can fit software work around your day.
If you’re on the counter most of the week, or short a staff member, stock maintenance and other admin can wait until you’re off the floor. Electronic invoices that suppliers send overnight can be processed over breakfast at home.
That leaves shop time for the work that grows sales: displays, customers and your team.
One approach for every kind of specialist shop
We see owners of bookshops, gift shops, garden centres, bike shops, jewellers and rural supply stores manage this way. The approach is the same across all of them. You can step away from the floor and still know what’s happening.
Built for every kind of specialist retailer
Bookshop, gift shop, farm supply business, bike shop, garden centre or jewellery store, the approach is the same. You can step away from the floor and still know exactly what is happening while you are not there.
Talk to us
If you’d like to see how remote management would work for your shop, or across several shops, talk to us. We’ll show you the options and help you choose the setup that suits you now, knowing it can change later.
AU 1300 662 957 | NZ 0800 444 367 | sales@towersystems.com.au
Contacting a human is easy.
Why our customers love the Tower Systems chatbot
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When we added a chatbot to the Tower Systems help desk, we had one goal. Help retailers get answers faster, in plain language, whenever they need them.
The feedback from customers tells us it is working.
Answers outside business hours
Retailers don’t stop working when the help desk closes. Many of our customers do their admin early in the morning or late at night.
One general store owner told us:
“I have used the chatbot recently as I generally have questions outside of working hours… The response provided was succinct and provided me with step by step instructions.”
She used it to prepare for a change of ownership and to clean up her system ahead of a stocktake. Both times, she got clear, step-by-step instructions.
Plain language, at your own pace
Not everyone is confident with technology. The chatbot lets people learn at their own pace, without feeling rushed.
“I particularly like it because I am not particularly IT savvy and I can use it at my own pace.”
Another customer said:
“It answered everything I requested, and the instructions were very easy to follow. Saved me a lot of time and I was able to learn things by navigating through the system myself.”
Discovering more of the software
One of the best outcomes is that customers find features they did not know they had.
“I’m always hesitant using chatbot type technology… Your chatbot is amazing! It quickly analyses and answers in step-by-step detail how to fix whatever trouble I’m having… Tower’s chatbot has helped me discover and utilise more of the Retailer software and its capabilities than I knew existed.”
When a customer gets more from their software, they get more from their business.
Time back in a busy week
Retailers are time poor. Every minute spent searching for an answer is a minute away from customers.
“On the retail side of the house, most of us are time poor. So when we have an issue and we ask the bot, it saves so much time, effort and frustration.”
“I’ve asked it plenty of questions and only stumped it once. I love that it puts answers in a language we can understand.”
A human is still there
The chatbot does not replace our people. It works alongside them.
“Helps with almost all my enquiries and if it can’t help, will get a human to contact me. Saves me so much time spent searching the Tower website for answers.”
In one case, a customer wasn’t confident to go ahead with the chatbot’s instructions. A team member called her to help.
That is how it should work. The chatbot handles the quick questions. Our team is there for everything else.
Thank you
Thank you to every customer who has used the chatbot and shared feedback. Your comments help us keep improving.
If you are a Tower Systems customer and haven’t tried the chatbot yet, give it a go next time you have a question.
And remember, contacting a human is easy.
AU 1300 662 957 | NZ 0800 444 367 | sales@towersystems.com.au
Know which suppliers are really working for your shop
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Most retailers have a feel for their suppliers. Some are easy to deal with, some deliver on time and some always seem to have stock that sells. A feeling only goes so far, though.
Seeing how each supplier actually performs can be hard. The information is spread across invoices, sales reports and memory, and pulling it together takes time most shop owners do not have.
Tower Systems POS software makes it easier. You can see how suppliers perform and compare them side by side.
Once suppliers are next to each other, the picture gets clearer. The strong performers stand out, and so do the weak ones. A supplier you think highly of may be delivering less than you assumed. A smaller one may be quietly doing excellent work for your business.
With that knowledge, your decisions can rest on facts.
You might give more space and attention to suppliers whose products sell well. You might review ranges from suppliers that are not pulling their weight. Or you might sit down with a supplier for a direct conversation, armed with clear information rather than impressions.
Decisions like these can improve the financial performance of your business. Shelf space is limited, and so is the cash you have for stock. Putting both behind the suppliers that work for you is one of the most practical ways to strengthen a shop. It can be money in the bank.
