News Corp Australia has suddenly withdrawn its newspapers from being audited by the Audited Media Association of Australia. This means the effective end of printed circulation audits in Australia. To those like us majorly involved in newspaper circulation its the end of an era. Years ago most readers here were very interested in the latest ABC circulation figures, so we used to issue a detailed report which always generated lots of comments. This era is long over.

I am sure it had much to do with the last lot of figures that were bad.

This is what it looks on a graph.

About 9% down, they were slightly higher on the smaller publications, possibly due to retailers no longer stocking the smaller newspapers. It is not that much more work in selling hundred as it is to sell ten, but without substantial volume, it's not worth stocking it.

Now like the curtain closing at the end of a show, you will see not more ABC circulation figures.

The End.

There is be a significant update to our Bill Payment system coming soon.

I was shown today some fancy cash draws for our point of sale system which I did not like as I did not think they were suitable for my clients. We go through a tough test here before we adopt any piece of equipment for our clients, and then we release it only in small scale until our clients give it a seal of approval.

This cash draws did not get through our tests. The reasons why are interesting. Here they are in no particular order.

Shops are dirty and hard on equipment as equipment gets slammed hundreds of times per day, by people that do not know what they are doing or who are just in such a rush, they do not care right now. These draws were not heavy duty. I am sure they will break under heavy use soon. This also presents another problem that it did not look like a big job to force it open. It is only good enough to keep an honest person out.

The lock gave me concern as it had two keys both worked but they both looked very different. Does the lock even lock we asked?

Then although it was marketed by an Australian company, when we put in a few Australian notes in the slots, they barely fit in. In the slots, the flippers looked very flimsy too. I am sure with regular use they will fall apart.

The draw did not open with a lot of force, which makes me believe that over time, the users are going to have to pull it open.

As it did not look very well balanced, I have a feeling unless it is screwed in which presents its own problems, if a lot of coins are put in the front like its designed, I think it might lose its balance and fall forward when the draws open.

Now, this surprised me. No instruction came with it. Apparently, it's so simple that it does not need any.

It does show that you need to review carefully any item which we do before purchasing.

In the long-term (5 to 10 years), there is no alternative for retailers, for an e-commerce store as soon most of the retail will be online. That is not to say the actual shop will not be important, it will be. The fact is now that in Australia, although we have a small market, we are one of the largest e-commerce markets in the world.

So in the short-term, many of my clients have to think and as Amazon is now here and the world did not come to an end but retail is now changed, and it is an appropriate time for my clients and readers to consider the long-term on e-commerce in their store.

There will be three major channels open to them online eBay, Amazon and their own online website. I will go over them in turn. In reality, currently Amazon is not an option for most people as its only by invite but this I am sure will change.

A typical scenario might be here. You are a retailer. You have a stock you want to get rid of because it does not sell in your shop, what do you do? You could discount it heavily as some people, I think wrongly suggest, or you could try to unload it by going online. Another scenario might be that you do sell products that work well online like pet food, and you want a part of that online pet food market too.

eBay is an excellent choice, well established in Australia it is relatively easy to set up. You can start selling with very little money upfront. Start with one listing, it will be running in a few minutes and build yourself up. It has a massive number of buyers already coming. Several problems with eBay it takes a while to build up a reputation and the fees are high about 15% if you include PayPal.

Amazon is the new boy in town. It has a large number of established customers in Australia, but they are only getting going locally now. The odds are you will not get in at present anyway. The fees are roughly equivalent to eBay plus it has a monthly fee from what I can see. It also requires a higher initial investment in stock. Amazon does have one big plus; it has a brilliant delivery service that you can use. Deliver to the warehouse and they will do the rest for you.

Still, Amazon has the same problem as eBay, as you are not building up your business, you are building up their business. They are both not dealers but product based, so it is tough to build up a business there. If I look for a product on eBay from you, next time the way, they are set up, I am hardly likely to come back to you. Furthermore, what you will find with both have many rules you have to follow to stay there. If you violate them, you can be out instantly. If your customers start leaving bad feedback, you can get into big trouble too. They are both very competitive marketplaces as they are full of bargain hunters. Additionally, it is hard to justify advertising your Amazon or eBay store as you are given little scope to advance.

