BLOGS AND ARTICLES FROM THE POS SOLUTIONS TEAM

We are entering now the holiday season, the next major one in the rank is on the 29 November, Black Friday which as you can see from google trends now has overtaken in interest in Australia Fathers day. It is a shopping holiday,

As you can see from the graph, Black Friday in blue has overtaken in Australia interest Fathers Day.

While the sales aren't quite so big in Australia as in the USA where it is the biggest shopping day of the year, it is a big shopping day whose sales are growing every year here. Last year on Black Friday, Australian shoppers spent about $320 million. I bet its more this year as interest in it this year appears to be extraordinarily high

I noticed that most of the larger retailers, eg Woolworths, IKEA  and Priceline are all doing something. Why not you?  

Easy to set up in our system a special!

Pick a few products and advertise it as a Black Friday special with an offer like  

* XXX dollars off - What people like on Black Friday are expensive items on discount

* BOGO - Buy <some quantity> and get one free. This has proven to be a very successful method of selling 

* Double points - Can often work

Give it a whirl and see how you go.

I was listening to a video newsletter. In this video what the presenter did was did an interview with a small business owner who owns and runs a successful lotto agency in Dandenong. 

She is clearly an experienced business owner, running a business not too dissimilar to many of my clients. Now, what when asked did she think was so important to her business success. Her response was social media in particular Facebook and Instagram and being involved in the local community. When I looked up her business Facebook account, I could see that yes she was regularly posting information relevant to her customers on the latest in lotto and her community. Clearly based on her interview here, it is working for her business. 

Too many people today have not caught on that the traditional methods of marketing advertising or direct mail are less effective. Today much of the world largely connects, as she states through the social media community.

PS: What is weird about social media and shows how different it is, is although I do not know her or her business, through social media, I can see that she is a friend of a very close friend of mine. It is a small world.

What is amazing with such powerful tools like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, Pinterest, etc which are free to business what amazes me, is too many business people do not use it. Yet the reality is that these have fundamentally changed the way we are now connecting, communicating and collaborating.

If you have one of our websites, it is easy to automatically connect these social media to your site.

Here are some benefits of doing social media:

Customers: 

It can bring more customers to your shop. Most people are looking regularly at their social media accounts if you are there, it brings your shop to their attention.

Create more Sales:

Have something to sell them, why not offer them something. New products are coming in all the time. It does not have to be earth-shaking, a new shipment of pet food, a new range of cards, some cooking pots that are now on sale, some new magazine, etc 

Cost: You cannot beat FREE. 

Builds Relationships with your Customers: People on social media are communicating. You can answer questions, give advice on a product and talk to potential customers quickly and efficiently. 

Still unsure

The first point is to look at facebook to see what similar business to yours are doing. Then if you like what you see and want something similar and need help and are a supported user of ours, we do offer a free setup of a facebook account for your business.

For many of our clients now that handle Tabcorp Lotto, one of the big problems now is that with their new app and Digital Wallet Sales, sales are coming through into their system with a price of zero and this means that it is harder to track their sales of lotto products accurately. In particular, what worried us was that it was difficult for us, as a result, to calculate the Gross Profit.

So we spoke to Tabcorp here

Tabcorp now has acted on our concerns and adopted our proposals. From next week they will be updating their system to separate their Digital Wallet sales from our clients' sales with pricing details. 

Great stuff!

There is no extra work for our clients as a patch (Version 1.1.92.9) will automatically update their systems, so they will be able to continue to scan lotto products as always.

Update:  One of our competitors has clearly for reasons that to us make no sense attacked Tabcorp and us.

What they do not like is pricing details included in the Tabcorp barcode. Well, just because the Tabcorp barcode has a price does not mean that they have to put the price into their software. All they have to do is code their software so if its a Tabcorp product, it is imported with a value of $0. If one of our users is so crazy and wants this too, well they can set up their system with our software to do that too *NOW*. What is the problem?

Let me further point out that this company track record on Lotto is not particularly good, a few years ago. I remember seeing in their spreadsheets of the future and speeches them saying that counter sales of Lotto will go down. It did not. It went up and its never been higher. Today with its super draws and promotions it has given lotto agents a major traffic drawcard. 

