The latest version of our gift shop software will be on show at the Reed Gift Fair in Sydney in just over a week’s time. We are on stand 1730 at the large Darling Harbour location – as shown on the partial floorplan to the left.

We are well established and experienced participants at gift fairs around Australia and enjoy meeting with customers, suppliers and sales prospects at these events.

We will have more to say about our specific plans for this important trade show in the next week.

Bike shop owners are among the best retailers for embracing technology based on our own experience.  They dive into the facilities in our software and engage in business building opportunities. 

Bike shop owners tell us that they are more focused on driving commercial outcomes from our Point of Sale software because of the highly specialist and competitive nature of their marketplace.

This deeper focus leads to excellent value software enhancement suggestions which benefit not only our bike retailers but also other retailers using our software.

We support their business focus through quality business management tools covering business performance, bike supplier performance, warranty and repairs management, lay-bys, loyalty marketing, theft management and handling second-hand goods.

Inventory management is also vitally important in a successful bike shop with the value of stock high and changes in movement rates essential to track.

Thanks to key supplier relationships we are in a strong position serving bike retailers here in Australia as well as New Zealand.

Retailers are responding to tough times by extracting more value from their Point of Sale software. 

Gone are the days when a Point of Sale system is seen as a cash register replacement, basic in function and service.  In today’s marketplace, smart retailers are extracting every ounce of value they can from their POS software investment.

While many software companies sell similar software, the majority do not provide the level of assistance and advice necessary for retailers to unlock value from the software beyond basic cash register replacement.

It takes real commitment from a software company to unlock the level of value necessary in today’s tough retail environment.

Software companies which act as software companies will rarely help retailers extract full value from their software.

Tower Systems is committed to helping retailers achieve tangible benefits from full use of its software every day.  This is reflected in the broad range of assistance provided through our Help Desk.  More than half all calls relate to business matters and not the software itself.

Thanks to broad retail expertise, we can go beyond the usual technical support call.  We provide business implementation advice along with business management advice.

Our assistance can also include analysing business reports and showing a retailer the business decisions available to them based on the data in the reports.  This is where real value is unlocked from our retail management software and the Tower Advantage ^TM relationship.

Imagine how a retailer feels when we identify $15,000 worth of stock which ought to be quit because it is not paying even for the floor space it occupies?  Or when we show how to easily lure customers back into the business with little or no cost.  Retailers love having access to this information and the decisions they can make.

We delight in engaging in business discussions which enable us to use the software to show the opportunities for our retail partners.

Tower Systems is more than a software company offering a technical solution. We are a business building company which uses software as one means through which we help independent retailers grow.

Employee theft can kill a retail business if left undetected for too long.  In addition to excellent theft reduction and theft management facilities in our Point of Sale software, Tower Systems also offers a theft analysis service to its retailer customers.

Theft Check, as the free service is called, involved thorough analysis of critical business data, looking for patterns of behaviour, as indicated in the data, which could be evidence of employee theft.  Access to theft check is provide as part of the Tower Advantage ^TM customer support and service program.

All we need is access to a current data backup and we do the rest.   We look at the data from the perspective of successfully uncovering theft in more than one hundred retail businesses.  From a few hundred dollars to well over one hundred thousand dollars.  We are able to identify behaviour which is at best poor retail practice and at worst blatant theft from the business.

Our experience is that retailers are complacent about theft because of a belief in their people, denial that it could happen to them and fear that it is happening to them.  We have been guilty of this ourselves in our own retail businesses.

Our years of experience in working with retailers on employee theft, across a variety of retail channels, has allowed us to develop skills which are now helping others cut the cost of employee theft.

FOOTNOTE: This is not the first time we have written about this service and it will not be the last.  Each time we do write about it more retailers contact us. Our singular goal is to cut the cost of theft in retail businesses using our Point of Sale software.

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 are thrilled to be welcoming John Le to a newly created role on our national Point of Sale software help desk today. John brings years of help desk experience to the role and an affinity for small business. Following comprehensive training, John will start taking calls from customers - these will initially be shared with another team member before moving to solo calls.

We have created two new help desk roles over the last month to help us cope with demand from new customers.

If you get to talk with John, please say hello and join us in welcoming him to the Tower community.

We have switched another customer from a competitor of ours by demonstrating that the cost of ownership of our Point of Sale software is considerably less than that for the competitor’s software.

The newsagent purchased the software a few years ago for thousands of dollars but was told a year or so back that they didn’t purchase the software and that a monthly licence fee is now applicable. $250 a month plus GST. It soon adds up.