To get the most from supplier insights, make the review a habit. Once a quarter is a sensible rhythm for many shops. Look past total sales to margin and how quickly stock sells. Take the figures with you into supplier meetings, because a conversation backed by numbers tends to go further. And jot down why you made each change, so you can check later whether it worked.
Supplier relationships matter in local retail. Many have lasted years and carry real goodwill. Good information supports those relationships, because both sides can talk from the same set of facts.
We can walk you through how supplier comparison works in Tower Systems POS software, using the kinds of suppliers you deal with.
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To reach us, call 1300 662 957 (AU) or 0800 444 367 (NZ), or email sales@towersystems.com.au.
Helping your shop build healthier cashflow, step by step
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Cashflow is tight for many small business retailers. Some days it feels like sliding down a hill, with bills arriving faster than the takings.
There is rarely a single fix. Healthier cashflow tends to come from steady work on the basics, done well and done often.
That is where we focus Tower Systems POS software: on the reliable steps that lead to success in retail.
The first is a deeper shopper basket. When each customer buys a little more, takings grow without needing more people through the door. Knowing which products sell together, and placing them well, helps.
Margin is another. Every sale is worth more when your pricing reflects your costs, and software that makes margin visible helps you see where it is leaking away.
Buying is a big one. Overbuying ties up cash in stock that sits on the shelf, while underbuying means missed sales. Buying from your actual sales history gets you much closer to the right quantity.
Then there is theft. Stock that disappears is cash that disappears, and tools that help you spot unusual patterns give you a chance to do something about it.
None of these steps is dramatic on its own, and none needs to be. Cashflow improves through dozens of small, sensible decisions made every week. Our software is designed to make those decisions easier and better informed.
We make POS software only for local small retail businesses. That focus shapes the reports we build and the way we think about stock and pricing.
It also means the software suits the way local shops actually trade, with small teams, limited time and owners who look after a bit of everything, from buying to rostering to serving at the counter.
Every day, the software helps the retailers we serve build healthier cashflow, one sound decision after another.
If cashflow is a constant worry, start small. Pick your slowest moving stock or your lowest margin department, make one change and watch what happens over a month. Then move on to the next thing.
If you would like to see how our software could support those steps in your shop, get in touch.
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To reach us, call 1300 662 957 (AU) or 0800 444 367 (NZ), or email sales@towersystems.com.au.
POS software help desk support that starts with a conversation
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Most of us have rung a business for help and ended up stuck in a phone menu. Press one, press three, wait. When you finally reach someone, they do not know the product and can only read from a script.
That is frustrating on a quiet day. When your shop is busy and something is not working, it is far worse.
Retail is unique. Every shop has its own way of doing things, its own suppliers and its own regulars. Retail is also human, and so much of it gets done through conversation, between staff, with suppliers and with customers at the counter.
We approach Tower Systems POS software support the same way.
There are no scripts and no hoops to jump through before you get an answer relevant to your query. You speak with someone who knows the software and can work through the problem with you.
A conversation lets the support person understand what you are trying to achieve, beyond the button you pressed. Often the real question sits behind the first one. A retailer might call about a report when what they really need is to understand why margin has dropped in one department. Good support picks that up.
Conversations help with learning, too. Many retailers use only part of what their software can do, and a helpful support call can turn up a feature that saves time every week. That rarely happens when someone is reading from a script.
Support matters most at the moments you least expect. A new staff member gets stuck on a refund on a Saturday morning, or a stock count will not reconcile. At times like these, talking with someone who understands both the software and retail can get you back to serving customers sooner.
When you are choosing POS software, give support the same attention you give the feature list. Find out how you reach support and who picks up the phone. Ask whether that person will know the software well, and whether you can talk a problem through or will be pushed through a process. The answers say a lot about how a supplier sees its customers.
Small retailers deserve support that respects their time and their knowledge of their own business. For us, that means picking up the phone and having a proper conversation.
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To reach us, call 1300 662 957 (AU) or 0800 444 367 (NZ), or email sales@towersystems.com.au.
In business since 1981, with POS software made for today
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We have been in business since 1981. Some people hear that date and picture old software with a fresh coat of paint.
The software we sell today was made for today.
Retail has changed enormously over the decades. People shop differently and pay differently. They expect different things from a local business, and the way stock is bought and managed has shifted too, sometimes quickly. Our software has kept pace.
It has been completely replaced many times, rebuilt from the ground up so it meets the needs of retail businesses now. Each rebuild was a chance to start fresh, keeping what we had learned and dropping what no longer served retailers well.
Between rebuilds, every software update brings more enhancements, and many of them start with our customers.
