We have tested and loaded the GNS 2011 Diary Catalogue to our website and made this available for our customers with the permission of GNS.

Our software for newsagents can be easily configured to suit the needs of many businesses and situations.  One area where adjustment is easy is with the touchsreen layout.  The photo shows a touchscreen layout for newsagents in Western Australia.  It includes local products which you would not see elsewhere.

The screen was designed for a particular newsagent who wanted more products on the touchscreen that we would usually provide.  Our preference is for bigger buttons.  In this situation they wanted smaller buttons and more products to serve their particular need.  Our software easily handled their requirement without the need for a change or a visit.  They could also include product logos to make identifying products easier.

Flexibility in software configuration is important to newsagents and all retailers.  We are proud of the flexibility we have built into the software and that our customers do use this.

Changing a touch button can be done quickly at the store level without risk.  Likewise, securing buttons so that they cannot be changed is also easy.

We have released a newsagency software update to address the latest requirements of XchangeIT, the industry standard EDI platform used by magazine distributors.

We have been working with XchangeIT following recent performance reviews of data being sent from newsagents.  The latest update is designed to help newsagents meet their KPIs and keep their XchangeIT access costs to a minimum.

The latest update was released two weeks ago and is available to Tower Advantage ^TM customers from our website.  We are promoting it today to encourage our newsagent customers to update to this latest version.

We are close to launching exclusive marketing collateral for the close to 150 newsagents using our newsagency software who have or will very soon have the Blackhawk gift card range in their stores.  Our marketing collateral is being developed by our own marketing department and will come with the Blackhawk seal of approval.

As the world’s largest gift card supplier, it is natural the Blackhawk must approve all marketing collateral which promotes their offer.

We are developing several collateral alternatives prior to selecting one as the preferred option for our growing network of Blackhawk outlets.  The collateral will be provided with marketing tips and advice to help our retail partners maximise sales of Blackhawk product.

This is the Tower Advantage ^TM at work - providing access to a solution through our technology, backing it with professional marketing and supporting it with quality business development advice.

The reports of sales of Blackhawk gift cards in our stores already carrying the range indicate excellent business.

Our exclusive business reporting package is winning over newsagents to our newsagency software.  In a comparison of reports available and reporting options, newsagents are voting with their feet and cheque books.  Sales to newsagents are excellent.

When we asked newsagents who had recently switched to our Tower Systems software, better reporting was one of the reasons given.   We were thrilled.

We are proud of our business reports.  We have an excellent mix of industry standard repoprts, supplier focused reports and reports which guide and drive better business decisions.

Like the rest of our newsagency software, our reports continue to evolve to meet the needs of our customers and their suppliers.  Our next update will deliver some excellent reporting initiatives.

Yesterday we published advice to our Victorian newsagent customers on how to handle the unexpected and quite complex campaign announced by the Herald Sun earlier this week.  While the timing of the promotion has been pushed back, we have worked hard to ensure that Tower Newsagents are prepared to manage the promotion with our software.

Newsagents around the country have been receiving advice on compliance with standards monitored by XchangeIT, the industry standard EDI platform.  To help  Newsagents our newsagency software refresh their knowledge of the operational requirements of the standards, we have scheduled two of our popular and highly regarded online magazine management workshops next week.  Access to these online workshops is free to Tower Advantage ^TM customers.

The commercial imperative of compliance is that it reduces the cost of accessing the XchangeIT platform.

We are finalising advice for our Victorian distribution newsagents on how to handle the Herald Sun subscription promotion announced this week.

We have been consulting newsagents and senior management at the Herald and Weekly Times to ensure that all of the requirements of the promotion are understood and appropriately addressed using our newsagency management software.

While we are frustrated that H&WT announced the complex promotion without consulting newsagency software vendors, our focus right now is in helping our customers deal with this.

One of the key differences between Tower Systems and other software companies serving newsagents is our engagement beyond providing newsagency management software.

Owning newsagencies ourselves separates us from every other software company and takes into deeper engagement in the newsagency channel.

This deeper engagement with newsagents have been evident for many years and is, we believe, a key reason around three times more newsagents partner with Tower Systems than our nearest competitor.

We are always looking for opportunities to leverage greater value for our newsagent customers from our newsagent community.  This is evident in the sales benchmark studies we undertake.  They are highly regarded in the newsagency channel and used by suppliers and others to guide business strategy and provide an insight into overall channel performance.

Yesterday, we announced a new and exclusive initiative to help newsagents in the area of magazine management.  We have offered Tower Newsagents the opportunity to participate in a project designed to place  issues relating to magazine distribution under the spotlight in a formal situation with a view to facilitating structural change.

We are inviting access to business data which we will collate and present to appropriate parties with the assistance of skilled professionals.