Their gripe was compounded with the extra items they are told they have to pay for and the apparent high price for these items.

By switching to our Tower Systems Point of Sale software, the newsagent will be better off financially over the medium term. Of course, our view is that they will be significantly better off operationally immediately they move.

Once you have purchased software for your business you should have the option of not having to pay anything extra to make use of this. Mandatory fees should be able to be challenged - that is what we would suggest at least.

We have announced to our eziPass electronic voucher customers today details of new and updated products available this month.  The latest changes further enhance the value of the eziPass offer.

Our Point of Sale software can help retailers protect against customer fraud.  Using our software, our retail customers are able to better protect against common fraud conducted at the counter by skilled criminals.

Here are just some of the ways our software is helping retailers reduce the cost of customer fraud.

1. Receipt checking.  By scanning a receipt, a past sale is immediately brought up for verification before a refund is considered.
2. Refund management.  Thanks to clever search tools, retail employees are able to verify when an item was sold – in case a receipt is not returned with the goods.
3. Checking change.  Users can setup the system to require that receipts always show change.
4. Security controls.  Sophisticated security facilities within our software deny employees the ability to process a refund unless they have been explicitly granted security clearance.
5. Eftpos integration.  Using the integrated Tyro broadband eftpos solution, a processing step is eliminated, meaning an opportunity for fraud is eliminated.

The most important way to protect against customer fraud is to have well defined and understood operational processes at the retail sales counter.  These processes can be better managed and driven thanks to facilities in our Point of Sale software.

Retail businesses hit by customer fraud tend to have a lazy approach to managing the sales counter, inviting financial harm to the business.

Up to date advice on the Blackhawk giftcard range has been published at the eziPass website.  The new Frequently Asked Questions document addresses the most common questions we are asked about the Blackhawk offer before people sign up.  This FAQ document will evolve over time - based on questions from our customers.

With more than 120 of our customers signed up to offer Blackhawk, considerable work is being done to process the paperwork and get display stands out to the stores as quickly as possible.

Next week we will be sharing selling tips with our customers, to help them make the most of the Blackhawk gift card opportunity. These tips will be exclusive to Tower Systems customers.  They will provide another example of the Tower Advantage ^TM in action.

The Blackhawk giftcard range is an excellent opportunity for retailers keen to service the lucrative last minute gift marketplace.

We are offering four free online training workshops in the use of our Point of Sale software this week:

• New staff member training. Tuesday Aug 17 at 11am
• Magazine management workshop Aug 17 at 2pm
• Business reporting Aug 19 at 11am
• Marketing your business Aug 19 at 2pm

Access to the sessions is free - we even pay for the phone call for audio participation.

Our homewares retail customers and sales prospects are brimming with optimism on the back of good sales results and strong forecasts leading into Christmas.

The same is true for other retailers with a strong homewares niche in their business.

We are been fortunate to participate in some good discussions over the last couple of weeks about why this particular retail channel is strong.  The Master Chef effect appears to be a key reason.  People are investing more time and money in at-home dining experiences and to do this they need and want better homewares products.

For us, homewares is one of those categories which crosses several retail channels.  There are your traditional homewares stores and then there are gift shops with a homewares range or two and newsagencies, yes newsagencies, with a homewares offer.  We are able to draw in experience from multiple channels and help our customers leverage the optimism around the homewares category.

Retail jewellers often think of software for their business in the context of Point of Sale facilities, how the software can help the business at the front of the store.

There are many back office facilities which can help today’s jewellery retail business from an operational and organisational perspective, facilities which can considerably add to the profitability of the business.

One such area of considerable value to a full service jeweller business is that of repairs management.

Customers often bring in watches, rings, necklaces and other jewellery items for repair. These items need to be professionally tracked for workflow management as well as for customer service.

Good repairs management software developed specifically for jewellers will help with customer service, protecting the piece itself and with overall jeweler business management.

State of the art repairs facilities are helping jewellers (and other businesses undertaking repairs) profit more from repairs. They cut management time, reduce mistakes and make it easier to bill for each task in a repair job and thereby more completely cover the business costs with appropriate margin.

Here are some of the features you can expect to see in a jeweller repairs management facility incorporated in jeweller software:

• Scan receipts or job card to find a repair in the system. Alternatively, quickly find repairs based on customer details.
• Track repairs by customer.
• Support multiple repairs per customer.
• Accommodate multiple repairers per job.
• Easily schedule in-house or outsource repairs.
• Store quotes for later reference when it converts to a job.
• Manage partial payments of an account.
• Track repairs by repairer.
• Track repairs by courier.
• Automate pricing for popular repair jobs.
• Allocate staff and repair instructions.
• Allocate existing stock used for a repair job.
• Print bar-coded job cards and receipts automatically.

