So what’s best: loyalty points or a cash discount?
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If you’re thinking about building your own POS software, watch this first
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Newsagents made us the industry standard, not the other way around
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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.
All software has bugs, it’s how software companies deal with them that matters
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Getting the most out of a call to our POS software help desk
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Our help desk is human, and it’s local: people in Australia and New Zealand, not an offshore call centre reading from a script. That matters because retail is personal, and so is fixing it when something goes wrong.
But even a good help desk can only work as fast as the conversation allows. A lot of what determines how quickly a problem gets solved isn’t the technician, it’s how the call itself goes.
Retail interrupts everything, including the fix
Support calls usually happen while the shop is open, which means a customer at the counter, and the customer always comes first. Fair enough. But every time a call gets put down mid-troubleshooting, the technician loses the thread. Getting back to where you were takes longer than the interruption itself did. A five-minute pause can turn a ten-minute call into thirty.
Nobody’s fault. It’s just what happens when technical support runs into a trading floor.
What actually speeds things up
A few habits make a real difference to how fast a fix comes through:
- Start with email where you can. It’s often faster than a phone call, not slower.
- Include a screenshot and a proper description in that email. No pressure of a live call, so you can properly explain what’s happening.
- With the details in hand, our help desk can sometimes solve it before anyone picks up the phone.
- If you do need to call, try to call when you can give it your full attention.
- If the shop gets busy mid-call, say so. Offering to call back later is usually faster than trying to push through.
Just tell us
If you’re short-staffed and it’s not a good time, say that. It costs nothing, it lets us manage the queue properly, and when you do call back, you get someone’s full attention instead of a rushed half-conversation.
None of this is about making things easier for us at your expense. A call that isn’t interrupted gets solved faster. That means less time away from your counter. Everybody’s better off.
That’s the kind of help desk we’re trying to run: local, human, and worth your time.
Why some retail staff steal and how to detect it
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If you’re considering switching to Tower, here’s what happens to your data
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The question comes up in almost every conversation with a retailer thinking about switching software: what happens to everything I’ve already got in my current system?
In most cases, you can bring it across. Not all of it, and not automatically, but the parts that matter most usually make the move.
What we can convert
Stock is the file we convert most often: SKU, barcode, description, buy and sell prices, GST status, tags and variants where they apply. If you can export it from your current system in a form we can read, usually a spreadsheet, we can generally load it.
Customer sales history and loyalty balances are a different story. Every POS system stores that data differently, which makes an accurate conversion hard to guarantee. We’ll do our best with loyalty balances. Sales history, usually not. Outstanding account-customer balances do transfer. Laybys don’t, particularly from older software, so plan on those not coming across.
How it actually works
We assess your data first, free of charge, before you commit to anything. That way you know what will convert cleanly before you decide whether to switch at all.
The conversion itself is a paid, fixed-price service. You’ll know the cost upfront. It’s typically done in about half a day, with no downtime, and it’s ready by your go-live.
Should you bring your old data across at all?
Not necessarily. If it’s clean and reliable, bring it. If it’s messy, out of date, or full of dead stock lines nobody’s looked at in years, a fresh start in the new system can be the better move. Carrying old problems into new software doesn’t fix them. Only you know how good your current data really is.
One more thing worth knowing: we don’t log into your current software and export the data ourselves. You, or your current provider, need to export it. It’s your data, and getting it out sits within your relationship with them. If your current software won’t let you export it easily, that’s worth noticing. Some providers make it difficult on purpose, as a way to keep you. If that’s happening to you, it’s as much a reason to leave as anything else.
Getting started
If you want to talk through what a conversion would look like for your business before deciding anything, we run obligation-free discussions over Microsoft Teams at a time that suits you. If it turns out we’re not the right fit, we’ll say so.
Call 1300 662 957 in Australia or 0800 444 367 in New Zealand, or email sales@towersystems.com.au.
Hey indie retailers: Winter doesn’t have to be quiet
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Winter is hard on local independent retail. The footpath empties, people rug up at home, and the daily count drops. Many retailers wait it out. You don’t have to.
A small shop can try things a chain would never sign off on. Six weeks of paperwork for them, a Tuesday afternoon decision for you. Winter is when that’s worth using.
From us this Sunday, here are six ideas to get you thinking about the season differently.
- Make your shop warm and welcoming. Put the kettle on. Hot coffee, tea, hot chocolate. Run a slow cooker with a good vegetable soup going all day. Warm cookies or muffins. Comforting music. You could project a film onto a back wall, just for something different. Give people somewhere to stand a wet umbrella and dry off. Be the shop locals talk about loving in winter.
- Host a winter event. Pick an evening, lock the door to the public, put on something just for your regulars. After hours, relaxed, a bit of fun. Warm cider or mulled wine does the job.
- Take the shop to people who can’t get out. Ring the local retirement villages and nursing homes. Pack up a selection of stock and take it on the road. The cold keeps plenty of good customers at home, so go to them.
- Offer free delivery. If the road trip isn’t for you, run a delivery service instead. Someone stuck inside still wants their fix. Be the retailer who bothers.
- Run a summer sale in the dead of winter. Pick the coldest week and throw a blow-out. Call it a Sizzling Sale. Warm people up with the prices.
- Put on an art show. Display art, photos and things your own shoppers have made. It brightens the place, and people come back to see their work on the wall.