The only way to overcome this is your own e-commerce website, which is what most online sellers have. An e-commerce website is initially dearer but comes with a significant cost saving once it gets going, you are about 10% to 15% less in price as there are no fees. It is less competitive. When I am on eBay, I am getting hit all the time by people making offers on the same product that you are trying to sell me, and the proposals are overwhelmingly on price. Service, product knowledge, and quality rarely if at all has much bearing there.

Final note: If you are entirely new to online e-commerce, you need to walk before run. I suggest that you try making a few purchases online, next put a few items on eBay for sale and see how it goes. Subsequently seriously look at making your own site.

PS We are currently making a major change to our point of sale and e-commerce system to enable it to handle an Australian Amazon link.

Come now, it is vital that you have the correct stock on hand. Not enough stock now could hurt, and this is a quick way of seeing if you have enough.

The report I recommend you look at is GMROI (see the selection highlighted) in your point of sale software in the reports here.

Select the list of options you want, initially; I suggest you run the next few weeks last year, some of you may need to run the next two months because of supplier issues. I recommend doing this by department.

Then you will get a report like this.

As you can see the items are all listed.

What we are looking for is items with low stock on hand figures, decent sales, and reasonable ROI% figures, ROI% is the return on investment, it is one of the best ways to determine how valuable your stock items are to your business. It is calculated by the (unit sold) x (Profit)/ (Average stock cost) and you need about 3.2 in industry, but as you can see here, there are many items above and below it.

The "full" Amazon launched in Australia this morning. There is certainly a lot of interest in it, I noticed over 500,000 searched on google trends. I am sure that most of these people looking are going to be disappointed. What we were promised was "massive discounts on millions of items across more than 20 categories, including electronics, toys, clothing, beauty, and accessories." with their prices 20-30% cheaper. Well, I check many items from household products to laptops. The prices from what I could see where the same or dearer as the offers from other retailers to Australian. Interestingly some of the items, I looked at is cheaper to Australians on Amazon in the US, including shipping. The range was disappointing too.

I noticed some of the shipping. Amazon currently says its two-hour delivery "Prime Now" service would not be available for a while. I think they have done some research on our overpriced, undependable and slow delivery services. It is cheaper to send now a parcel from China to Brisbane then from Melbourne to Brisbane.

So far, this launch I believe is a bomb.

I do suggest any retailer check out the site to see how it affects you. It is here.

Almost every day, we get someone calling us for a donation, and although we are generous to charity, the sad reality is that we cannot give to everyone. I looked over the government 54,000 registered charities register in Australia and there are many more non-registered charities plus heaps of not-for-profits organisations, so we all have to at some point say no, and it is often not easy to turn down someone who believes passionately in their cause. Yes, what you are saying is a good cause, but you have to explain why you have decided for some reason to focus on something else, and they also need more than you can give.

I think you will find [Website removed] that this is a good article, worth reading on how to say no or maybe if you are asked for a donation.

Benchmarking your business is claimed to help show you whether your performance is stronger or weaker than your competitors. This is argued will give you a better picture of where your business is at and where improvements are needed.

So I was interested when a client of ours brought a commercial package recently to benchmark his business. When he showed it to me what I saw is in each industry, there were only a small number of businesses plus the figures seemed strange, and when I checked, I discovered for privacy issues, they were unverified. It left me uneasy and for what it was I thought it was overpriced.

To be fair, although I am interested in benchmarking, I am a critic too of benchmarking. I know of two independent studies done by the US taxation department and another by a big bank in Australia that found little relationship between a business financials and its industry. What they saw is that even similar companies in the same sector had enormous differences. So overall from my experience, benchmarking a company to its industry is not highly regarded.

What it can be used is as a rough guide. Knowing, for example, that a business rent is typically x%, and I see a business having a much higher rental then x% would immediately lead me to wonder why do they need so much rent. This is what financial analysist do when using benchmarks. They want to see the differences to try to understand your business. For example, they know that a grocer next door to a market is going to have very different margins to a grocer in an expensive shopping centre.

If you are interested in experimenting with benchmarking, I suggest you go to the ATO website here.

