I would like to thank a few clients that wrote how well mirror marketing worked today using their point of sale software. They told me how much easier it made picking a selection of items for their Mother's Day display. The idea is that you do not have to have special Mother’s Day product to create the display what most people need is a stand in front of your store, stocked with a few items that people buy on this day. The problem is trying to determine the items. Here is one stand, that one of my clients made up.

Of course you can be more creative, if you like and create a really unique display.

The point is whatever you come up with something that looks like a mother already owns these items.

Exactly what I reported on Tuesday would happen, is happening now.

When on Friday, it was reported, "that a massive wave of cyber attacks swept across 99 countries, possibly including Australia, with cyber security experts claiming it could be the biggest attack of its kind ever recorded."

What happened is that a major hole has been discovered in the antivirus software, and many virus developers are now rushing in to take advantage of this hole. Since Point of Sale software is a very attractive target because of credit card's transactions, you can be assured that you will be targeted.

The solution is simple, update your antivirus software ASAP.

Our point of sales system has an integrated Bill Payment which is available free to all our clients.

There is NO CHARGE to activate or to use it. No monthly fees. No cost. It contains somewhere between 40,000 to 50,000 bill payer, making it most likely the largest bill pay system in Australia.

It is very competitive and using it; you can offer your clients a cheaper service then may of the majors, including Australia Post.

Although clearly the trend in Bill Payments in shops are down, you would not see it in the figures as it is a massive market. Everyone has plenty of bills to pay, and many people prefer to go into a shop and pay it there. One reason I am sure is because they can pay cash.

So I went and did an analysis of how many payments were our clients doing over the last 12 days.

So here are some fast facts.

The first point I did was filter out those that were doing less than one payment a day. Clearly, these people are not serious about it, probably they are just using it for their own convenience. Overall, the shops ranged from 52 to 112 payments during this 12-day period. The average was during this period just over 76 payments or about 6.5 a day. So it drew into the shop about six people a day which is pretty good. How much would you pay an advertiser to get six people a day that actually buy something into your shop?

The Most Popular Day for doing Bill Payments was Thursday, and then surprisingly Tuesday while the least well-liked day was Sunday, possibly because few of the shops are open then.

The most popular state for my clients doing Bill Payments was Queensland and then Western Australia.

If this interests you, and you want to have a Bill Payment service in your shop, please let us know so we can activate you.

This has been called the ultimate question in business, and I am sure that you have at one stage answered this question.

What it is, is a very simple, objective and powerful tool to measure your client satisfaction. What it gives you is a number that is easy to understand. Since it is widely used, the results can be benchmarked. It can also be tracked over time. That is why we have used in for many years.

The implementation itself is simple, all you do is ask 30+ people this question exactly as above written here. Now this is important, do not change this question in any way, there are sound and long involved reasons why it is written like this. Just ask AS IS.

Once you have enough responses now collate the answers by the number of people who answered for each number.

Now add the number that answered 0,1,2,3,4, etc.

After that enter your responses into an NPS calculator, many are available online
The ones who answered from 0-6 are called Detractors, that is why they are marked in red. These people are considered unhappy customers who can spread negative word-of-mouth points about you. They clearly are not particularly happy.

7-8 these are called Passives. They are in yellow. They are considered to being satisfied, but they are not particularly enthusiastic for your goods and services. They probably will not say anything negative about you but are not going to promote you either.

9-10 are called Promoters. They are in green. They like you. They probably buy much from you and push you to other potential customers. We all want more of those.

Now what is your score?

I have seen companies with negatives; it is clearly not a good position to have!

Most companies get a Net Promoter Score of about 5 to 10. What it means is that they have almost as many unhappy customers as happy customers. If you are getting that, then you need to pull your act up.

A pass is considered to being 20, and a score of around 30-40 is seen as good.

There are some companies that get scores in the 50 to 80 but in my experience many claim this are just making it up. Be honest with yourself.

It can be useful to plot over time, your NPS scores.

Here is a clipping from Australia Post to show you how they do it.

As you can see they were very average with an NPS of 10.8 in 2013. They have steadily improved and they are now 15, which is better but clearly not a pass here although they seem happy with that score, I know though I would not be happy with that score.

Have a shot, if you want to discuss it please let me know. Overall it should take you a few hours tops to do and I am sure you will find it most useful.

Something like 30% of all workplace injuries is due to manual handling of goods - lifting, pushing, pulling, packing, etc. So I would certainly recommend discussing this with your industry body.