Customers suggest improvements through our Software Ideas platform, which you can reach from our website. The process is transparent and driven by customers, which keeps our development focused on what retailers actually need.
The people using the software every day know where it could be better. A shop owner who notices a step that takes too long, or a report that could be clearer, has something valuable to tell us. The Software Ideas platform gives them a place to tell us.
What our history does give you is experience. Over four decades we have watched retail change and worked through those changes alongside local businesses. We understand the pressures independent retailers face because we have been listening to them for a long time.
Still, a long history and good software are two different things. Our longevity shows we have stayed around and kept investing. Only the software itself can show whether it suits your business today.
So when you look at any POS software, judge it on what it does now. It is fair to ask a supplier how often their software is updated and how customer feedback shapes it. It is also fair to ask whether they have rebuilt their software over the years or kept adding to something old.
We are happy to answer those questions and show you the software as it stands today.
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To reach us, call 1300 662 957 (AU) or 0800 444 367 (NZ), or email sales@towersystems.com.au.
Why we sometimes tell retailers our POS software is not right for them
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It might seem odd for a software company to turn away a sale. We do it when we need to.
Our software is not right for every business we speak with. When we realise that, we say so straight away.
Every sales enquiry starts with what we call our discovery process. We take our time getting to know your business: what matters to you, how your workflow runs and how you operate from day to day, from receiving stock through to serving at the counter. Those conversations tell us whether our software can genuinely help.
If we think it can, we show you in a personal demonstration. We shape it around what we learned in discovery, so you see the software doing the jobs that matter in your shop.
We also record the demonstration. A business partner who could not make the time, or a senior staff member, can watch it later and see exactly what you saw. Decisions in small businesses are often shared, and a recording makes that easier.
If at any stage we think our software is not the right fit, we tell you and explain why.
We would rather say no and wish you all the best than have you unhappy with us later.
Saying no is never comfortable. It is still the honest thing to do, and it saves everyone from a costly mistake.
Changing POS software is a big decision for a small retailer. It affects how your staff work, how you buy stock and how well you understand your business. A poor choice costs time, money and goodwill, and the retailer bears most of that cost.
Whoever you are talking to about software, there are a few questions worth asking.
Do they take time to understand your business before showing you anything?
Is the demonstration built around your workflow, or is it a general tour of features?
Will they tell you plainly if something does not suit you?
We think these are a fair test, and we are happy to be judged by them.
If you would like to start a conversation, we will listen first.
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To reach us, call 1300 662 957 (AU) or 0800 444 367 (NZ), or email sales@towersystems.com.au.
Advice for retailers: Insights ready and waiting when you finally have a moment
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Running a local shop leaves little spare time. Most days go on serving customers, unpacking deliveries, sorting rosters and dealing with whatever else turns up. A close look at the numbers often slips to the bottom of the list.
We built our Insights Dashboard with that in mind.
The dashboard runs quietly in the background of Tower Systems POS software, collecting data from your trading and reviewing it for you. When you do get ten spare minutes with a cup of tea, the insights are already sitting there, ready for action.
The first thing it shows is what’s not working. Some stock simply does not move. It sits on the shelf tying up cash and space, and the dashboard highlights it so you can decide what to cut and stop reordering.
It also shows what you are missing out on. This is a list of items you were out of stock of at times when they would otherwise have been bought. Those sales left the shop without anyone noticing. Once you can see them, it is much easier to adjust reorder levels or talk to a supplier about timing.
Then there is what’s working. Every shop has products quietly doing good work. The dashboard brings them to the surface so you can think about how they might do even better, whether through a better spot in the shop, a stronger display or deeper stock.
Shoppers often buy certain items together, and the dashboard shows you those pairings too. Placing related products near each other makes life easier for customers. Over time, small adjacency changes like this can lift the size of each sale.
Finally, the dashboard can flag patterns suggesting stock may be going missing. Treat this as a prompt to look closer. It gives you somewhere to start that you would not otherwise have.
You do not need to become a data analyst to use any of it. The dashboard does the digging. Your part is to look at what it has found and decide what to do next.
Most owners find that acting on one or two insights a week is enough to make a difference over a year. Slow stock gets cleared, fewer sales are lost to empty shelves and the products already working for you get the attention they deserve.
We are always happy to show retailers the Insights Dashboard using examples that fit their own shop.
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To reach us, call 1300 662 957 (AU) or 0800 444 367 (NZ), or email sales@towersystems.com.au.