The sophistication now available in good repairs facilities plays out in other parts of the jeweller software. It’s like the NASA mission to the moon - there are many side benefits along the way for all of jeweller customers.

Given the excellent margin for jewelery repairs work and the high cost of infrastructure for providing the service, it is appropriate and necessary to have high quality management tools in place to ensure efficiency, protection of the customer items and management of all resources and assets deployed in the task.

Repairs management software can add between 25% and 50% to the return achieved by an existing jewelery repairs operation. This is done through better workflow management, more accurate billing and more complete customer service. Jewellers can expect to win more repairs business, get the work done with fewer mistakes and to charge more for the service.

Today’s full service jeweller needs to manage every part of the business for efficiency, profit and repeat business. This is where repairs management software plays a vital part in the mission of the business.

Our garden centre software is growing in popularity among pure garden centres as well as hybrid businesses which incorporate a gift, cafe and even newsagency component.

Garden centres love many of our facilities including:

• Tracking when a product is to come off sale.
• Bulk buy discounts.
• Including instructions with an item for sale.
• Customer loyalty rewards.
• Delivery requirements.
• Warranty processing.

We fell into serving garden centres some time ago, led by customers expanding into the area.  We soon discovered that we met most of the needs of garden centre businesses.  We enhanced our offer with some changes in the software and support for weather-proof barcode labels.

While not a large part of our business, garden centres are growing, especially as some existing customers step into the space when evolving their businesses.

Yesterday, Tower Systems released Retailer 2.2.3C, the latest version of our Point of Sale software.  This release have successfully passed through our comprehensive in-house quality assurance process as well as extensive live use in our helpful beta test sites.

In communicating the details of the update with our customers yesterday, we listed details of the enhancements, many of which were suggested by our customers.

The update is now available for free download by our Tower Advantage ^TM customers.

Tower Systems is helping retailers to use their POS Software to find spare cash in their businesses.  This is a smarter move than the more traditional approach taken by retailers of heavy discounting without proper planning.

• Dead stock.  By easily identifying stock which has been sitting on the shelves for too long, we help retailers be more certain about what needs to be discounted. the data provided also helps guide decisions as to the discount to be offered.
• Using just in time stocking principles.  Too often retailers carry too much stock in their back rooms.  By implementing our just in time focused recording facilities, retailers are able to  carry less stock and free capital for other uses in their businesses.
• Driving basket efficiency.  Getting Each customer to spend more in the business improves profitability per employee contact. The comprehensive basket penetration tools in the Tower Systems Point of Sale software drive this.
• Better roster management.  With employee costs usually accounting for between 8% and 15% of retail costs, we help retailers review revenue by time and by employee to enable appropriate cost saving decisions to be made.
• Rent review.  We have found that by providing a landlord with accurate performance data about the business, retailers can negotiate revised lease terms.  We help our retail customers extract appropriate data and pack this in a form which is useful to landlords.

There are many ways retailers can unlock spare cash in their businesses.  Tower Systems is grateful for the opportunities of working with our customers to help them unlock this cash.

We have started showing off the new customer display we will soon formally launch. This display lists items in the sale on one half of the screen and displays relevant ads on the other half. The ads are selected based on items purchased. We are using similar technology to that which we use for placing ads / coupons on receipts. This is integrated within our Point of Sale software. Our goal here is to help our customers drive basket efficiency.

Thanks to terrific customer feedback we have developed some helpful enhancements to the Ezidebit customer payments facility in our software. Using Ezidebit, our Point of Sale software customers in Australia and New Zealand can more easily process customer payments. The latest enhancements are being delivered in version 2.2.3C of our software which moves into wide release in a few days.

Many of our customers are embracing proprietary gift cards, cards which are branded to their business.  Just like the cards we have made for the Donna Hay General Store - users of our Point of Sale software.

With these business specific gift cards, our customers are able to achieve sales when their customer is unsure.  They are also able to bring forward the cash-flow benefits of the sale.

Using the comprehensive gift card facilities in our software, our customers can manage balances and other administration aspects of their gift cards - easily and from the sales counter.

Thanks to good contacts in China and our in-house design team, we are able to produce cards to a high standard and with appropriate security for the business.

