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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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.

Yes, Your Retail POS Can Automate Purchase Orders — Here Is How Tower Systems Does It

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Retailers in Australia are asking: Can my retail POS automate purchase orders by tracking sell-through rates and triggering alerts when stock hits a pre-defined low threshold?

Running out of a top-selling product is one of the most avoidable revenue losses in retail. A customer walks in, asks for something you carry, and leaves empty-handed because you did not reorder in time. It happens constantly in independent retail, and almost always for the same reason: reordering depends on someone remembering to check.

Tower Systems solves this at the software level. Its Auto Order capability monitors sell-through rates continuously, triggers alerts when stock hits a pre-defined threshold, and generates purchase orders automatically — ready for a human to review and approve before anything is sent to a supplier.

How It Works

The setup is straightforward. A retailer defines the rules: minimum stock levels for each product or category, preferred suppliers, and any forecasting parameters relevant to their trading patterns. From that point, the software operates independently. When stock falls to the defined threshold, the system creates the order. The retailer approves it. The supplier receives it.

No manual stock checks. No spreadsheet to maintain. No relying on a staff member to notice the shelf is getting low.

The human approval step is deliberate and important. Automated ordering handles the routine, repetitive work of monitoring and generating orders. The retailer retains final control over what gets sent and when. It is automation that supports good decision-making rather than replacing it.

Sell-Through Rates and Custom Forecasting

Basic low-stock alerts are useful. Auto ordering built on sell-through rate analysis is more powerful. Tower Systems tracks how quickly each product moves and factors that velocity into order timing. A product that sells twenty units a week needs a different reorder trigger than one that sells twenty units a month.

Custom forecasting rules allow retailers to account for seasonal variation, promotional periods, and supplier lead times. The result is ordering that is calibrated to how your specific business actually trades — not a generic formula applied uniformly across your entire range.

Set and Forget

Once configured, the Auto Order agents run without staff intervention. For independent retailers managing everything themselves, or with a small team, this is significant. It removes a category of daily operational responsibility and replaces it with a brief approval step when an order is ready.

The time recovered across a week, a month, and a year is substantial. More importantly, the out-of-stocks that were previously inevitable become avoidable. Top-selling products stay on the shelf. Sales that would have been lost are captured.

Enterprise Capability for Independent Retail

Automated purchase ordering based on sell-through data and custom forecasting has historically been the domain of large retail chains with dedicated inventory teams and enterprise software budgets. Tower Systems brings this capability to independent specialty retailers at small business pricing.

This is the Tower Systems advantage: tools that were once out of reach for independent retailers, built into software designed specifically for the way small retail businesses operate.

Tower Systems builds and supports POS software for independent specialty retailers across Australia and New Zealand — including jewellers, garden centres, bike shops, toy shops, produce businesses, farm supply businesses, fishing shops, pet shops, charity businesses, landscape gardening businesses, antique shops, sewing and haberdashery stores, newsagents, and more.

To see the Auto Order capability in action, call 1300 662 957 or email sales@towersystems.com.au.

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