A couple more worth a thought. If you’re somewhere genuinely cold, an extra outer door keeps the warmth in. They do it all over Europe and the US. And the July school holidays land right in the middle of all this, so a small winter activity for kids can pull a whole family in.
None of this is about discounting your way through a quiet season. It’s about making the place somewhere people want to be when it’s grey outside. That’s the kind of thing a big business won’t get around to. You can.
These are tips from our crew of retail experienced professionals.
Here at Tower Systems we’re not your average software company.
Saturday trading is its own thing
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Saturday is not a weekday. Anyone who has worked a counter knows that. The flow is different, the basket is different, and people ask for different things.
Most shops are open today. Yours probably is. Trouble is, being open all day doesn’t tell you much about how the day actually traded and how it compared to other Saturdays.
Here’s a fair question. Can your POS software show you how today stacks up against your recent Saturdays? Not the last few days. The last few Saturdays, because Saturdays are different.
A Tuesday won’t tell you anything useful about a Saturday. The two days don’t trade the same way, so comparing them is a waste of time. Put a Saturday up against other Saturdays and you can see what’s really going on.
Tower Systems POS software does exactly that. It compares a single day of the week against itself over time. Line up today against your recent Saturdays in a few clicks and you’ll spot things. Maybe the morning carries the day and the afternoon drops off. Maybe a category sells on a Saturday that barely moves midweek. Those are the openings you miss when every day blurs into one number.
It’s this type of granular insight that can show you opportunities into which you can lean. We created the single day performance comparison because retailers had the need. This was back when Saturdays were completely different to the weekday for certain types of retailers.
It’s specialist insights like this that can really matter in local small business retail. They are insights that generic software tend to not cover because, well, they are generic after all.
One more thing about today. Our help desk is open. Real people, working this Saturday, ready to help retailers who are trading right now. Local support for local retailers. Some software companies don’t bother on a weekend. We do.
So, having said all that and rambled a bit, have a good Saturday. Trade well. Make it could. And, leverage your data for today and see how it compared to other Saturdays.
We’re working too. Give us a call.
Your POS software does what you tell it. That is the problem.
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Good POS software is flexible. It has to be, because no two retail businesses run the same way. But flexibility cuts both ways. The same setting that suits one shop can quietly cost another shop thousands.
Selling by department key is the clearest example we see.
Our Tower systems POS software lets you sell by department, without scanning individual items. There are situations where that makes sense. A shop selling one-off, unbarcoded items, where stock control adds no value, can reasonably ring sales through a department key and move on.
Most retail businesses are not that shop.
When you sell by department key instead of scanning each item, you give up visibility of stock movement. You cannot see what actually sold, only that something sold for a dollar value in a category. You cannot see what should be on the shelf. Which means you cannot see what is missing.
That is where theft hides. Customer theft and employee theft both thrive in businesses that do not scan, because nobody can prove what walked out the door. Owners in this situation often discover the problem months or years later, usually when the numbers stop adding up in a way too big to ignore. By then the money is gone.
Scanning every item at the point of sale is the foundation everything else is built on. Theft reduction. Accurate reordering. Knowing your fast sellers and your dead stock. Faster serving at the counter. Sales data you can actually make decisions with. Sell by department key and you pay for all of those benefits without receiving any of them.
Here is the uncomfortable truth: when this goes wrong, the software is not the problem. The software is doing exactly what it was told to do through settings the business owner controls. We built the tools for proper item-level retail management. Whether they get used is a decision made in each shop, every day, at every sale.
The good news is that bad settings are fixable, usually quickly. If your business is selling by department key, or scanning some items and not others, talk to us. We will review how you are using the software, show you what visibility you are missing, and help you tighten it up.
We have seen what unscanned retail costs. We would rather help you avoid it.
We are here to help, with practical support for local independent retailers.
Advice for local retailers: Sell what people love. The margin is better and so is the business.
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Here is some advice from outside the usual territory of a POS software company. After more than forty years working with local independent retailers, we have seen this pattern too many times to keep it to ourselves.
You will make more money selling what people love than what they need.
The needs are easy to spot in any local shop. Newspapers. Basic stationery. Phone credit. Customers buy these on autopilot and they know what they should cost, which is why the margin is thin. Nobody drives across town for a packet of pens.
What people love is different. A gift that made them laugh. The plush their child will not sleep without. A coin release, trading cards, a greeting card so right for the occasion that price never came up. Emotional purchases hold their margin because there is nothing to compare them against. Customers travel for them. Some will queue.
We watch this play out in the sales data flowing through our software every day, in newsagencies, gift shops, garden centres, jewellers, toy shops. The retailers growing profit are steadily shifting floor space from need to love. The ones standing still are usually the ones defending shelf space for products that stopped earning it years ago.
None of this means abandoning the needs. They bring reliable, habitual traffic, and that traffic is an asset. The trick is what you put in its path. The newspaper customer who leaves with a $30 candle did not come in for a candle. The school supplies shopper was not looking for Squishmallows until they were.
If you are unsure where the love is in your shop, your POS data already knows. Look at what sells at full price. Look at gross profit dollars per square metre by category. Look at what customers ask you to order in, because a special order is a customer telling you what your range is missing.
The software counts the sales. The advice about what to sell comes from decades alongside local retailers, and we share it freely. That is what we mean when we say we are more than a software company.
Sell what people love. Use what they need to introduce them to it.