What free POS hardware actually costs
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A retailer recently shared a competitor pitch with us that included seven thousand dollars of free point of sale hardware. On a social media ad, it looked spectacular.
The questions started once the retailer sat with the paperwork. How long is the contract? That had not been asked. What does the software cost each month? Not much, apparently. Is there a per-transaction fee? A small one. When the retailer added it all up, the three year total cost of ownership came out at around double what they would pay with Tower Systems.
The hardware was not free. It was funded by a per-transaction percentage that grew as the business grew. The better the retailer traded, the more they paid for hardware they thought was a gift.
We see this often. The giveaway is big and visible. The lock-in and the rising recurring cost sit in the fine print, and by the time a retailer finds them, the ink is dry.
Our advice is to slow down. Read the contract, all of it, before signing anything. If you are weighing up two or three vendors, gather every contract and ask ChatGPT, Claude or Google Gemini to compare them clause by clause. Ask for the total cost across three and five years, at today’s turnover and at a realistic growth rate. This used to take an accountant and a spare afternoon. Now any retailer can do it before their coffee goes cold.
We do it differently at Tower Systems, and happily so. Our pricing and our contract are transparent. There is no bundled free hardware and no percentage taken from your turnover. You pay a straightforward rental fee for the software and that is where our revenue ends. Easy to understand, and easy to compare with anything else in the market.
This post is for Australian independent retailers looking at POS software right now. Compare, review and decide with clear numbers in front of you.
Tower Systems develops and supports POS software for local specialty retailers, including bookshops, jewellers, garden centres, bike shops, toy shops, stockfeed and farm supply businesses, saddleries, computer shops, fishing shops, pet shops, charity businesses, landscape gardening businesses, antique shops, sewing and haberdashery shops, newsagents and more.
Retail advice: Till not balancing? Start with the pattern, not an assumption
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An end-of-shift difference can be frustrating, especially when it keeps happening. For an independent retailer, the useful question is not simply how to make the figures match. It is why the difference occurred and whether the same issue is likely to happen again.
Start with the size of the discrepancy, when it began and what changed around that time. Those details can help separate a setup problem from a gap in procedure or something requiring closer investigation.
Check the setup and the handling of cash
A new computer or a change to the POS setup is worth noting. An extra float could be included in the end-of-shift calculation when it should not be.
If the figures were previously balancing, knowing when that changed gives support a useful starting point. A repeatable difference may be easier to investigate than a general report that the till is always wrong.
Cash movements need attention too. Money taken from the till needs to be recorded through the appropriate process so that the software reflects what actually happened.
The relevant no-sale function provides a way to record cash being taken out. Retailers who are unsure of the correct procedure for their setup should check with support rather than improvise a workaround.
Staff also need a consistent process. If different people handle the same cash movement differently, the end-of-shift figures can become harder to interpret.
Investigate discrepancies without jumping to conclusions
Repeated unexplained differences deserve attention. They may point to a procedural or setup issue, and in some circumstances they may warrant investigation for possible theft.
A discrepancy is not proof of wrongdoing. The sensible approach is to check the records, understand the process and establish what the available evidence actually shows.
For a useful support conversation, retailers can have the expected total, counted total and difference ready. It also helps to identify the affected register or shift and explain whether the problem is recent or longstanding.
Correcting a float setting requires a different response from improving staff training. Neither should be confused with investigating an unexplained cash loss.
Tower’s human support team can help retailers work through the software and setup questions. Finding the cause matters more than repeatedly adjusting a figure at closing time, because the aim is a balancing process that can be trusted on the next shift as well.
Tower Systems is an alternative for Computerlink POS software customers
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Our Tower Systems newsagency POS software is a viable, fresh, and regularly evolving alternative to the Computerlink newsagency software.
With more newsagency customers than all other newsagency software combined, Tower Systems is resourced to serve this retail channel in Australia, especially in this period of change.
We are grateful to have been able to welcome a bunch of Computerlink POS software customers to the Tower Systems POS software community.
When a Computerlink POS software customer switches to Tower Systems, we do our very best too help them settle in well, without pressure, and with their data across for seamless business operation. Our onboarding experts have in-store newsagency experience, which we know is a big help as newsagency businesses continue to have unique operational needs.
While the Computerlink POS software community is primarily made up of newsagents as we understand it, we have discovered some other business customers, which we can serve too.
The software available to Tower Systems customers today is our latest release. This is advanced POS software with excellent facilities, including access to time-saving and money-making AI tools that retailers tell us are a genuine game changer for them.