I was was asked recently to write an article about loyalty programs in retail stores and to explore why some do not work as expected.  Having worked with a wide varietyof retail businesses on managing their loyalty programs through our Point of Sale software, I was able to draw on this experience to share the following thoughts…

Loyalty programs in retail stores are meant to increase sales. If a loyalty program is not facilitating this in an independent retail store then it is probably failing the business.

While some retailers, notably some national retail chains, run loyalty programs to gather data as a more important goal than rewarding customers, at the independent retail level it is usually about business growth.

So why do some such programs created to drive loyalty fail for a retail business?

Here are five common reasons why loyalty programs can fail a retail business.

Little reward for loyalty. This is the most common reason. There is little on offer for the consumer in return for loyalty. If you want shoppers to spend more than they would usually spend in a certain time you have to make it worth their while, obviously worth their while. Use any loyalty offer you have in your retail store to deliver genuine value and through this a real point of difference for your business.

Poor communication around the offer. If the offer is confusing to understand, shoppers may give up and ditch the program. Communication needs to be simple so that anyone can follow and be encouraged to engage in the behaviour you want. The communication in the initial paperwork, emails, posters in-store, indeed everywhere in the business around the program needs to be complete yet as simple as possible.

Not embraced by the business. The best loyalty programs are offered over the sales counter. In the sales team is not engaged then the uptake will be low. It is vitally important that the sales team members understand the role the loyalty program plays in the overall business model.

Too hard. Some loyalty offers are too hard to sign up or use or redeem or all three. Make it simple, compelling and fun. The easier it is for your customers to engage the more likely they will engage. Test the program, ask customers for feedback. Make sure that what you build is truly easy for them to use, redeem and play with. Do not be afraid to evolve the program over time.

Does not drive loyalty. The program must reward customers for spending more than they would in a fixed timeframe. There is no point rewarding customers for what they would do anyway. This is not loyalty on their part. So, a program which rewards average behaviour is a failure for the business.

Take time to structure any loyalty rewards program in your retail store. Understand what your competitors, large and small, are doing. Create a program which is sustainable, offers genuine rewards, is fun, easily understood and will bring the sales lift which is so important to your business.

Once you have the program running, track engagement and commercial results. Adjust the program as the performance data indicates.

A good loyalty rewards program can transform any retail business.  We have agood loyalty rewards program in our software and back this with good management help.

Selling Phonecards, calling cards, mobile phone recharges, Citylink passes, tourist tickets and Blackhawk gift cards got easier for retailers this week thanks to the new eziPass website quietly launched.

eziPass is the preferred vending platform for well over 1,000 retailers now. It is also the preferred platform for many suppliers.

Through the new eziPass website, vendors and retailers can more easily read about and access the benefits of eziPass.

It represents further evidence of our pursuing of change for our own growth as well as the growth of the retail businesses with which we work.

eziPass is available as a standalone product working on any computer with a broadband connection as well as in an integrated form within our own Point of Sale software.  eziPass is free software for any retailer.

The latest version of our Point of Sale software will deliver enhanced debtor management facilities.  With the economy tight, retail customers find many reasons to delay paying bills.  Our goal is to help our customers more efficiently address and deal with their debtor book.  This is the motivator for the latest changes in our software.

Tower Advantage ^TM customers will receive information about availability of the latest update shortly.

Using our latest Tower Systems Point of Sale software, retailers are able to compare the performance of key suppliers across trading periods.

This comparison will empower retailers to more easily identify suppliers who are delivering less value to their business today than for the same period a year ago - a likewise, the suppliers delivering greater value.

The comparison will also help in understanding the value of the supplier compared to other suppliers in the product category or segment.

The latest reporting enhancements evolved out of customer consultation where we sought to understand how we could improve our reporting to deliver better business outcomes for our customers.

Constant enhancement of our software is a key point of difference offered by Tower Systems to our Tower Advantage ^TM customers.

Our latest Point of Sale software update moved to beta release last week with the new version made available to our beta test sites.  This is the second round of live testing for this update.  New software has to pass through rigorous in-house as well as life testing before we consider wide release.

With so many retailers and other businesses relying on us we are cautious and thorough in scheduling the release of any software update.

This is an exciting update with some excellent new facilities … but more on that once we release the update more widely.

We have started playing with some new and interesting hardware which could add value to the Point of Sale systems we have installed.

In ‘playing’ we have assessed the hardware from a hardware perspective - installation, setup and support.  It passed.  Now we are looking at it from a software perspective.  This is involving four key people in our company, looking at the opportunity from the perspective of our user community as well as ourselves.

The whole process is time consuming - as it should be as we are always careful about introducing new hardware to our customers.

If all goes well, we may be in a position to make an announcement sometime next month.