Learning from a stocktake Q&A
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Here’s a video of a stocktake Q&A with a retailer earlier this week. It’s live on our YouTube channel:
A stocktake is one of the most useful things a retailer can do. It’s also one of the most put off. This session is about both — why accurate stock data matters and how to get it done.
We recorded this on June 16, 2026, as part of the Tower Systems library of practical support for independent retailers. We cover spot stocktakes and full store stocktakes, walk through security, talk about taking a backup before you start, and draw on experience from doing stocktakes in shops we’ve owned and run ourselves. We also answer questions from a retailer thinking through what they want to achieve in their own store.
This advice works for any small business retailer, not only those using Tower Systems software. The recording is part of a broad suite of stocktake advice and tools we provide to local small business retailers, to help them get this done accurately and efficiently. The education we offer is foundational.
Accurate stock on hand data changes what you can see in your business. You find the dead stock sitting in a back room that the system still thinks is sellable. You spot the gap between what your records show and what’s physically on the shelf. You get category performance data you can actually trust. From there, your reports mean more, year-on-year comparisons hold up, and if you’re feeding stock data into AI tools, the outputs are useful rather than misleading.
Tower Systems customers can access this session through the knowledge base, the chatbot, the training video library, or directly through the help desk. Stocktaking comes up constantly in support conversations, which is why we’ve built a substantial amount of material around it. Retailers who understand stocktake well get more out of everything else the software does.
Tower Systems builds and supports POS software for local specialty retailers — newsagents, gift shops, garden centres, jewellers, bike shops, bookshops, toy shops, pet shops, produce businesses, farm supply stores, fishing shops, haberdashery, antique shops, charity retailers, and more.
Find out more at towersystems.com.au.
Who is the ideal Tower Systems POS software customer?
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We know we’re not right for all retailers. In fact, our commitment is that we will say so if this becomes clear to us at any point in our discussions with you.
POS software companies usually claim to suit everyone. We would rather be honest. The wrong customer wastes their money and our time, and after forty years we have no interest in pretending.
Our ideal customer owns and runs a specialty retail business in Australia or New Zealand. One shop, maybe two or three. They work in the business, make the decisions and feel the result of every one. Among our thousands of customers are bookshops, outdoors shops, newsagents, gift shops, jewellers, bike shops, garden centres, toy shops, produce stores, pet shops, fishing and charity shops  and firearms dealers.
What they share is a type of shop that generic POS software handles badly. Serial number tracking for bikes and firearms. Repairs. Scale integration in the produce store. Magazine handling in the newsagency. Inventory tracking for the jeweller. Weatherproof labels for outdoor businesses. If you have ever tried to bend a big-name POS product around work like that, you know the feeling. That feeling is usually what brings people to us.
They also want to manage the business, not just take payments. Stock control, theft, margin by category, reordering discipline. If all you want is a till, cheaper options exist and you should take one. We mean that. Our software earns its keep through what happens after the sale is rung up.
Support matters to them, often because of a bad experience somewhere else. When customers call us they reach our team in Australia, and many of us have worked in or owned shops like theirs. We have lost count of how often someone told us that mattered more than any feature.
The newer thing: curiosity about AI without any appetite for learning it separately. Our customers drop a supplier invoice into the software and watch it load in 30 seconds, or click AI Insights on a report and get advice in plain English. Built in, not bolted on.
Who is not a fit? Hospitality, pure service businesses, and anyone shopping on the lowest monthly fee alone. Better to say so here than disappoint you later.
If you recognised your shop somewhere in this, book a free demo and bring your hardest questions. We have been answering them since 1981.
Why clean stock data is the foundation for your best financial year yet
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It is 9 June. Nine days into the final month of the financial year, and it is worth asking: how many independent retailers have turned their mind to a stocktake?
The old pressure was simple. A physical count by 30 June was a hard requirement. Accountants insisted on it, compliance drove it, and an entire industry of professional stocktakers moved from store to store making sure the stock-on-hand figure was right.
POS software changed that. As inventory tracking improved and ATO requirements evolved, the hard deadline softened. Businesses could track stock dynamically rather than count it once a year. Useful — but that shift brought a problem most retailers do not notice until it matters.
Data drift is quiet and cumulative
In a busy retail environment, stock-on-hand figures slip. A small error when receiving a supplier invoice. A return that does not get recorded. Theft, damage, shrinkage — none of it logged at the time. Each instance is minor. Over months, the gap between what your system says and what is actually on the shelf can be significant.
The compliance pressure around 30 June has eased. The cost of inaccurate data has not.
Why it matters more now
Automated reordering and AI-driven insights both depend on clean data. If your POS is making replenishment decisions against stock figures that have drifted, it is ordering against fiction. If you want AI tools to surface what is genuinely performing, the underlying data has to reflect reality. Predictive tools are only as useful as the information they work from.
This is why Tower Systems treats 30 June 2026 as a business capability date, not just a tax one.
A stocktake does not have to be an event
Tower Systems POS supports several approaches:
- Rolling stocktakes — count a shelf, a category, or one supplier at a time
- Sectional counting — break the shop into sections and work through it over several days
- Full counts — complete the whole store in a single pass if that is preferred
No need to close the doors or run an overnight operation.
22 days to go
The 2026/27 financial year starts in 22 days. Retailers who go into it with verified stock data are better placed — for reordering, for reporting, for making decisions based on what is real rather than what the system guessed.
The Tower Systems support and training teams are available now. If your stock data needs attention, this is the month.
towersystems.com.au | 1300 662 957
New to the Business? Your First Two Hours With Us Are Free
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Buying an existing retail business is a lot to manage at once.