This latest POS software release from us has been out now for a few weeks.
We understand it can be challenging considering switching software. From us, there is no pressure to do this. If someone enquires, we will answer their questions and provide them with information. We won’t push to close a deal. We will leave it with them as we think it’s a decision they need to make when they are ready and only then. We are confident in what we offer and in our longevity to be here when a business that we could serve needs us and wants us.
Here is some advice we have for anyone considering switching software:
- No two software companies are the same.
- No two software programs are the same.
- No two help desks are the same.
- Learning new software takes time. For a while, switching will feel like a mistake.
- Only switch if you want to.
- If you do switch, be all-in, learn, engage and use.
If you are a Cmputerlink POS software customer looking for alternative software, we’re at sales@towersystems.com.au or 1300 662 957.
Retailers: What Don’t You Know About Your Shop?
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Most retailers know their business well. They know the busy days, the reliable suppliers, the lines that never let them down. That familiarity is earned and it is useful.
It can also become a trap.
Over time a routine settles in. The same reports are read each week. The same advisers are consulted. The same handful of numbers is checked, and the same conclusions follow. Nothing in that is wrong. The problem is what sits outside the routine, unexamined, because nobody thought to ask.
So here is a better question. Not what should you know about your business, but what don’t you know?
It is a harder question. It is also considerably more profitable.
Consider a recent example. A retailer’s data was reviewed using a different tool and cut in a way it had not been cut before. Nothing new was added. Same transactions, same period, same shop. What emerged were opportunities the owner had not seen, sitting quietly in figures they had looked at many times. Some were easy wins. Others changed how buying decisions were made.
The most important competitor any retailer faces is themselves. Habits of thought are as fixed as habits of trade, and comfortable data is usually the least revealing data.
This is where AI Insights in the Tower Systems POS software earns its place. Rather than exporting reports to a spreadsheet and hunting for patterns late at night, a retailer runs any standard report and clicks AI Insights. The software reads the data and answers in plain English: which margins moved, what stock is dead, what deserves attention this week.
One Victorian newsagency found more than $10,000 in dead stock within minutes of first running it. The stock was cleared and the floor space went back to work.
That figure had been sitting in the data the whole time. Nobody had asked the right question of it.
Most retailers hold years of POS data they never have time to read. Standard reports tell an owner what happened. The value in AI Insights is that it suggests what to do next, in sentences rather than spreadsheets.
Treat surprise as a signal rather than an irritation. Surprise almost always points at something the business did not already understand, and that is where the money is.
Tower Systems builds and supports POS software for specialty retailers across Australia and New Zealand. Locally made. Locally supported.
Retailers: Stop worrying about the economy and work on your shop instead
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There is a national conversation about retail that runs almost constantly. Interest rates. Household spending. Cost of living. Vacancy rates on the high street. It is loud, it is relentless, and for an independent retailer it can be demoralising.
Here is the uncomfortable part. Almost none of it can be controlled from behind the counter.
Retailers worry about the economy. They worry about rent, about the shopping strip, about the town, about whether centre management understands what independents are dealing with. Those concerns are reasonable. They are also, without exception, outside the business. Time spent on them produces anxiety and very little else.
The more useful question is the internal one. What can be done inside the four walls this week that makes the business measurably better?
Where is stock sitting too long? Which lines are quietly carrying the shop, and are they being backed properly? What mistakes are being repeated because nobody has looked?
There is a case, too, for the shop as an oasis. A place where the negative talk is left at the door, for the sake of the staff as much as the customers. Nobody walks into a shop hoping to be told how bad things are.
None of this is wishful thinking. Businesses in towns that are, by any measure, doing it tough are trading well right now. They are not waiting for conditions to improve. They are using their software to find opportunities, cut errors and make decisions faster and with more confidence than their competitors. The local economy did not change. The way the business was run did.
That is a practical distinction rather than a motivational one. A retailer who knows which twenty lines drive their gross profit buys differently to one who does not. Automated replenishment means empty shelves stop costing sales. Watching margin movement week by week catches a supplier price rise before it erodes a whole season. Every one of those is an internal decision that asks nothing of the economy first.
The external noise will continue regardless. It is not going anywhere, and no amount of worrying will shift it. The business, on the other hand, responds to attention almost immediately.
Tower Systems supplies POS software to specialty retailers across Australia and New Zealand, built locally and supported locally by people who understand the trading conditions being described. Locally made. Locally supported.