Furthermore, what I do recommend is that you mark in our system items that are heavy and so require special handling. Note exactly is heavy legally depends upon many factors not just weight. It will depend on how often it is lifted, how the person has to stand to lift it, how easy it is to lift, how high is it, the distance to travel both up and down, etc., etc. This is why I recommend getting professional advice something all industry bodies that we deal can help you with.

Once you have done that, identify the stock, not go to stock maintenance in your point of sale software -> Edit marked them in the red box.

Are bank fees up, almost certainly yes. I was invited to a discussion this afternoon with a bank where they discussed this with us.

Yet the government has not answered some basic question so no-one can say what banking activities would be subject to this extra tax and how this extra $6 billion will be collected. Once that is done we move to the big question of who is going to pay for it, because despite what the government says, the banks will not absorb this sort of money. Someone will pay and it will be either their shareholders, their customers or their employees. The shareholders have already said that they are not paying for it, as we have seen the share price from banks fall. Australia lost about $14 billion dollars in share valuation to raise $6 billion, that is hardly a good deal.

It will most likely mean that bank interest for SMB business that uses the local banks for loans will go up compared to those companies and organisation that borrow on the overseas market.

I am hoping that it will not affect EFTPOS because if it does it will give a further boost to those companies that do not pay the bank interchange fees compared to the SMB that do pay it.

Also I do not see my clients absorbing the increase in EFTPOS fees, increasing banking fees or interest increases too if that is what the goverment is thinking?

I agree with the Australian Bankers Association CEO Anna Bligh who has a good point that it is a “grab for cash to fill a budget black hole," that it is setting a “very dangerous” policy precedent, and it should be considered as "not just a tax on a bank" but a "tax on every Australian who benefits from" our local banks.

The rule is that if someone makes a claim, they have the burden of proof to justify and substantiate it by showing what evidence they have to back it up. If this evidence cannot be produced, the claim is often discounted.

If I tell you that the moon is made of green cheese, you do not have to do anything, but it's up to me to prove that it is.

Well, one of our competitors in the newsagency point of sale software has made some statements that I think all of us would like evidence to prove it.

1) What evidence do they have that their newsagency management software is best practices? Please click here. The wikipedia talks of public review, self-assessment, benchmarking, the use of accredited management standards such as ISO 9000 and ISO 14001, and so on. What evidence is there for any of this in their claim?

Note that our software does much more than manage newsagency; that is another issue.

2) Prove or submit evidence that they have as many newsagents as they claim using their software.

The Yellow Pages lists 3729, so they must show that over half of them are their clients.

3) What evidence is there that all the other vendors of newsagency management software have less than what you claim you do?

No vendor releases their numbers, I suspect that this is another of their opinion which I have doubts about.

Once this is done, we can move on to the other claims, but let me state that we have been deeply involved in the newsagent channel and have no intention of leaving it.

There were mixed news for SMB retailers in the budget which overall I thought was a good budget considering that the outlook for the Australian economy does not seem good. Retail now growth is about 3%. Disturbingly the unemployment rate is expected to continue at 5%, wages are not expected to rise much, and inflation is very slowly creeping up.

Some thoughts that struck me were.

1) I am sure my clients will be happy about is that small and medium business have been given another year to take advantage of the federal government’s $20,000 instant asset tax write-off scheme This scheme has been very helpful for many small businesses to allow them to invest in the capital equipment that they need, so it was great to hear that the government would be extended it for another year. This makes it much more attractive to upgrade your equipment now.

2) My main worry of the night was that this $6billion bank levy which is to be collected, will be as sure as the day follows night be passed onto the consumers. This will see an increase in bank fees, and I am wondering whether into other banking products like EFTPOS too.

3) The war on tobacco is continuing, now roll your own and cigars are going up. Since these products are the direct competitor with chop-chop, it will push the illegal tobacco market up. How big an effect no-one knows but what we do know is that the police seem to regularly seizing tobacco plants on a plantation worth $12 million dollars, capturing 13 million illegally smuggled cigarettes, eight tonnes of illegal cigarettes all without making much of a dent on the availability of chop-chop.

If you use Window Defender as your antivirus tool, we recommend that you update it now. Details are here.

A vulnerability has been discovered that allows a worm to infect your computer, as Windows Defender scans the file to see if its infected. You do not need to open it, for it to infect your computers.

The fix is simple, open Windows Defender, click on the update tab then click on Update Definitions. Once it updates, this problem is fixed.