Also, business is the art of the possible, not what we would like, I believe that many of the changes they proposed are never going to be done in real-time.  They publically supported the politicians and the appropriate industry bodies to try and force Lottoland out of Australia.  Then we and many others pointed out that this was dreaming and Lottoland were not just going to leave. What they helped do is frustrate any hope of our clients getting new revenue streams from Lottoland, for example, see here, here and here. 

It goes on, one point I am very proud of our company is that what we propose and do is stuff our clients can use, their recent proposals on local politicians support, local currencies for small business, buskers grants, etc., in a real-time, dream on! 

Plus would these make much difference to SMB could also be disputed too, for example, buskers like to set up their Busking Stations in front of public places, markets and supermarkets as there is a mass of women and kids with money there!  Buskers know what they are doing, women and kids tend to give more than males. My daughter is eight years old if she likes a busker, she comes to Mum or me to give her some money to give to them. So does my Mum, she gives them money with a comment, "I like them doing this much more what they are doing than them begging in the street." I suggest very little money will flow to SMB as a result.

I used to go to a supplier of mine frequently, and this quote was on their wall. I liked it so much that I took a copy and put it my wall in our office and now for almost 40 years, I have read it every day I come to work. Mahatma Gandhi was a very wise man.

Well, now we are currently putting together our annual support survey for 2019. We have done it every year for 38 years. Boy, 2019 year has gone quick.

What we are seeking feedback from our clients to the service we provide you in 2019. Your responses will be used to assist us in our continually improving customer service. The survey is designed to measure the effectiveness and quality of our services, and it should only take you a few minutes to complete. If you have used our services and want to have your say in improving our performance with your suggestions then, please contribute.

Thanking you in advance

Bernard

PS We are adding two new questions this year to see what web commerce system and Buy Now and Pay Later Solution you are using.

Zippay can now be directly integrated into our Westpac EFTPOS link. 

This may be useful for those that sell product through Amazon in particular as Amazon now accepts Zip.

The big plus, with zip is that by using it you are giving your customers the power to pay later interest-free with little risk to you. 

If you are interested let me know.

Most of your suppliers have large numbers of items on catalogue. I would say a typical small client of ours would be selling actively over a year selling over 43,000 lines. That is a lot of work if you order once a week to handle it. Just do a calculation on how much it costs you now to order stock?

Those that do not computerise it, tend to do much of the ordering on gut feel and memory.

However, getting it right is critical to retail business success as what we need to do is get the shopper what they want and when they want it. This is particularly difficult if you deal with products with high decay, eg popular magazines, fresh food, etc. because then we have the problem of availability vs waste.

This is why if possible here we recommend that you consider as the computer can relatively quite cheaply do the ordering that you consider smaller orders and buy frequently. This has the added advantage of keeping your stocks levels tight and your cash requirements down.

This is something where, if you are not already doing it where our software can save you much time and money and in the process, optimise your stock levels. What our software does is looking at your sales history discovers learning algorithms which automates replenishment. Technically its a form of demand processing. 

What it does is looking at your history of sales, create an ideal stock quantity that it thinks you require. 

If you order frequently, the amount of stock you need until the next reorder is less. It then compares this figure to what the actual stock on hand figure you have, it then adds some safety stock, then takes into account the ordering requirement of each supplier and then prints or issues a stock order with almost no work.

This reduces your holding costs, as you are not holding that much in stock.

It also

• Lower ordering costs - as you are buying only what you need.
• Improved selling rates - as you are ordering only what you need.
• Decreased stock out occurrences - as the computer is checking continuously
• Overstock wastes - this is often caused by people overestimating what they require.
• Improved stock accuracy - you have a continuous check on your stock.
• Higher customer satisfaction - you have the stock you require.

You will save a lot of time and almost certainly your shop will do a better job of it.

Today, a customer display is something that anyone with a Point-of-Sale should consider. 

Here are some advantages and some points to consider if you are thinking of getting one.

The advantages are:

- That your customers like to see what you are charging them and appreciate you being transparent as they can see that they are being charged fairly as they can see what is happening now. This inspires confidence among your customer and in practice, can boost customer loyalty. 