Retailers: Your landlord won’t fix your profit
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A retailer in a major shopping centre is pushing hard for a twenty five per cent rent reduction. They will not get it.
The centre has no trouble filling space. The lease has around seven months to run. The business is already trading profitably. From the landlord’s perspective, there is no reason to move since the cards are stacked against the retailer – they have to pay to leave, a make good is expensive and, any legal challenge has to be funded by the retailer.
The argument being put by the retailer is common: we’re small, local and family run. It’s usually presented with plenty of emotion. It is also not an argument a commercial landlord is obliged to accept, least of all from a profitable tenant in a centre with a waiting list.
When talking to the retailer, we looked at their data, with their permission. Some categories are selling out quickly. Replenishment is inefficient. Stock that customers came in to buy was not on the shelf.
That is where more profit sits, profit nobody has to be persuaded to hand over.
So, we sought to get the retailer thinking about what they could do to improve their situation rather than asking the landlord to cut costs. Their own data showed us some terrific profitable opportunities.
Fix stock availability first, because every empty facing is a sale already lost. Revenue and profit lift, stock turn improves, which frees up cash that was sitting on shelves doing nothing.
Better performance makes the business more valuable to its suppliers, and that standing becomes the basis for negotiating better buying terms. Each of those gains is within the retailer’s control, and each compounds on the last.
This out of stock situation was one of four profit beneficial ideas we saw in their data.
Rent negotiation still matters. At lease renewal is a good time. But a tenant negotiating from demonstrable strength, with better numbers and stronger supplier support behind them, is having an entirely different conversation to one asking for relief.
Good POS facilities are vital here. Sales per square metre, category performance, lost sales through stockouts and automated replenishment built from actual customer demand are all ordinary functions of the software. AI Insights reads the same data and reports which categories are leaking profit.
Chasing a landlord is exhausting and rarely productive. Working on the business almost always returns more, and it returns it sooner.
Tower Systems supplies POS software to specialty retailers across Australia and New Zealand, with the stock and sales reporting these decisions rely on. We back our software with retail business performance insights.
We love helping local retailers thrive.
Retailers: How much stock does your shop actually need?
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Ask a retailer why they bought a particular range and the answer too often is instinct. It looked good. The rep was persuasive. It sold last year.
While instinct has its place, it’s a poor substitute for a number.
Start with a simple question: what is the stock buy actually for? Stock turn? Overall profitability? Hitting a budget figure? Each purpose leads to a different decision, and confusing them fills a shop with the wrong goods.
The arithmetic works backwards from cost. After cost of goods, the two largest expenses in most retail businesses are labour and the retail space itself, whether that is rent or a mortgage. Both are broadly fixed, and neither shrinks because trade was quiet.
From those fixed costs, a required revenue figure can be derived. From the revenue figure comes the annual stock spend. Apply the stock turn the business achieves, or needs to achieve, and an inventory value emerges. A shop turning stock five times a year needs far less capital tied up than one turning it twice.
Every retail channel has its own numbers, so the calculation is not universal. The discipline is.
A shop carrying roughly $30,000 of stock needed to turn over at least a million dollars a year to work. It was horribly understocked and the owner had not seen it, having entered the business on something close to a whim, without appreciating that stock does not sell evenly through the year.
Knowing what the inventory value needs to be, week in and week out, changes buying, cash flow planning and supplier conversations. A gut feel becomes a target.
Our Tower Systems POS software carries the inventory reporting these decisions rely on: stock turn by department and supplier, dead stock identification, performance by category, and replenishment orders generated from what customers actually buy rather than what a rep suggests. Fast sellers get reordered before they run out, and market price checks flag supplier rises before they eat a margin.
AI Insights adds a layer on top, reading the numbers and reporting in plain English which lines deserve more investment and which are consuming cash without earning it.
None of this means buying less. It means knowing, before the order goes in, what the order is meant to achieve.
Tower Systems builds POS software for specialty retailers across Australia and New Zealand. Locally made. Locally supported.
Advice for retailers on chasing genuine savings: what Retailer AI does to the weekly workload
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AI in retail gets discussed far more than it gets used, and most of the discussion is about possibility rather than the specific, dull tasks that consume a retailer’s week.
The Tower Systems software has had AI tools embedded since 2022. They now carry a name, Retailer AI, and they are aimed squarely at those dull tasks.
The Ai tools we offer cover so many areas now. Here are just some of them …
Supplier invoices
This is where most retailers find the largest single saving. It’s the easiest to access saving too.