I highly recommended that you do this ASAP as I am sure right now these worms are being written and released.

Update 10/5/17: It appears that many other antivirus software has been updated yesterday, almost certainly for the same reason. I recommend that you upgrade your antivirus software ASAP.

What frequently happens is that you know some information but to find it can be a big job. In this example here, I am looking for a transaction of $30.40. I looked through page 1 and now as you can see I am on page 2, on a report that is 72 pages long. That is going to be a lot of work to find it.

Now that is a lot of work to find!

So what I did was press the search button on the top of the report marked with a red arrow. Then what I did was put in the amount I was looking for of $30.40 and next pressed "Find next"

The program then searched for me and instantly on page 58 (see light blue) it found the $30.40 (see red arrow).

As you can see using the search made it much easier to find.

Just another example of how our point of sale software is filled with practical and useful functions that you need.

This Wednesday at 10 am, we are going to host a workshop at our Melbourne premises. In this user meeting, we will cover a lot of information.

These meetings are designed for owners, managers and supervisors within businesses that work the point of sale software.

The cost to attend this meeting is free.

We look forward to seeing you and helping you move forward.

Here are some scenes from the dog lover show today. It was huge and the organisers did a really good job. Hopefully we will pick up some new clients.

I was asked today by one of my clients about getting in a coffee machine. This is because we used to have a strong association with a large coffee machine distributor. I stress used too as we do not any more but as a result of this association we do have several clients that do have these machines and considerable knowledge about these machines.

Plus I do claim some expertise in this as I am a certified barista, my wife knowing how much I loved coffer enrolled me in the course.

Overall coffee is a huge industry in Australia. Looking IBISWorld in Australia, there are no major players, turnover is worth about $4.3 billion and the profit of $250 million. Now doing a quick look through the yellow pages, I estimate there are about 15,000 outlets Australia so about $250,000 with $16,000 profit an outlet. So its an open market.

In general, I would say these questions are the most important.

1) Can you put coffee in, in some places like shopping, you need special permission. I know that some people that tried were rejected.

2) How much can you charge for a cup of coffee? The average price is about $4 to $5 dollars with a Barista. What I suggest you do is take a walk outside your shop and see what the competition is around you. See if anyone has these machines near you. Some places like 7-Eleven who are doing a great trade in coffee sell it for $1 a cup if you have one next to you, your price may need to be a $1 too. Furthermore, remember that for a machine, you cannot get full price, you probably are looking at about $2.50. Check also an akin area to yours to see what shops similar to you do charge. In addition, check the traffic flow too as if you are open in the morning and have say a bus stop right in front of you, you probably could pick up a lot of trade as looking at a few clients' data and comments the peak period for coffee sales is between 8:00 am and 10:00 am.

Check also to see who has these machines near you. Some places like 7-Eleven who are doing a great trade in coffee sell it for $1 a cup if you have such a place next to you, your price may need to be a $1 too. Additionally, remember that for a machine, you cannot get full price, you probably are looking at about $2.50.

3) How much room does it take up? Every single foot of your shop's space needs to work hard. One plus is that these machines do not take up a lot of room, and they do not have to be in a prime position. They do, however, need access to electricity. Plus these machines are often messy. One of my clients reported that he had to move some items from the immediate area because of spillage.

4) Time taken and who does the work. You will find its a bit more than its promoters claim. Also does it need a lot of training to use?

5) Australians are serious about their coffee and have a high standard for their coffee. Does this machine make a decent cup, the best is to try it.

6) Repairs and maintenance. These machines frequently break down. How quickly is support and who pays. One of my clients told me that if the coffee machine was not close to the service bay, he would have pulled it out.

A typical scenario here would be a fixed cost of about $1995/year for the hardware and a variable cost of about 63 cents a cup. Now you need to do your figures.

I hope this answers some of your questions.

We all at POS Solutions would like to congratulate Mark and Vanita Haley from Drouin Newsagency and Tatts, clients of ours for winning the 2016 Retail Newsagency of the Year. It is especially pleasing at Drouin Newsagency has been a client of ours for over 20 years.

If you would like to see more of there shop here is their Facebook page, please click here.

If you would like to see more photos of the presentation, please click here.

Also congratulations to all the other winners and finalists too including the :Richards family who are also our clients.

Gift cards do bring people into the shop, here are some ideas to get more people to come to the shop using gift cards.