- It also gives them something to do, so making them feel less than they are waiting. Instead, your customer feeling like a spectator, they think they are a participant.  

- It reduces the problems of queries after the transaction is done. Time is saved as most queries can be done when they happen. 

- Finally, a customer display in our system can be used to convey important messages to customers to consider as they are waiting their turn, like here. If you are interested in *Discount Vouchers*, this is a better way to go then receipts which very few customers get in real-time in modern retail.

If you are looking at such a unit!

Here are some points to consider.

-Workout what the screen size should be for you, maybe look at a few that other shops have before deciding. The screen size, once selected, can not be changed. As a general rule, a bit bigger is better.

-You need something hardy. Retail is a harsh environment for computer equipment. It will be knocked, if it is flimsy, it will smash. It will be in the open, so it gets dirty, and dust will get into it. Make sure it can handle this.

-Over the lifetime of this screen, it will be moved and adjusted, so make sure that the screen can be lifted up and down, and the angle of the screen can be changed. Ideally, you should be able to change it from vertical to horizontal and anywhere angle in between.

Our help desk team are right now there to help you.

If you have no time to talk, please complete the online form, and we will be back to you shortly!

PS Good luck and happy punting, we wish you a happy Melbourne Cup day.

As readers here will be aware Alipay is the preferred payment method for Chinese people visiting Australia. As about 1.2 million Chinese tourists come to Australia each year and each spends an average of $8,000 per visit this makes them in dollar terms our number one tourist trade. Plus on top of that, there are many Chinese nationals and students living in Australia that use it,  so giving many of our clients' access to a pretty good market. 

If you think you think could benefit from Alipay and would be open to doing a case study could you please contact me ASAP as we need to have it running by the holiday season starts.

I can guarantee you, the work on your side will be minimal, you will get a good deal on EFTPOS as well as the Alipay link.

Well, Victoria today joined most of Australia except NSW by banning single-use plastic bags today in retail.

This ban affects small business only as the larger retailers have long stopped plastic bags here. 

I know some of my clients now offer only paid bags. Some use paper bags. One advantage of the expensive paper bags is that the customers appreciate is that they can be given to someone with no gift wrapping required.

One problem with them that several complained about was that the plastic bags are more weather resistant than the paper. Anyone that has lived in Melbourne will know about our rain problem, no city in the world has so many changes in weather as we have, so they are wondering if they now will have to put the items in a plastic bag and then put the wrapped object in a paper bag.  

If you do supply single use plastic bags in your shop, you now need to charge for them. This is easy to set up in our point of sale software. I am not sure about the law as to whether you can sell them with customers VIP points, I was not able to get a definate answer about this. 

Two interesting reports are now available for retailers interested in print. The Magazine where the key findings here are that overall on Year on Year figures (YOY) printed magazines are about 8% down in readership, they are not releasing sales here, and digital readership is not just a touch bigger than print and Newspaper where print is listed as being about 15% down, and today digital readership is almost three (3) times bigger then print.  

That document is generally considered as being the internet’s birth certificate, it recorded when the two computers started communicating.

Note the date 50 is fifty years ago.

Do you remember your first introduction to the internet?  Mine was 24 years ago. I was talking to a guy on the phone at work. After I had fixed his problem using a modem. He told me to go to this site, download some software and once I did that to run the software, then told me to *enjoy* and hung up. 

Who knew that this would change the world so much? 

I rarely do an article on one of our clients using our Point of Sale software unless it is exceptional, The Kavon is such a place. It has recently been revamped. 

Theatre Restaurant is fully computerised.

It saves them lots of time. In restaurants and bars, in my experience stock wastage and shrinkage is the biggest problems, it is crucial to track and manage stock.

However at the bar, the problem is that time is a premium, so the speed is number one. This is where our POS system comes to its own. It is the fastest one, I have ever seen. We can quickly take payments, setup bar tabs, split bills, add tips and apply the special promotions. We accept a wide range of payment types eg cash, credit cards, account sales, etc. We have cashless payment options.

Most importantly if the EFTPOS goes down eg the internet or the bank is down, we can switch to local mode and keep the EFTPOS and by extension, the bar going.