Staff to meet. Suppliers to call. A hundred small decisions before lunch. And somewhere in the middle of all that, a POS system you have never used before. The previous owner may have walked you through the basics. Plenty do not.
Tower Systems does something about that.
Two hours, one-on-one, on us
Every person who buys a retail business running Tower Systems software gets two hours of free personal training. Not a recorded walkthrough. Not a group session where your questions get queued. A real person from our team, working through the software with you, focused on your store.
No cost. No catch.
What those two hours actually look like
You set the agenda. Need to understand end-of-day reporting? We start there. Stock management the priority? Same. Have a specific supplier setup or loyalty program to get right? We work through it.
The point is not to demonstrate every feature. It is to get you confident on the parts of the software you will use every single day — so you are not guessing your way through week one.
Owners who do this training get up to speed faster and catch problems earlier. Two hours at the start is worth a lot more than two hours trying to untangle something that went wrong three months in.
We know independent retail
Tower Systems has built POS software for independent retailers for more than 30 years — newsagencies, gift shops, garden centres, homewares stores. Our support team has seen most situations and worked through most problems. They are not reading from a script.
That shows up in the training. It is specific, not generic. Aimed at people running actual businesses, not hypothetical ones.
Book your session
If you have recently taken over a business running Tower Systems, call us and lock in your two hours.
1300 662 957 or www.towersystems.com.au.
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The right POS system or website for any retail business depends on the specific needs of the business. Tower offers POS software and websites made specifically for local small business retailers in a selection of retail channels. To see if we might help you…, request a free, no-obligation demo today. Â
Call 1300 662 957 in Australia or 0800 444 367 in New Zealand. Or, email sales@towersystems.com.au.Â
Garbage In, Garbage Out: How to Know if Your Retail Stock Data is Actually Accurate
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A POS system reflects what you put into it. Feed it bad data and every report it produces is wrong. That might sound obvious, but in a busy retail environment — where stock arrives daily, staff turn over, and returns pile up — inventory data degrades faster than most retailers realise.
Poor data costs real money. It means stockouts on best-sellers, cash locked up in product that will not move, and numbers you cannot make decisions from. You do not have to guess whether your stock-on-hand figures are right. There are practical ways to check, and the right tools make staying accurate far less work than most people expect.
The stocktake: still the gold standard
Nothing confirms inventory accuracy like a physical count. Closing the shop for a full weekend count is not necessary anymore.
Tower Systems supports targeted rolling stocktakes on a specific shelf, category, or supplier group. Run them during quiet trading periods — before opening, after a delivery, or during a slow mid-week afternoon. Small, frequent counts catch discrepancies early, before they distort your buying decisions and margin reports. A full-store stocktake a couple of times a year, combined with regular section counts, gives you a solid base to work from.
Stop errors at the back door: AI invoice import
A lot of bad retail data enters at inward goods. Manual entry of cost prices, supplier codes, and product descriptions from paper invoices introduces typos. Every time. It is not a staff problem — it is a process problem.
Tower Systems has an AI Invoice Import tool built directly into the software. It reads digital PDFs, spreadsheets, supplier accounting exports, and even photos of printed invoices, then matches items and imports the data without manual entry. Fewer keystrokes means fewer mistakes, and fewer mistakes means stock counts you can trust.
Two daily habits that hold it all together
Systems help, but discipline matters too.
Track every sale individually. Generic open-department keys destroy stock counts over time and make category reporting worthless. Process returns at the time they happen — scanning them back in later means the numbers are wrong in the gap, sometimes for days.
Neither habit takes long. Both make a material difference.
The bottom line
Every manual entry is a risk. Every workaround compounds the problem. Rolling stocktakes and automated invoice importing reduce human handling of data, and less handling means fewer errors. When the data is right, you buy better, you waste less, and your reports tell you something useful.
Find out more at www.towersystems.com.au.
How Retailers Help Shape Tower Systems POS Software Updates
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Retail software should not stand still. A retail business changes all the time. Products change. Supplier requirements change. Customer expectations change. Staff workflows change.
That means POS software updates matter.
But there is a difference between software updates created in isolation and updates shaped by retailers who use the software every day. At Tower Systems, customer feedback is part of the development process.
This matters because independent specialty retailers often have complex needs. A newsagent, jeweller, garden centre, bike shop, toy shop, pet shop or uniform and safety business does not want generic software that ignores the detail of the business.
They need POS software that keeps improving.
Why customer-led software updates matter
Many retailers have had this experience. They use a software system every day. They can see a better way to do something. They know a small change would save time or reduce mistakes. But there is no clear path to suggest it.
That can be frustrating.
Retailers are close to the work. They know where the friction is. They know which tasks take too long. They know what staff struggle with. They know what customers ask for at the counter.
When those insights are captured and reviewed, software can improve in practical ways.
Customer-led updates help close the gap between software development and retail reality.
What Software Ideas does
Tower Systems gives customers a way to suggest improvements through the Software Ideas process.
The idea is simple. A customer identifies something they would like the software to do. They submit the suggestion. Tower Systems reviews it for clarity, technical possibility, cost and likely impact.
If the suggestion is possible and suitable, it can be made available for other customers to vote on. This helps show whether the idea solves a wider problem.
The process gives retailers a voice. It also gives the development team a clearer view of what matters across the customer base.