1) Instead of giving a local charity money for a donation, what about giving them a gift card that can be redeemed in your shop? Someone from the charity will come back to redeem the gift card, and maybe they will buy more too.

2) Instead of offering your customers a discount on the item they purchased, what about offering them credit on a gift card that can be used on their next visit.

3) If someone buys a large gift card in your shop, what some shops do is offer a bit of a concession say 5% off for a sizable purchase. A better idea is to give the buyer a smaller gift card rather then a discount. This means that recipient of the big gift card will come, and the small gift card will bring the buyer back into the shop.

An observation that is commonly noted by people who sell gift cards is over 70% of people will spend more on a transaction than the value of their gift card.

This is a proven way to make a check on your exiting stock lines for the next major marketing day, Mother's Day. It's called mirror marketing.

Firstly, how significant is it that you have the correct stock NOW in your shop for Mother's Day? Well, the Australian Retailers Association estimated that in last year Australians would spend around $2 billion in celebration of Mother’s Day this year. Russell Zimmerman, the Executive Director, said, "Mother’s Day is one of Australia’s biggest spending occasions, second only to Christmas," so you do not want to miss out.

Now let us do some mirror marketing.

Go to Register Reports marked in green.

Now select in stock, "Stock Sold During Period(a) Not Sold in Period(b)"

Now the marketing trend for Mother's Day has already started so what we are trying to do is ride the marketing wave and make sure we do not miss it.

What the report will tell you is what was sold in a previous period (a) last year but has not been sold in a period (b) so we examine the wave then and compare it to what we have currently. Since Mother's Day is a very narrow marketing season, you need probably to run it now and a few times before the holiday.

Now in red for Period (a) you keep these dates as this marketing season progresses the same. Which is four weeks as I have taken a week after just to catch the tail end of the holiday.

In blue, you put in Period (B) the current date minus 28 days so

Today after the close of business, it will be 6/4/17 to 3/5/17

Tomorrow after the close of business, it will be 7/4/17 to 4/5/17

and so on.

Since I did it today, I picked these dates.

Now in yellow, you will see that there are a lot of different options, which can help with ordering and giving specific department information.

Now what you investigate in the report where you get what was sold during the period (a), but you are not selling now in your current period.

Please check the Cash up process which you do at the end of the day as it has been significantly updated today. This is probably the most important function in a point of sale software as it records the counting of the money, including depositing at the bank. One new function, that I particularly like is you can send the report automatically to three separate people now, one I suggest you do send it too for record keeping is either evernotes or onenote (both are free applications) as it will allow for quick and easy storage and retrieval of the information anywhere you are.

We have just finished our Newcastle and Sydney User meetings

The Newcastle meeting at our office there was a particularly productive meeting as the Newspower representative came and spoke. There was a lot interest in our integrated BPay system (something I do recommend all our users install as it does bring in customers) and as well the new functionality in the Stock Statement Reconciliation.

Whereas what we noticed in the user meeting in our Sydney Office was most of the questions tended to be more specific from users.

The next one we will be hosting is on the 10 May 2017 at 10:00 am in our Melbourne Office.

POS Solutions Australia Pty. Ltd.
Fiveways Business Centre
2 Keysborough Close
Keysborough Victoria 3173

Everyone is invited to attend.

The agenda will be.

1) Bpay Payment Learn how to integrate Bpay into cash register and process bill payments for any Bpay bill!
2) Website Integration See our great new integrated Webstore integration with Webtail. Stock control, processing orders, managing customers from your webstore is now all possible through the point of sale software!
3) Stock management Learn how to use our unique dead/slow reconciliation reports to make sure your stock is on track!
4) Layby management Still, by far the most popular form of credit in retail today. Learn some of its finer functions.
5) General questions. Where you can ask anything, you like. We hope to see you there.

Reservations are essential. So please send an email to us if you intend to come.

And after that comes Toowoomba User Meeting.

Last year, the federal government extended its $20,000 instant asset write-off scheme, which was a big jump as prior to this, the instant asset write-off threshold for small businesses was $1000. We are yet to hear anything that the government planned to continue this policy, and I am sure if they intended to do it, we would have heard something by now so the deadline is June 30, 2017, which is two months away.

If you are seriously planning to upgrade your point of sale system soon, it would be a serious loss not to take advantage of the instant asset write-off now. It’s a great opportunity to spend on something that will help you work smarter and more efficiently, improve your shop and allow you to offer better customer service.

I would suggest that you speak to your accountant about it ASAP.