Here are some photos of our system at the bar all setup

Here is the bar

Drinks

Some of the cocktails on offer

Our software has inbuilt a powerful GST auditing tool inbuilt which gives you a fast and accurate audit of your GST.

Now what sometimes happens is that people have some queries about their GST and they want to check in their accounting programs that it is giving the same result as their point of sale software.

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This will give you a detailed report which including this.

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Now, this you can check with your accounting program.

If the two are not the same, then what you need to do is track down the incorrect figure. This can be extremely difficult as sometimes, it is not actually wrong in either system. So we need to audit.

The problem here is that three (3) is often a big job to audit in practice. So what we do is try to break it down to a short period, generally a day and audit just that day. This process can take time.

So what we suggest is to run this report for one month, then the accounting program for the same month. If the problem is not noticeable in that month, we go to the next month and run both again. It does not take long in our system as its Microsoft SQL which sets the standard for speed.

If it is noticeable, then we look at the first half of the month and check that with the accounting program and so keep going making the period smaller and smaller until we get to a day where the problem is noticeable. Then I check the transactions on that day.

It will take you using this method about seven (7) attempts to get to that day. Once you get into the rhythm, it is relatively quick.

Sometimes though it can be tough to find, I remember once, I could not figure it out why a $2000 transaction was not there. It turned out that it was an insurance claim that had wrongly been put down in the accounting software as a sale. Doing this check, as a result, saved the retailer $200. 

Our software has inbuilt a powerful GST auditing tool inbuilt which gives you a fast and accurate audit of your GST.

Now what sometimes happens is that people have some queries about their GST and they want to check in their accounting programs that it is giving the same result as their point of sale software.

This will give you a detailed report which including this.

Now, this you can check with your accounting program.

If the two are not the same, then what you need to do is track down the incorrect figure. This can be extremely difficult as sometimes, it is not actually wrong in either system. So we need to audit.

The problem here is that three (3) is often a big job to audit in practice. So what we do is try to break it down to a short period, generally a day and audit just that day. This process can take time.

So what we suggest is to run this report for one month, then the accounting program for the same month. If the problem is not noticeable in that month, we go to the next month and run both again. It does not take long in our system as its Microsoft SQL which sets the standard for speed.

If it is noticeable, then we look at the first half of the month and check that with the accounting program and so keep going making the period smaller and smaller until we get to a day where the problem is noticeable. Then I check the transactions on that day.

It will take you using this method about seven (7) attempts to get to that day. Once you get into the rhythm, it is relatively quick.

Sometimes though it can be tough to find, I remember once, I could not figure it out why a $2000 transaction was not there. It turned out that it was an insurance claim that had wrongly been put down in the accounting software as a sale. Doing this check, as a result, saved the retailer $200. 

Using our software, you can save a lot of paper compared to others.

Here are some suggestions on how to do it and save trees, money, time and bother.

1) Ask yourself, do you need to print the document? 

Too often I see people print a big report when all they require is a few numbers, why print it, use the preview and cut and paste the figures you need. That is why we made the preview!

2) Before you print use the preview to check the report to make sure that it is right, it is very frustrating to print pile of statements, then see that it is wrong and then have to reprint it. Proofread it first on the screen. What I do is make a checklist of items to check before printing. 

3) Do you need all the report, maybe only print the few pages you need.

4) On the top left side of our reports, click export (where the green arrow is), so you can examine it in a wide range of electronic formats. 

My favourite that I use a lot is excel which is marked in purple. 

This will give you a lot more flexibility then printing ever would.

5) If you are thinking of mailing it, ask yourself, does the person who you are sending it to need a paper copy? Many today are more than happy to receive it electronically. If you have their email address, send them an electronic copy in PDF and if they want it printed, let them print it. 

This also saves you time in organising the printed documents, wear and tear on the printer, envelopes for mailing, going to the post office and stamps.  It also as in statements is a big saving in time, money and bother when your client claims that they never got it.

6)  If you must print, try and reuse the paper, many reports for inhouse use can be printed on the reverse side of a previous published report that you no longer need.

7) Use a cheaper grade of paper, if possible, also take advantages of special deals. One of my clients picked up a crate of paper for almost nothing. Then set up a stand in the shop and put it up for sale as well as used it internally too.