A practical process for real suggestions
Good software ideas need more than a wish list. They need context.
A useful suggestion explains the outcome the retailer wants to achieve. It may describe a current problem, a repeated task, a reporting gap or a workflow that could be improved.
Tower Systems reviews customer suggestions and checks whether the requested feature already exists. If it does, the customer can be pointed to the right tool or support information. If it does not, the idea can be assessed further.
This avoids unnecessary development. It also helps customers learn more about the software they already have.
Voting helps prioritise what matters
Not every idea can be built at once. That is true for any software company.
Customer voting helps identify which ideas have broader appeal. If many retailers support an idea, it can move higher in the development conversation.
This is useful for specialty retail because one business may raise a problem that many others share. A feature requested by a garden centre might also help a farm supply business. A jeweller’s workflow idea might help another repair-focused retailer. A newsagency stock process may be useful to other high-volume retailers.
Voting turns isolated feedback into a shared signal.
Closing the loop builds trust
A good feedback process does not end when the customer submits an idea.
Customers need to know what happened. Was the idea already possible? Was it unclear? Was it loaded for voting? Was it developed? Did it appear in update notes?
Closing the loop shows customers that their input matters.
Tower Systems identifies customer-suggested enhancements in update notes when those changes are included. That helps retailers see the link between feedback and product improvement.
The Beta Program adds live retail testing
Software Ideas is one part of the update story. The Beta Program is another.
A beta release is the point where new software moves beyond internal testing and into selected live retail environments. This is important because real businesses test software differently from a test lab.
Retailers use the software under pressure. They serve customers. They manage staff questions. They handle actual stock, real invoices and real sales. That environment reveals details that internal testing may not show.
Beta users can provide feedback on what works, what is confusing and what could be improved before a wider commercial release.
Why beta feedback improves release quality
A strong beta process helps refine more than the software code.
It can improve release notes. It can improve training resources. It can highlight wording that needs to be clearer. It can show where a button, setting or workflow may need adjustment.
This matters because an update is only useful if retailers understand how to use it.
For confident users, beta participation can also be rewarding. It gives them early access to new features and a direct role in shaping the final release.
Specialty retailers need software that listens
Generic POS software often works best for generic situations. Specialty retailers have different requirements.
A bike shop may care about repairs, parts, variants and service history. A jeweller may need repair tracking, labels and customer details. A garden centre may need outdoor stock handling, seasonal stock and supplier workflows. A uniform and safety business may need size, colour and style variants, group pricing and special orders.
These are not minor details. They are daily operations.
When retailers can suggest improvements, vote on ideas and participate in beta testing, the software has a better chance of staying aligned with their work.
Questions to ask when comparing POS software updates
Before choosing a POS system, ask how updates happen.
Useful questions include:
- Can customers suggest software improvements?
- Is there a transparent process for reviewing ideas?
- Can other customers support or vote on suggestions?
- Are customer-suggested features identified in update notes?
- Is there a beta testing pathway for confident users?
- Does feedback influence documentation and training?
- Are updates shaped by real specialty retailers?
The answers can reveal a lot about the software company.
Software should improve with your business
Retailers do not need software that is frozen in time. They need software that evolves with their business and their marketplace.
Tower Systems’ approach to Software Ideas, customer voting and beta releases reflects a practical belief: retailers using the software every day have valuable ideas.
That makes the update process more than a technical event. It becomes a partnership.
Talk with Tower Systems about POS software that keeps improving with input from real retailers.
Thinking of Switching POS Software? Ask These Questions First
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Switching POS software is one of those decisions that feels bigger than it is — and then turns out to be exactly as big as you thought.
Retail business owners: Take your time. Do your research. Make decisions only when you are ready. This decision is 100% about you and is best made by you, not a consultant, not your accountant. Choose software that is best for you. If you are not sure, wait. Make sure every claim, every promise is documented.
The actual switch is usually straightforward. The regret comes when you’ve committed to a new platform and discover something important you didn’t ask about before signing up.
Here are the questions worth asking any POS vendor before you make a decision.
About the contract
- Is there a minimum contract term?
- What are the cancellation terms and notice period?
- Are there exit fees or early termination penalties?
- Does the contract auto-renew, and how much notice is required to stop it?
About the full cost
- What is the all-in monthly cost — including every module I need?
- Are there transaction fees on EFTPOS payments?
- Is there a penalty for using my own payment processor?
- Are there fees per terminal or per location?
- What does onboarding and training cost?
About your specific business
- Does the software have features specific to my type of shop?
- Does it connect to the suppliers and buying groups I use?
- Can it handle my specific selling mode — weight, fractions, serial numbers, repairs?
- Can I see it running in a business like mine?
About support
- Where is the support team based?
- What are support hours?
- How do I contact support — phone, email, chat?
- What is the average response time for a support request?
About data and stability
- Can my existing customer, product, and sales data be migrated?
- What happens to my data if I cancel?
- How long has the company been operating?
- Who owns the company?
- How often is the software updated?
One more thing
The best POS vendors will answer all of these questions clearly, in writing, before you sign anything. If a vendor is reluctant to provide written answers or a real demo, that’s useful information too.
Tower Systems is happy to answer every one of these questions. We’ll put it in writing.
Supporting the Zero-Waste Movement: POS Solutions for Bulk Food Retail
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The shift towards zero-waste living is a fundamental change in how Australians approach consumption. For independent retailers, providing bulk wholefoods, grains, and liquids offers a unique way to connect with eco-conscious shoppers. However, managing a bulk food or zero-waste store presents operational complexities that standard retail systems often fail to address.