These are certainly the best ones available to the public. They are free, and although they are unverified, they are least are from a source you can trust.

Using this device is like using Star Trek technology, here is a brief article to make you think how retail technology is changing

The world is learning.

This happened yesterday to one of our clients. A customer had an order that was delivered a few days ago. Yesterday the customer rings up to say that they are still waiting for the goods. The retailer did some checking and was assured by the delivery person that he did deliver it, it was to the right address and it was left on the side of the house as requested. The customer is saying that they never got it. Maybe they are both telling the truth, perhaps not but how does the retailer prove that the goods were delivered.

My advice make sure you get proof of delivery.

Now with the higher stress on delivery currently in retail, I am sure this problem will get more serious.

There are a few points that I do suggest you look when selecting receipt paper rolls.

Make sure you have enough. It is not going to be good if suddenly you run low on receipt paper rolls and you have to run to get it. A tip is if you could sell these receipt rolls, make it a stock item in the shop, so you have spare just in case It also gives you a chance to check the quality of the receipt rolls, before actually using them. I have seen some rolls that stink.

Sometimes if they are poorly handled, the pressure will release the ink so making the rolls filthy. I have seen boxes of rolls wholly squashed making the rolls misshapen. When people tried to use them, the receipts jammed in the printer. Just send them back if you can.

Furthermore, what happens is that as the rolls suffer from the heat and so blacken. If you are storing the rolls, make sure that it is in a dark place away from the heat. They will blacked if you do not do this.

Generally if the paper is very thin, this is not a good sign. Often it makes it really hard to read what is printed on it as the receipts look faded as soon as you print the receipt. In addition, it makes you look cheap, so the message your clients will get is "We are cheap just see our cheap receipt."

Additionally, in an attempt to fit more paper on a roll, sometimes people make the centre roll too small. This causes the receipts to come out rolled up. Your clients will not like that as they want a piece of paper and not a rolled-up receipt.

Lastly try to email receipts rather than print them in your point of sale software, save a bit of money in printing and email it. That way, you can do VIP marketing as well as you have their email address.

We welcome the latest move by the.Federal Government’s to introduce 15-business-day payment terms for small business suppliers. Too many of our clients are finding out that they are a bank to the government. We hoped that the Federal Government’s initiative would inspire similar responses from states governments, councils and big business too.

Over the years we have sent these people a lot of data, recently we have been posting less as we are doing more on the medical processing of data, of which we are happy to help. Now they want 300 TB more that is a lot of data.

By using remote access software for support, we can run your computer and point of sale software across the country as if we were sitting in front of your computer and screen. This remote access allows us to fix your problems instantly.

We are currently upgrading our remote access to make it even better for you.

Since one of our competitors released a complaint about the quality of the gift invoices issued by XChangeIT on behalf of Gordon and Gotch, there has been a fury of discussion. In particular, their claim that some of the products have suggested retail prices that are higher than the supplier suggested retail, which could present a major problem in states like NSW with its consumer protection law and also that this gives the retailer an inaccurate picture of their margins. Furthermore, the claim is that these invoices being sent are riddled with errors.

On behalf of our clients, that have contacted us on this issue,

1) We have tested several invoices

2) We have reached XChangeIT for more information,

3) We have reviewed our clients' information after they have imported these gift invoices.

We do not see these errors, and this may be because we are not looking at the right spot, it might be that it is not appearing with us as our software has inbuilt AI data correction, something exclusive to us, or it may be that these invoices have been corrected by Gordan and Gotch before this complaint went public. Without more information, we cannot say, what we can say now is that our users do not appear to be having problems with the data quality of these invoices.

If you have an issue with this problem, please contact XChangeIT CEO Chris Leach on Phone: 1300 551 212 who is very interested in this question then let me know the outcome.

Well, there has been an increase in the Australian public for this holiday. I can vouch that we gained out of it. It saw that one of our competitors copied us and made a Black Friday Sale too. That was probably for them a sound business decision.

There is an interesting article on Australian retailers and Black Friday in this edition of Inside Retail.

I suggest that next year, all our clients seriously consider making such a sale.

Well its getting close to the season and its time you made a decision about laybys. In my view, despite what credit suppliers are saying that they will be replacing lay-by, it has not happened. If you think about it, a lay-by is a good deal for the consumer, generally they get for little added obligations and contracts among other benefits.