8) Store reports electronically rather than the file. This also saves on the filing cabinet space. 

9) Review what you print, do you need to write all the information that you do on receipts and statements? Besides printing receipts faster, it saves not just on paper but also wear and tear on the receipt printer too.

10) I use previous published report that I no longer need as note paper.

While we are still far away from the paperless office, which is unlikely to happen soon, there is considerable potential for you to reduce paper consumption. 

This study of small businesses (1 to 20 people) in Australia, I recommend you look through. What it states is today about 41% of small businesses in Australia have a website which is a significant increase on a few years ago.

Of those that do have a website

- 65% say a website would make their business look more credible and professional

People looking to buy today, expect you to have your own websites. Not having one raises questions in customers' eye. 

I would say that the vast majority of businesses that I go to both large and small, I have for one reason or another researched it on the net first. I doubt that I am unusual here. If I cannot find it, I move onto to another business.

According to the 2018 Telstra Small Business Intelligence Report, 62% of customers will stop considering a small business if they can’t find information about it online.

- 56% know that having a website means that their business can be found on Google

Today almost everyone uses the net to get information on even local businesses that they know. For example, I used it just yesterday to get opening hours of a pizza parlour, I like.

Many use it for directions.  Consider this over half the people in Australia use a trip computer in the car to go to work every day. This is a spot, I am sure they know intimately well how to get there yet they use google.

- 59% say a website can provide a good way of receiving customer enquiries

Cheaper than a telephone call and easier for many to use. The Telstra Small business report states 28% of Australians do this.

Once you have the email address, you have another way to reach your potential customer.

- 58% say it opens up new business opportunities.

A website is like a billboard that introduces people to your products and services. I know that even shops, I know well, I find on their website points I did not know.

For example, the pizza parlour I looked up above, I saw that it runs birthday parties for kids. I am a parent and am looking for a venue for my daughters 9th birthday and I am thinking maybe have it in this pizza parlour? This is a supervised party which gives the kids a quick class on making pizzas, then lets the kids make their own pizza, they bake the kids pizza, they make a contest of it and then the kids eat their own pizzas.

- 61% believe that it has contributed as much as 25% growth to their business.

Add up the above and 25% sounds reasonable but actually I think its too low, in our market space those with websites are doing about 4% (which is the industry benchmark) of their trade online. For many that would be much higher than 25% of their growth.  

How much does it cost, how much to budget?

I would say if you are thinking of going online.

FREE: If you are looking to test the waters, I would say go on Facebook and set up your company there. It costs you nothing. It will not get you on google but it is something. I think every one of my clients now should have this. 

Some cheap website offers are available but in my experience, they look cheap and they often come with limitations and advertising. You have say a pizza parlour, do you want ads for Dominos pizzas to appear on your site to your customers while they are putting in orders? 

Basic website: For something reasonable to start your company off, if you know what you want and are well organised I would say $2,000 to $3,000 could get you something reasonable. A good idea here is to look at what others have, find something you like and ask for something like that. What you do not want to do, is request change after change because that is where the charges really take off.

Online shop: To get you a full online shop about $5,000 would be a reasonable starting point. Again much depends on how well organised you are. 

Here is a tip.

I was with a client, and we had to sign some documents and send them off quickly. So we signed them. Then I went to the post office to send them. Once at the post office, I realised that we had no copy of what we signed. If the letter got lost or was delayed, there would be no evidence that we had signed or sent it.  

Standing in the queue in the post office, I could see it was a lousy environment to take photos, so I decided to experiment with the free Google PhotoScan app. So I took pictures of the documents, the addressed letter, then the documents partly in the letter and then the sealed letter. Overall I was stunned how good the quality of the scan of these documents produced considering the bad lighting and lack of space. So I thought that if it was useful to me, that many of my clients here who need to scan documents and do not right then have access to a flatbed scanner would find it useful too. 

It actually what it does is get you to take five pictures of the document from different angles and using its smarts to fix the photos to make one good scan. What stunned me was how well it reduced the light spots that regular photos so often produce.

It is the best app, I have come across to scan documents via phone.