Our product is data based.  We intend to use accurate newsagent supply, return and other data to provide an up to date picture of magazine distributor performance.

Our trials over recent weeks have highlighted the challenges many newsagents face as a result of the current magazine supply model.  While our software has excellent facilities for managing magazines, these tools can only react to magazine distributor behaviour.

Our commitment to our 1,700+ Tower Newsagent customers is to use their business performance data to seek a fairer model which will see the unique magazine distribution system in Australia maintained rather than killed off by poor business practices.

Our last national study on magazine related cash flow in newsagencies was in 2005.  That led to some changes in supplier performance but not enough.

With better systems in place in newsagencies now, a much bigger tower Newsagent community, the support of some independent publishers and the assistance of some outside professionals, we will be leveraging the Tower Systems point of difference on behalf of all newsagents.

Watch this space for more news.

We have a stand at the GNS Market Fair in Perth next Sunday, August 22.  We will have on display the latest release of our newsagency management software featuring excellent point of sale, stock management, theft reduction and sales building tools.

Trade shows are proving to be excellent marketing tools for us in 2010.  They appear to be attracting the better retailers who want to grow their businesses.  For us, tThe closure rate of new business as a result of trade shows is strong.

The trade shows also present an excellent opportunity for more face to face time with existing customers.

We are finalising plans for a series of newsagency business development workshops around the country.  These are to follow on from our successful Newsagency of the Future series which concluded last month.  Participation will be free and available to our 1,700 strong newsagent customer community.

Each participant will bring to the workshop current business performance data and an agreement of confidentiality on the discussions.  The workshop itself will explore business performance, the opportunities for success and changes which others are embracing in pursuit of success.

The workshops are expected to provide participants with practical newsagency back office improvements along with plenty of revenue growth opportunities.

This is another Tower Advantage ^TM initiative.

The iPads on our stand at the GNS Market Fair in Sydney this weekend were popular.  One, on the left, was showing our software running.  The other, on the right, was for showing off iPad facilities like browsing the Tower website live and accessing training videos as well as our 200+ advice sheets.

Behind the iPads in the photo is our new customer display, a hit at the show.

Sunday was a terrific day, plenty of customer and new prospect traffic.

Of the close to 900 newsagents in NSW/ACT with a computer system, we are proud to report that we have more than 700 as Tower Systems customers. That number continues to grow.

The photo shows how it was for a fair chunk of the first day of the GNS Market Fair in Sydney yesterday.  With more than 700 newsagents using Tower Systems software in NSW/ACT we were plenty busy catching up with existing customers.  We love our costomers, they are a cheerful bunch as anyone spending time on our stand yesterday discovered!

Our new and exclusive customer display, iPads, new software generated terrific interest. We also had time to talk with newsagents keep to switch to our software.  We are happy to help out on this front and have an excellent number of reference sites who have already made the move.

The people of GNS have done an excellent job making good use of the Rosehill venue and creating a vibrant show packed with opportunities.

We are all set for the GNS Market Fair in Sydney this weekend.  Our stand (see photo from yesterday afternoon) is setup with our latest software, some exciting new hardware and a few surprises to exsite NSW/ACT newsagents and stationers who visit the show.

With over 700 newsagent customers in NSW/ACT and more than 100 added last year, this is an important trade show for us in connecting with our customer base as well as helping the remaining newsagents here to come and join our user community.

We have a terrific presence at the Market Fair thanks to the best IT people serving newsagents in NSW/ACT working on our team.  We will have sales and technical support people on our stand to provide the best possible customer experience.

Newsagents attending the GNS Market Fair in Melbourne this weekend got to compare three software companies. They could compare software, customer service, business strategy and ethics for all were on show at the annual newsagent trade show in Melbourne.

Our stand was busy for much of the two days as the photo from this afternoon shows.

While it was wonderful catching up with so many of our customers, the real fun of the fair was the stories we heard from a competitor. It was as if they did not think that newsagents would walk to our stand and compare with what they had been told.

Being able to show our software doing something which they had been told we did not do or to show they were wrong with another claim worked well in winning business for us. They shot themselves in the foot, throughout the fair. Once time we shot them down while they were stalking our stand. Seriously!

Tower Systems serves close to three times more newsagents than our nearest competitor. Based on sales in June and July, the gap is widening. The best way to compete with us is by delivering better software backed by better service.  There is a huge difference in systems offered to newsagents.

We thank GNS for putting on an excellent trade show and look forward to next weekend in Sydney.

We caught up with plenty of customers and some sales prospects at the GNS Market Fair in Melbourne yesterday.  We are sure to meet with more today.  Our stand is in an excellent location, showing off what is great about Tower Systems: excellent software for newsagents, friendly high quality support, innovation (two iPads on the stand demonstrating our software plus a new customer display carrying advertising) as well as strong industry help and support.