A supplier invoice arrives as a PDF, an Excel file or a typed Word document, and traditionally someone keys it in line by line. Cost prices, quantities, retail prices, item after item. On a large invoice that is an hour or more, and every line is a chance for a typing error that later becomes a pricing error.
Retailer AI reads the invoice and imports it.
The saving is partly time and partly accuracy. An invoice imported correctly means stock on hand is right, cost prices are right and margin reporting can be trusted. An error introduced at this point travels a long way through a business before anyone notices it.
If an invoice does not import cleanly, it can be emailed to Tower Systems, where the team works on making that supplier’s invoices import easily and accurately in future.
The other tools
Product descriptions. Writing headings and descriptions for online listings is slow work that most retailers put off. Retailer AI drafts them, which helps stock get found in search.
Price comparison. Checking pricing against other retailers without spending an afternoon on it.
Replenishment ordering. Generating an order without working through a long, multi-step process.
Theft detection. Flagging transaction patterns worth a closer look.
Business insights. A plain-text end of shift summary comparing the day with recent trading, in place of a stack of reports.
Where the savings land
Retailers using the tools report saving between five and ten hours a week. The figure varies with the business and with how many of the tools are in use.
Hours are the visible saving. Harder to count, and probably worth more, is the effect on decisions. A decision made sooner, on complete and accurate information, tends to be a better decision.
There is a financial point worth noting too. Retailers choose their own AI model, whether ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, and control their own AI spending directly. Tower Systems does not sit between the retailer and that access, and does not add a margin to it.
Getting started
Begin with invoices. It is the clearest saving and the easiest to measure. Time one invoice keyed by hand, then time one imported, and the comparison makes the case on its own.
Add one tool a month after that. Trying everything at once rarely sticks.
Book a training session. The tools are included in the software, and the free training covers how to use them.
Retailer AI is available across the specialty markets Tower Systems serves, including newsagents, jewellers, bike shops, garden centres, bookshops, pet shops and toy shops.
Retail advice: The business is telling a story: use the software to hear it
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Every sale processed through retail software leaves a record. Over a year, a small shop builds up a detailed account of what its customers actually did, as opposed to what the owner remembers them doing.
In our experience, there is often a disconnect between how people talk about the performance of a business, suppliers to the business or products and the actual performance as reflected in the data collected by the POS software. This disconnect can cost the business plenty of money through ill-informed decisions, slow decisions and more.
Memory versus the data
Retailers form impressions on the shop floor, and impressions are shaped by whatever stood out. A difficult customer. A busy Saturday. A supplier rep who visited last week.
The data is not swayed by any of that. It will show a department that has quietly declined for eight months, or a range everyone assumed was working and was not, or stock bought in March still sitting there in August.
The floor view and the data view work best together. A retailer with both is well ahead of one relying on either alone.
Where to look first
Dead and slow-moving stock. Usually the fastest return in the whole exercise. Cash tied up in stock that has not moved for six months is cash unavailable for stock that would move. Most retailers running this report for the first time are surprised by the total.
Department and category performance over time. Not this week against last week, which is mostly noise, but this year against last year, by department. Trends take months to show themselves.
Basket composition. What sells alongside what. Products that sell together should usually sit together, so this answers merchandising questions directly.
Trading by day and hour. Rostering and opening hours often rest on habit. The data settles the argument one way or the other.
Supplier performance. Which suppliers deliver stock that sells, and at what margin. That is a different question from which rep is easiest to deal with.
Customer behaviour. Who returns, how often, and what they buy on the second visit.
Making it a habit
Reporting only works when it is regular. A protected monthly hour in the diary does more than an occasional deep dive.
Start with one report and understand it properly before adding another. A retailer who acts on a dead stock report every month is ahead of one who runs twelve reports and acts on none.
Write down what the numbers prompted, then check next month whether it worked.
The Retailer AI tools in the Tower Systems software help here. An end of shift summary in plain text compares the day with recent trading, in place of five or six pages of reports. Other tools flag what is selling, what is not, and what the business appears to be missing.
The shift that matters
Retailers who work from evidence buy differently. They quit dead stock earlier and back winners harder. They also stop defending decisions the numbers stopped supporting months ago.
No new technology is needed for any of this. The software is already in the shop; what changes is the habit.
Tower Systems software includes extensive reporting, and training on how to use it is free for the life of the subscription.
Advice for retailers: Do the staff actually know the software? A question worth asking this week
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In many independent retail businesses, one person knows the software properly. Usually the owner, sometimes a long-serving staff member.