At Tower Systems, we understand that precision and flexibility are the cornerstones of successful bulk retail. Our POS software is designed to meet these specific needs, ensuring your focus remains on your customers and your mission.
Precision Through Scale Integration
The core of zero-waste retail is the ability to sell by weight or measure. Our software features seamless scale integration, allowing for the accurate sale of bulk items such as nuts, oils, honey, and grains. The system processes transactions in both whole numbers and fractions, ensuring customers pay exactly for what they take. This precision builds trust and eliminates the guesswork often associated with manual entries.
Granular Inventory Management
Managing inventory at a granular level is essential when dealing with varying quantities and loose stock. Whether you are tracking practitioner-only supplements or organic produce, the software provides a clear view of your stock levels. For stores that also stock lifestyle products, such as sustainable apparel or reusable kitchenware, the system manages variants like size and colour effortlessly.
Enhancing the Customer Experience
A zero-waste store is often a hub for community education. Our POS software allows you to go beyond the transaction by including health tips or product use instructions directly on receipts. By loading care guides or wellness documents into the system, you position your business as a trusted resource for the local community.
Modern Tools for Local Growth
Efficiency is vital for independent businesses. Our embedded AI tools assist with time-consuming tasks, such as importing supplier invoices and generating professional product descriptions. Furthermore, if you wish to reach customers beyond your physical storefront, our integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento ensure your online and in-store data remain synchronised in real-time.
By choosing a POS partner that understands the nuances of specialty retail, you can streamline your operations and contribute to a more sustainable future with confidence.
Integrations and More
We directly integrate with:
- Shopify, Woo Commerce and Big Commerce for e-commerce.
- Linkly Cloud, Tyro, MX51, Quest for payments.
- ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Anthropic for integrated AI tools
- Scales, Australian Government NMI approved.
Plus, we offer a loyalty solution that works a charm for the type of shopper frequency for a Zero-Waste/Bulk-Food store.
We’re Not Perfect
Our software may not be right for you. If we think that, we will say so. It’s a guarantee from us. The best way to see if we are right for you is through a personal demonstration. We will start with your questions. Then, we will demonstrate using the software answers and let you know if we cannot answer you.
Our demonstrations are personal, tailored 100% to your needs. We record them and give you a copy so you can share with your colleagues.
To arrange a demonstration: book here or call 1300 662 957 or email sales@towersystems.com.au.
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The right POS system or website for any retail business depends on the specific needs of the business. Tower offers POS software and websites made specifically for local small business retailers in a selection of retail channels. To see if we might help you…, request a free, no-obligation demo today. Â
Call 1300 662 957 in Australia or 0800 444 367 in New Zealand. Or, email sales@towersystems.com.au.Â
Five Reasons Generic POS Software Fails Specialty Retailers
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Generic POS software isn’t bad software. For many businesses — a coffee shop, a pop-up market stall, a simple fashion boutique — it does the job.
But for specialty retailers, it often creates a slow accumulation of frustrations. Workarounds that take extra time. Features that are almost right but not quite. Data that doesn’t reflect how your business actually works.
If you consider your business to be unique, you want to choose software that supports your uniqueness, that serves it well, for you.
Here are five ways generic software lets specialty retailers down.
1. It can’t sell the way you sell
Generic POS assumes you sell individual units at a fixed price. But a garden centre sells plants by pot size, bulk soil by the bag, and services by the hour. A fabric shop sells material by the metre or fraction thereof. A produce business sells grain by weight on a government-certified scale. A jeweller sells items with serial numbers that need to be tracked individually.
2. It doesn’t connect to your suppliers
Independent specialty retailers buy through buying groups and industry-specific suppliers. Newsagents use XchangeIT. Bike shops use Bike Exchange. Produce businesses use AIRR. Bookshops use TitlePage and Pacstream. These connections save hours every week. Generic POS doesn’t know these networks exist.
3. It doesn’t handle the service side of your business
Many specialty retailers also repair, restore, or service products. Bike shops, jewellers, music shops, and sewing businesses manage repairs with parts, labour, warranty, and customer notification. Generic POS has no concept of a repair job.
4. Its reporting doesn’t reflect your categories
A newsagent needs to track magazine returns, lottery income, and greeting card performance by range. A jeweller tracks sales by metal type, stone type, and occasion. Generic reporting gives you sales by product and date — useful, but not enough.
5. Support staff don’t know your industry
Generic POS support staff are trained on the software. They may not know what XchangeIT is, how a magazine return works, or why your scale integration is measuring incorrectly. Specialty POS support staff deal with your type of business every day.
The alternative
Purpose-built POS software for your specific retail type has these answers already built in. Not as upgrades. Not as third-party integrations. Built in.
Tower Systems serves 19 retail categories with purpose-built tools for each. We’ve been doing this for over 40 years.
The Real Cost of Transaction Fees in Your POS Software
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Here’s a number most retailers don’t calculate until it’s too late: the total cost of transaction fees in their POS software every year. The cost of transactions is part of the total cost of ownership of your POS software when it is a mandatory cost imposed by the POS software supplier.
What transaction fees actually cost
Some POS platforms charge a percentage of every EFTPOS transaction. A common rate is 1.4%. Some charge 1.75%. Some charge 2–3%.