We had a couple of newsagents question us about migration of newsagents to Tower Systems from other systems.  We were ready with a list detailing the 30 newsagents who shifted in five months recently.  In providing proof we were able to demonstrate our truthfulness.

We have some nice innovation on display on our stand at the GNS Market fair in Melbourne this weekend. In addition to the latest release of our software, we will also be showing off our exclusive Gordon and Gotch supply adjustment initiative, our Tyro broadband eftpos link – now used by 400 of our customers, the Blackhawk gift cards and a range of other facilities which help Tower Newsagents make more money from their IT investment.

If you find yourself at the Melbourne GNS Market Fair this weekend, stop by and say hello.

We have tested and loaded a new stock file for Kat Kards to the downloads section of our website.

We have published a Frequently Asked Questions document for Tower Newsagents implementing the Blackhawk giftcard offering.  This document addresses the most common questions we have been asked and provides more training opportunities for our customers and their employees.  It also helps more Tower Newsagents join the community promoting the Blackhawk platform.

In addition to the FAQ document, we have publisherd a Tower specific sign up form, a collateral order form and a commission / price list.  All of this documentation demonstrates our professional approach to building a solid business with our customers and our supplier partners.

We will continue to develop and promote opportunities through which our customers can build a better return from their IT investment.

The first data from our April - June 2010 Newsagent Sales Benchmark Study was released yesterday morning and immediately sparked interest and others who watch such matters.  We have provided further information to publishers and a couple of media outlets interested in the story.

We undertake these benchmark studies to help newsagents, suppliers and others be more informed about the performance of the channel and through this mate better business decisions.

We have scheduled a Newsagency of the Future workshop for Newcastle for Monday, July 19 at 11am.  This session will be held in a hotel in downtown Newcastle - to facilitate the widest access possible.  Click here to book.  Anyone is welcome to attend, access it free.

We have had more than 40 customers sign up to sell the Blackhawk giftcard range this week.  Backed by our marketing and support resources, Tower Newsagents selling Blackhawk products are set for terrific incremental business in their stores.

As part of the exclusive Tower Systems Blackhawk package, our customers receive tactical advice which will drive Blackhawk giftcard business.

Our unique approach to the Blackhawk offer is the Tower Advantage ^TM in action.  Too often, software companies deliver technology without tools, advice and assistance to enable customers to convert the tools into income.  This is what we do here at Tower Systems every day.

Our Newsagency of the Future workshop series has attracted close to 400 newsagent attendees.  This is a terrific response from newsagents keen to build stronger businesses as they navigate significant structural change.

We are thrilled to have had an opportunity to present this series, meet with so many newsagents and to show off the Tower Advantage ^TM to a broader community.

Work has already commenced on a follow up session, details of which should be announced later this month.

Tower Systems is the only supplier to newsagents offering this level of practical business training to newsagents.  Our commitment to these face to face opportunities is supplemented by our considerable investment in free online training sessions.

Our investment, like this latest training series, in the newsagency channel is another reason more newsagents use our software than all other software companies combined.

For those who attended, we have now sent out a copy of the slides and the performance data presented.

I am preparing to undertake a newsagent retail sales benchmark study comparing sales for April - June 2010 against April - June 2009.

Tower Newsagents can participate by sending a Monthly Sales Comparison report: tick the box to exclude home deliveries, and tick the box for a category breakdown. Set your first date range (on the left) to April 1, 2010 to June 30, 2010 and the date range of the right to one year earlier.

Once the report is on the screen, click the PDF button to save this as a PDF, go into your email software and send a copy of the PDF to me at mark@towersystems.com.au. I’ll publish the benchmark results here and elsewhere so all newsagents can benefit.

NOTE: If you are running our latest software, you can click on the BENCHMARK icon on your desktop, enter the April through June date range and have the software do the rest.  If you have not used our direct email facilities - to email customer accounts or to email Gordon and Gotch supply changes, the software will ask for some email details from you.  This takes a few seconds to setup.

As with past benchmarks, I expect to use data from between 100 and 120 newsagencies in the next week.  The results will provide an indication of sales performance year on year and give newsagents something with which to compare their businesses.

We are hosting three Newsagency of the Future workshops this week:

• Geelong.  Tuesday, July 6, 2010.  11am.  Mecure Hotel.
• Gold Coast.  Thursday, July 8. 10am.  Surfers Paradise Marriott.
• Melbourne.  Friday, July 9, 11am.   Geebung Polo Club.  Hawthorn.

Access is free to anyone wanting to attend.  Click here to book.