Everyone else knows enough to get through a shift. They can process a sale, take a payment and usually find a product. Beyond that, they call out for help.
It is a common arrangement, and it is riskier than it looks.
This worries us here at Tower Systems. We want retailers using our POS software to get the maximum benefit possible from using the software.
We love seeing our customers thrive.
What it costs when the software is not understood or known
The obvious cost is interruption. Whoever knows the software cannot get much else done while they are answering questions about it.
The bigger cost is harder to see, because it is made up of things that never happen. A special order not taken because nobody was confident with the screen. A customer told an item is out of stock when the software could have shown it was on order and due within days.
And when the one person who holds the knowledge is away or leaves the business, the shop runs at a fraction of its capability until someone catches up.
Where the gaps usually sit
Rarely at the point of sale screen. Staff learn that quickly because they use it every hour.
The gaps sit around it: receiving stock, handling a supplier invoice, putting a customer on a repair or special order, using loyalty properly at the counter rather than skipping past it, and checking whether an item is on order rather than guessing.
Practical steps
Start with an honest audit. List the ten tasks that matter most in the business and note who can do each one without help. The picture is usually more concerning than expected.
Assign one facility per person per month. One person owns loyalty, another owns stock receiving. They learn it, then they teach it. This works better than a vague instruction to get better with the software.
Use the free training that comes with the software. New staff can attend a webinar or a customer meeting at no charge. The e-learning library and knowledge base are available at any hour, which suits a team that cannot all be free at the same time, and one-on-one telephone sessions can be booked as often as needed.
Make it part of onboarding. A staff member trained properly in week one never develops the habit of calling out for help.
Write down what is specific to the business. Tower Systems covers the software knowledge, but only the shop knows its own local decisions. How laybys are handled here, or which discount applies to which customer group. That belongs in a short internal document.
Rotate the tasks now and then, so the knowledge does not settle back into one head.
The result
A team that knows the software serves customers faster and interrupts the owner less. People who understand a system also notice earlier when it is telling them something is wrong.
Tower Systems provides free training, including sessions suitable for new staff. See our library of training videos made specifically for this purpose. Access is free and they can be watched anywhere.
Advice for retailers: Take every POS software training opportunity: the cheapest return available in retail
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Most retailers use a fraction of what their software can do. That is not a criticism. Running a shop means the urgent work almost always gets attention before the important work does.
The gap has a cost, though. Admin gets done by hand when the software could have handled it. Stock gets ordered on instinct when the evidence was sitting in a report nobody opened.
Training closes that gap, and for Tower Systems customers it is already paid for.
What is included
Every new Tower Systems customer receives up to two days of personal onboarding training, tailored to their shop and their team and guided by a dedicated onboarding specialist. There are no consultants to engage and no training packages to buy. More training is available is needed.
And that is only the start.
Free webinars on diverse retail specific topics. Each session takes 30 to 60 minutes and covers one specific part of the software. Topics are chosen because they make a measurable difference in shops, like tightening stock control or cutting the time spent on admin. Retailers can attend live and ask questions, or watch the recording later.
There are free in-person customer meetings as well. These are face to face sessions where questions get asked and retailers share what has worked in their own businesses. That second part is often the more valuable half of the meeting.
Alongside the live options sit a large library of awesome training videos and a searchable knowledge base, both updated regularly and available at any hour. One-on-one telephone training can be booked as often as a customer wants.
Why it is worth booking
Retailers who know their software buy better and carry less dead stock. They also serve customers faster, because nobody is fumbling at the counter. None of this is dramatic, but over a year it adds up.
Consider one 45 minute webinar. If it saves twenty minutes a week for a year, that is more than fourteen hours returned for three quarters of an hour invested. Most sessions save more than that.
How to make it happen
Book the session first and read the description later. A session that waits for a quiet moment will keep waiting.
Pick one weak area rather than trying to learn everything at once. Stock control this quarter, customer loyalty the next.
Send someone other than the owner sometimes. A staff member who learns a facility and brings it back into the shop spreads the knowledge further than an owner who learns it alone.
Watch the recordings on a quiet trading day. Fifteen minutes at a time is plenty.
Come back to training years later, too. Access does not expire and the software keeps changing. Tower Systems usually releases three major updates a year, so a facility that did not exist at onboarding may be exactly what the business needs now.
The short version
Training in the Tower POS software is easily accessible. The only thing standing between a retailer and it is the diary. Details are on the Tower Systems website.
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