The POS Software Blog

The POS Software Blog

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

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Newsagents made us the industry standard, not the other way around

July 17, 2026
3 Min read
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More newsagents have chosen Tower Systems than any other POS software. We didn’t set that label ourselves. Newsagents did, one shop at a time, by choosing us over everything else on offer.

We don’t take that lightly, and we don’t think it happened by accident.

We know the shop floor because we’ve stood on it

We’re the only POS company in this space that has owned and run its own newsagencies. Our founder bought their first shop in 1996 and built our software off the back of what that business actually needed, not what looked good in a sales pitch. That’s still true of every update we ship, even though our company today does not own a newsagency.

Newsagencies aren’t standing still, and neither is the software

The traditional core of a newsagency, magazines, papers, lottery, is a smaller part of the business than it used to be, and it keeps shrinking. The newsagents doing well are the ones shifting shelf space and attention toward gifts, cards, stationery and collectables. Software built for a magazine-and-lottery counter doesn’t help with that shift. Software built by people who’ve made that shift themselves does.

That’s where features like our loyalty tools earn their keep. You can market to a customer based on what they’ve bought, which means turning a regular lottery shopper into someone who browses the gift wall, or a magazine reader into someone who tries the stationery range. That’s not a feature for its own sake. It’s the whole point of the software.

The parts that just need to work, working

A newsagency runs on integrations most other retail software doesn’t bother with. We link directly to The Lott through XchangeIT, so lottery sales are captured without manual entry. Magazine arrivals and returns run through XchangeIT too, so your stock and your credits stay accurate without someone doing it by hand. Greeting card suppliers load in as electronic invoices in seconds instead of an afternoon of data entry.

Beyond the newsagency-specific stuff, the software connects to Shopify, Magento and WooCommerce if you sell online, to Xero for your books, and to EFTPOS with every major bank. If you pass on card fees, the system calculates the surcharge for you. We don’t charge a fee per transaction, ever.

AI tools built into the day-to-day

The AI tools built into the software write product descriptions for new gift lines, help you compare prices, and turn a stack of sales data into something you can act on, which categories are growing, which need attention, without you having to dig for it.

None of this makes us the biggest software company. It makes us the one most newsagents chose. If you want to see why, we’re happy to show you.

Book a free demo, or call 1300 662 957 in Australia and 0800 444 367 in New Zealand.

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What Customers Say About Tower Systems Website Development

June 8, 2026
3 Min read
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Getting a website built can feel daunting. For many small business retailers, it sits on the to-do list for months — sometimes years. There’s always a reason to delay: too busy, too expensive, too complicated, not sure where to start. These are words from retailers who finally took the step.

Sharon sums up what we hear most often: “We put off building our website for longer than we should have. Once we finally took the step, Christina and the Tower team made it so easy — we only wish we’d done it sooner.”

That phrase — we only wish we’d done it sooner — comes up a lot. The fear of the process tends to be worse than the process itself.

Nicole from Charlton’s Fishing went further: “I unreservedly recommend Christina. Her work is top-tier. She has gone above and beyond making our website the amazing product it is. She made our complex website seem easy, answered our questions without making me feel silly. I cannot speak highly enough of her.”

Feeling comfortable asking questions matters. A lot of business owners come to this process without technical knowledge. They shouldn’t have to pretend otherwise.

Sophie from Bluey’s Hunting & Fishing had a more involved project and described how the team handled it: “The development of the website for our business was a huge step for us, and Christina and the Tower team made this process quite straightforward despite it being such a complex one. They took the time to teach us as much as they could about the ongoing management of the website, and we have been really happy with the final product. Since our website launched, we have continued to learn a lot about how to evolve and develop the website to continue to meet our customer needs.”

That last part is worth noting. A website isn’t finished on launch day. The retailers who get the most from theirs keep learning and adapting it over time. Tower Systems builds that capability into the handover.

Rod from Bingara Newsagency offers a different perspective: “As an 81-year-old, Christina was able to set me up with great patience and skill. Nine months later, while we are not breaking records, we have a functioning online presence.” Honest and practical — which is exactly what a website should be for a local retailer starting out online.

Phil from newsXpress Silver Sands kept it brief: “Christina is very calm, patient, and professional. She needed to be with a luddite like me.”

Five different retailers, five different businesses, one consistent thread: the support made the difference.

If your website has been sitting on the list too long, talk to us. The Tower Systems team has helped retailers across Australia get online without the stress. It’s worth the conversation.

We develop websites here in Australia, 100% using our own team.

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Why we are focused on stocktake in June — and what it means for your business

June 1, 2026
3 Min read
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June 1 marks the start of our stocktake mission.

For the next 30 days, we are focused on helping local independent retailers get their stock data accurate and up to date. Not because stocktake is glamorous work — it is not — but because what comes after it matters enormously.

The AI opportunity is real, but it has a condition

Tower Systems POS software now surfaces AI-powered insights to help retailers make better decisions. Which lines to reorder. Where margin is leaking. What dead stock is quietly draining cash. Which categories are growing and which are fading.

These insights are genuinely useful. We see retailers using them to make smarter buying decisions, manage cash more carefully, and evolve their product mix with confidence.

But they depend entirely on one thing: accurate stock on hand data.

Feed the software clean data and it works hard for you. Feed it inaccurate data and the insights are unreliable — and unreliable insights can lead to poor decisions that cost real money.

June is the right moment

With EOFY on June 30, this month already prompts retailers to look closely at their numbers. We want to make the most of that momentum.

A stocktake done well in June delivers three things at once. Clean data for your end of year reporting. A clear picture of what to carry into the new financial year. And a foundation from which your software — and its AI tools — can actually do their job.

You do not have to count everything at once. Tower Systems makes it easy to count in sections — a category today, a supplier range tomorrow. Little and often is enough. By June 30 the data can be in good shape.

What we are doing to help

Throughout June we will be sharing practical guidance direct with our customers via email, in our private forum and in human contact on how to get the most from stocktake in Tower Systems — tips, reminders, and real examples from retailers who have done this and seen the difference it makes.

We are also here if you need support. Our team — based across Australia and New Zealand — is ready to help you through the process.

The retailers making the best use of their software are almost always the ones with accurate data. That is not a coincidence. It is cause and effect.

June 1 is the right day to start.

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Laugh about stocktakes

May 30, 2026
2 Min read
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As we’re heading into June, the most stocktaker tend to get done, take a moment for a laugh:

“I did a stocktake last week. Turns out I have more excuses than stock.”

“Stocktake time. The one day of the year you find out exactly how many of those have been sitting there since 2019.”

“We did the stocktake. The good news is we know exactly what we have. The bad news is we know exactly what we have.”

“Stocktake is just retail therapy in reverse. Instead of buying things you don’t need, you count things you forgot you had.”

“Asked the team to help with stocktake. Suddenly everyone had a appointment.”

Yes, they are lame, but they are the jokes we have.

Stocktaking is valuable work, serious work. get it right, and you profit. Ignore it, and you for sure lose money.

Beyond the jokes, focus on thew rock and profit!

Here at Tower Systems we can help.

The joke we like is:

We did the stocktake. The good news is we know exactly what we have. The bad news is we know exactly what we have.

Every retailer has been there. The stocktake does not lie — and that is exactly the point. Start with your highest-value categories, or the ranges you are least sure about. Count them, update Tower Systems, and run a dead stock report. What comes back might surprise you. One retailer found $20,000 worth of stock they had forgotten about. Clean data changes what you can see — and what you can act on.

June is the month. Start today. towersystems.com.au

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