If your shop takes $400,000 a year in card payments:
- At 1.4%: $5,600 per year in fees
- At 1.75%: $7,000 per year in fees
- At 2.5%: $10,000 per year in fees
That’s on top of your monthly software subscription. On top of your merchant facility fees. On top of your hardware costs. It’s best to calculate these costs before you sign up to use POS software as some POS software companies can value customers by their transaction value rather than value them as a POS software customer, a retailer. There is a difference.
The payment processor lock-in problem
Some platforms require you to use their own payment processing system. If you choose a different EFTPOS provider — your bank, Tyro, whoever you prefer — they add a significant monthly penalty fee. This is effectively the same cost, structured differently. And it removes your choice about who processes your payments.
What to look for
- Are there transaction fees on EFTPOS payments? At what percentage?
- Are there fees if I choose my own payment processor?
- Are there monthly fees per terminal or per location?
- What is the all-in monthly cost, including everything?
Get the answers in writing and compare on the same basis — not advertised prices, but actual all-in costs for your transaction volume.
How Tower Systems handles this
Tower Systems charges a flat monthly subscription: $220, $246, or $275 per month (as at May 2026) depending on your plan (GST inclusive). That is the cost.
No transaction fees. No EFTPOS penalty fees. No per-terminal charges. No turnover limits. Your EFTPOS provider is your choice — we work with Tyro, Linkly, and others.
We also don’t lock you in. No minimum term. Cancel any time.
Transparent pricing shouldn’t be a differentiator. But in this market, it is.
How AI in Your POS Software Saves Hours Every Week
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AI is everywhere right now. Most of it is background noise.
But there are a few specific places where AI genuinely removes time-consuming, tedious work from a small retail business. We’ve been building these tools into our software since 2022. Here’s what they actually do, from within out POS software.
1. Loading supplier invoices — from 45 minutes to 30 seconds
This was the first AI tool we built, because we heard the same complaint constantly: entering new stock from supplier invoices takes forever.
The manual process: open the invoice PDF, read product codes, type them in one by one, match quantities, update costs, check for pricing changes. For a busy shop receiving multiple supplier deliveries a week, this can consume hours.
The AI process: drop the PDF invoice into the software. The AI reads it, identifies products, quantities, and costs, matches them to your inventory, and updates everything automatically.
One of our customers put it this way: “I am saving 5 hours of paid labour time every week. That’s a saving of over $8,000 a year for our business.”
2. Writing product descriptions — without staring at a blank screen
Our AI tools write professional, SEO-ready product descriptions for your website automatically — based on the product information already in your POS. The same tools can generate social media posts and blog content for your business.
3. Plain-English insights from your reports
Click AI Insights on any report in Tower. The software gives you a plain-English summary: what’s selling, what isn’t, where your margin is healthy, where it’s under pressure. No spreadsheet skills needed.
4. Smarter reordering
AI monitors your stock levels against your sales patterns and generates suggested reorder lists for your approval. Stock arrives before you run out — without manual checking.
What this means in practice
The hours saved on admin are hours you spend on the floor, with customers. That’s where independent specialty retailers win — personal service and product knowledge that a big box store can’t replicate.
AI handles the back office. You handle the relationship.
Tower is the only specialty retail POS in Australia with these tools built in. They’re available on Advanced and Ultimate plans.
Reimagining Retail Loyalty: Why Flexibility is Your Secret Weapon
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In independent retail, one size rarely fits all. Whether you are running a bike shop in a busy suburb or a stockfeed business in a rural town, your customers interact with your brand differently. At Tower Systems, we believe your loyalty program should reflect that unique relationship rather than forcing you into a rigid, “copycat” box.
Stop Overthinking and Start Evolving
The biggest hurdle for many small business retailers is the pressure to launch a “perfect” loyalty scheme. Our advice is simple: just start. The place you land for the long term will likely be quite different from where you began.
The beauty of the Tower Systems loyalty toolkit is that it allows you to learn and adjust on the fly. You can implement a strategy today, observe the data, and pivot tomorrow to better serve your shoppers.
A Toolkit, Not a Prison
We provide a diverse range of facilities that you can mix, match, or switch between as your business grows:
The Discount Voucher Powerhouse: This is a proven winner, with some retailers seeing sales growth of up to 20%. You control the value and the rules, and it takes only minutes to set up.
Traditional Points: Perfect for retailers who want a classic “spend and earn” model where points convert to cash rewards.
Digital “Clip-the-Ticket”: Ideal for high-frequency businesses like newsagents or coffee shops, managed entirely within your POS software.
Frictionless Loyalty: You can even reward customers without requiring a formal sign-up process, removing barriers at the sales counter.
Insights That Drive Decisions
The data hidden within these programs is fascinating. For instance, our evidence shows that a 50-cent voucher can be just as effective at driving engagement as a $50.00 one. We also see distinct behavioural patterns: men are more likely to redeem a voucher on the day they receive it, while women often return about seven days later to use their reward.
Having access to this level of detail allows you to pull specific levers to increase visit frequency and guide shopper behaviour.
Supporting 20+ Specialty Channels
Our loyalty tools are built directly into our software at no extra cost. We are proud to support a massive range of Aussie small businesses, including:
Home & Garden: Garden centres, farm supply, and stockfeed businesses.
Hobbies & Leisure: Toy shops, bookshops, music shops, and bike shops.
Fashion & Gifts: Jewellers, gift shops, and boutique fashion.