Lock in discount
Little or zero fees
Zero interest
The ability to pay cash
A flexible repayment plan
And pay out early option.
If it is required, they also get a cancellation option.

This is why today still lay-by is probably the most popular form of credit in retail. This is particularly true if they tend to pay in cash and/or have bad credit ratings.

Which is why it is really useful for consumers at the Christmas holidays?

I think also its a no brainer, if people want to do laybys then why create waves, allow them to do so.

That is why our point of sale software has an extensive layby section.

If you want to do an analysis of what your current Lay-bys are doing.

Please go to the lay-bys in our customer section.

The analysis you will find there marked with a green arrow. Then when you press it you will get pages of statistics. Here is the start

If you press the blue arrow, you will get even more in a Full Detailed Report. Looking through them, I am sure you will find much.

Black Friday means 'savings' to a lot of people but today the term might have a different meaning to you.

Amazon.com.au has made it's way officially into the Australian marketplace today.
Is it hype?

Will it change the way people shop?

Maybe.

Everybody in Australian retail has an opinion but if you take into account that the American version Amazon is already so popular with Australian customers, then it's clear they know how to cater to online shoppers.

Does this mean that the end is near for your business?
Pos Solutions and many of the top retail expert do not think so.

This is the line in the sand that online shopping has been promising and you have known it was coming for years but you may never have realised how important a role you are going to play in this new future of retail technology.
As big as Amazon is, online shopping only currently takes up 5% of the world's shopping dollars. This is only expected to rise to about 15% by 2021 and that is only because businesses like yours will take their strengths and make their way into the market.
Online shopping has its place and it is a growing but it still rings true that online shopping just can't fully replace the know-how and service that a bricks and mortar store offers to shoppers.

What makes the difference between you and Amazon?

The one thing that online shopping doesn't have yet is you.
The future of retail will not happen without you.
The future is YOUR STORE in sync with
YOUR STORE ONLINE.
Your brand. Your know-how. Your customers. Your community.
Online.

Goods from your store to the web. Customers from the web to your store.

That's why we've teamed up with Webtail to grow your online footprint using the tools and data in your PosBrowser system to create, maintain and expand your store's potential. Expand it right now and then above the ever-changing hurdles that will come moving forward into the future.

Not only can you build your own website easily with Webtail but their sync tool has been built to work with PosBrowser from the start. All the strength that 40 years of retail solutions built into PosBrowser, now at your fingertips to control your online presence as well.
Amazon hype will entice a lot of new users to online shopping. So now it's more important than ever that you get in early over that line and get you on the internet so you can display who you are to everyone. All the while using a process that will not interrupt your day to day activities but rather deliver them to new and excited customers.

So to add a little silver lining to the cloud that has come on this Black Friday, Pos Solutions is proud to offer, for one week only $1000.00 off.

For one week only until 11:59 PM next Friday 1st Dec, we are offering the Webtail package for just $3,000.00 ex. and only to the first 10 customers who signup. They will have you trading well before the Christmas rush. They will help with everything to get you up and running for just $3000.00.

If you have ever gotten a quote to build a website before you will understand how good this offer really is. Please, checkout their website for more information or Ring Paul on 0418 504 834. Or email [email protected]

Ransomware is software that blocks access to the user’s information and demands payment to reinstall access like here.

A major problem now is if you get such an infection and do decide to pay, something we strongly recommend that you do not do is as soon as the authorities become aware of an attack, they will close down immediately anything they can with this attack. This means that often the criminals behind the offence no longer have access to those that they have affected. As such even if the criminals wanted to which usually they do not, they cannot get the key to get your information back.

We would recommend against paying up in response to a ransomware attack anyway, because despite the moral objections that anyone paying is supporting criminals, often these offenders cannot get your data back away. The claim that they can frequently is, a bluff and many despite meeting the demands of the ransom find they get nothing back, and they have no recourse legal or otherwise.

The good news though is generally we have been able to recover most of our clients' information back.

Note we do expect and hope that all our clients do have a daily backup of their information. If so the worst that can happen is one-day's information lost in your point of sale software.