If you want to investigate, click here.

Note I tried it on photos with mixed success.

In business the running costs will vary, depending on many factors, in computers I tend to notice the better computer literate and more mechanical minded the owner is on average the bigger the problems they get. For example, they are the ones that experiment with the lastest speed boosters etc 

What many people do not seem to realise is the initial cost is not that important as I show here. It is the running costs that need to be considered even more.

Here are some assumptions that I am using to calculate the running costs for computer hardware assuming we start with a cost of $6,000.  

I would look at a three (3) year period, anything over that I would consider a bonus. Many SMB businesses will use, however, five (5) years. I am dubious of that as after three years to get the effective use of your system it needs an update. At the very least, a new main computer (server) needs to be replaced otherwise the system is running to slow. This is particularly true if you are paying for time with staff.

Capital

The cost of capital, if the system hardware on a lease, it would be about $200 month over a 3 years lease, over 5 years about $124/month. 

So in three (3) years, we are looking at $2,400/ year

In five (5) years, we are looking at $1,500/ year

Maintenance costs,

As a rule, the best advice in a business environment is if it ain't broken do not play with it. This is particularly true the better you are in computers. We frequently get big support calls after the clever nephew who knows this computer stuff helped out. This is partly because unfortunately, the rule of not doing anything does not work as computers now do need monitoring and maintenance. Under the hood, the operating system, the antivirus system, in fact, every bit of software today is all automatically updated. Seriously when the last time, you actually manually updated some software?

The other point is it is a difficult one to estimate as general rule maintenance often tends to be big or zero. For example, a client split a cup of coke over the laptop. The laptop shorted out and it was a total loss. I have seen computers after a fire.

Still, computers are a mechanical device, that does get old. All will fail eventually. It's just a matter of time. In the first year, this is not an issue as we provide a complete hardware solution. Still, people that budget tends to use about 15% of the purchase price on repairs and maintenance on year one, which generally is covered by a warranty, so year 1 is worn by the seller with us, this may not be true always as many suppliers only offer three (3) months warranty. In any case, there is about a 20% increase a year after that.

Year 1... $0

Year 2....$1,080

Year 3....$1,300

Year 4....$1,550

Year 5....$1,900

So over three (3) years, we are looking at an average of $800/year

Over five (5) years, we are looking at an average of $1,200/year

Extras such as electricity.

These charges do add up. Say your computer uses 350-400 watts, in a business environment. I would say you would be looking during the day between 250W and 310W/hour at say 28 cents a KW for a city person in Victoria (which by the way is way up compared to even two years ago when it was 20 cents a KW). For 12 hours a day, seven days a week or 365.25 days per annum, is (.250+.310)/2 x 0.28 x 12 x 365.25 = $350 a year of electricity. 

Total

So if I was looking at computer hardware of $6,000.

Over three (3) years we are looking at an average yearly cost of $3,500

Over five (5) years we are looking at an average yearly cost of $3,000

On the three (3) years I expect some value left in the computer, I doubt there would be very little value on the five (5) year option.

This of course as noted earlier does not take into account the time you are paying employees. Often what we find is that the costs of operating and maintaining the legacy system exceed the cost of modernization.

I hope all of this helps.

The number of POS Cash registers you require is based on peak business volume. What happens then is that the long checkout times provide your customers with an opportunity to reconsider their purchase as such many will abandon the proposed purchase. A rule of the thumb in Australia in retail is six (6) minutes max.

The problem is not the actual time but the perceived time. 

That is why if you notice the many often near the counter, a stand with popular magazines. It is not as many think primarily to get impulsive sales; it is to keep people busy while they are waiting in the queue. Maybe they will buy the magazine if so its a bonus, but at least while they are reading, they do not do a walkout. 

Another idea frequently done is free WIFI, while people are in the queue they can fill the time productively doing facebook and email checking etc. 

Another idea is a TV screen showing the news or weather. 

Still, their maybe a better way. Instead of trying to fix the symptoms of the problem, why not try to fix the problem,

With our software what you can do is have one cash register station run multiple draws. So when it gets busy, a staff member has a draw ready to go and can serve your customers. 

It does not take any more room.