Services & Health: Pet stores, repair shops, health food shops, and mobility scooter businesses.
Your loyalty program should be a tool for growth, not a source of stress. Start your journey today, see the evidence in your own business, and evolve your way to success.
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Call: 1300 662 957 or 0800 444 367
Email: sales@towersystems.com.au
What to Look For in POS Software for Your Type of Shop
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Choosing POS software feels like a big decision. And it is. The software you run in your shop touches nearly everything — sales, stock, customers, suppliers, reporting, stagey, compliance, and your online store.
Most retailers start by Googling “best POS software Australia.” The results show the same handful of platforms over and over. Most of them are built to work for any retailer, like, literally, any type of retailer.
That’s worth pausing on.
Generic doesn’t mean wrong — it means you’ll need workarounds
A generic POS handles the basics well: processing sales, tracking inventory, running reports. For a café or a clothing boutique that sells finished goods at fixed prices, that’s probably enough.
But if your shop sells items by weight, manages customer repairs, tracks serial numbers, handles second-hand goods, processes special orders, or connects to industry-specific suppliers — generic software starts to feel like wearing someone else’s shoes.
You make it work. But it doesn’t quite fit.
If your shop is not generic, why consider generic POS software?
What specialty software does differently
Software built for your specific type of business includes the tools your business actually uses, set up the way your business actually works.
For a jeweller, that means stone-level inventory management, valuation certificates, and repairs tracking with parts and labour. For a garden centre, it means selling by weight, managing plants that grow and change price, and printing weatherproof labels for outdoor stock. For a bike shop, it means workshop management, serial number tracking, and direct connection to Bike Exchange.
These aren’t add-ons. They’re built in.
The questions worth asking any POS vendor
- Does it have specific features for my type of shop — or will I need to adapt generic tools?
- Does it connect to the suppliers and buying groups I use?
- Can it sell by weight, by the metre, or by fraction if I need it to?
- Are there transaction fees on EFTPOS payments?
- Are there fees per terminal or per location?
- Is there a lock-in contract or minimum term?
- Where is the support team based, and what hours are they available?
- Can I see it running in a business like mine before I sign up?
What 40 years of working with independent retailers taught us
At Tower Systems, we’ve spent four decades building software for specific types of retail shops. Not all retail — specific retail. Jewellers. Newsagents. Garden centres. Bike shops. Pet shops. Fishing shops. Toy shops. Bookshops. And more.
Every vertical has tools built in that reflect how that business actually works. Not how a generic platform thinks it works.
If you run a specialty retail shop and your current software feels like a compromise, it might be time to look at what purpose-built actually means.
AI Is Already Working in Australian Independent Retail, Here’s What It’s Actually Doing
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There is a version of the AI conversation that is genuinely unhelpful for independent retailers.
It involves large language models, disruption curves, and predictions about the future of work. It is written for technology publications, not for someone who needs to open the shop at 8am, manage a casual employee, and check in with a supplier about a delayed delivery.
This is not that conversation.
This post is about what AI is actually doing, right now, in independent retail businesses, small businesses, across Australia and New Zealand, and specifically the practical, unglamorous tasks where it is saving time and improving decisions.
Let’s get into real talk about AI and indie retail.
Automatic stock replenishment
AI-enabled reordering monitors your sales velocity and current stock levels continuously. When a product approaches a reorder threshold, calculated based on your actual sales history, not a fixed number, Â the software generates a draft replenishment order for your review. You approve it or adjust it. The hard work is done.
For a gift shop managing 1,500 product lines across dozens of suppliers, this is not a small thing. It is hours returned every week.
Insights from sales data
Every POS system generates reports. Most go largely unread, or are read without the analysis needed to act on them.
Tower Systems’ AI insights tool changes this. Run a sales report, click the AI insights button, and the software surfaces observations: which categories have shifted, what’s trending, where there are anomalies worth investigating. It’s not predicting the future. It’s reading data that was always there but required more time than most owners have to interpret.
Product descriptions that work online
Independent retailers going online face a specific challenge: writing product descriptions for hundreds or thousands of products — descriptions that are accurate, readable, and optimised for search engines.
Tower Systems’ software can generate product names and descriptions directly from your POS product data. For a garden centre putting its plant range online, or a gift shop listing its greeting card collection, this removes one of the biggest practical barriers to getting products visible online.
PDF / spreadsheet / document invoice processing
Supplier invoices arrive as documents, in a range of formats. Someone has to read them and enter the data into the POS system. AI-powered invoice reading changes this. The software reads the invoice, identifies the products, quantities, and prices, and converts it to an importable format. What previously took 20 to 30 minutes per invoice takes under two minutes.
SEO-ready blog content
A retailer’s website needs content that search engines will rank. Tower Systems’ software can generate and publish blog posts for products managed within the POS system, product-specific content, formatted for the web, published to your website without requiring you to write a word.
The honest assessment
AI in retail is not going to replace the things that make independent retail worth visiting: product knowledge, personal service, community connection, and curation.
What AI can do is remove the administrative burden that gets in the way of those human interactions. Less time on invoices, reports, reordering, and product descriptions means more time for the work that actually differentiates your business.
That is a practical and achievable benefit. It is happening right now in independent retail across Australia. Tower Systems has been building AI-enabled POS software for Australian specialty retailers since 2022, serving thousands independent specialty retail businesses.
Can AI enables POS software help you?
We reckon it can. Take a look, obligation free.
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