Readers here may be interested in knowing that my article on XP going generated a considerable amount of interest. What I found interesting was that several of our competitors have dropped XP as a supported operating system, we presently intend to support it if our clients want to keep using it.

Putting aside the legal problems that I spoke of here on Friday, that since Microsoft officially stopped supporting XP back in April, 2014 many suppliers see a huge juridical problem in running sensitive information over what is an unprotected operating system.

To see the other problem, please look at this graph.

What it shows is the usage of XP on the net since December 2008 to October 2016. The blue line is more important as almost all point of sale software runs on Windows. This information for this graph came out of the Wikipedia here.

The problem most software developers see like XChangeIT which I spoke today too on behalf of my clients have is that it takes a lot of work to get their software running on XP more than the newer Windows Operating system, and the XP market is just not there to support the costs of development on XP. There's no easy answer here.

At present, we are offering our clients three alternatives.

1) Drop services like XChangeIT. Probably by now if you are running XP, you have had to drop many other services so this one is the next one to fall. If you intend to do this, I strongly suggest that you switch your browser to Firefox and use Avast antivirus because at least these are supported still on XP.

2) On your XP network add another computer running Windows 7,8 or 10. You just run these services like XChangeIT as usual on these upgraded Windows computers. It may be a little more mucking around to work, but most people find this does work well. Surely your kid or grandchildren or friends have a spare computer you could grab for the shop. This by the way is how my Mum who is 92 gets her computers, her kids or her grandchildren upgrade their computers and so a spare one she can use becomes available.

3) Upgrade your system. If you are running a Windows XP computer, the system is certainly due for an upgrade. We do have a special running now for you to upgrade if you are running XP. We call it our Customer Appreciation sale where we thank our loyal customers for their continued business by offering big discounts on upgrades.

This way unlike others we do not leave anyone behind.

Another major computer supplier in our marketspace is dropping XP.

The problem here is clearly the potential legal problems of running unsupported versions of Windows. What they do recommend that if you are running Windows XP that you do switch to a newer version of Windows such as Windows 7 for which security updates are expected to continue till Jan. 14, 2020.

Bill payments bring a lot of customers into a shop. Everyone has bills, eg gas, electricity, phone, council rates, tax, insurance and many more and many still pay in person. Australia Post alone does about 194 million of them a year about 200 a day at each outlet. So it's not surprising that many of our clients ring us up today upset that their Bill Payment facilities suddenly stopped. It is actually something we do recommend that all our clients offer because it is such a good traffic bringer.

Well, the good news is that it's now after a few hours down, it now is up and running. All our clients should have their Bill pay facility up and running. If not let us know.

PS The breakdown today was not our fault.

Today much of the information in your point-of-sale system is imported; much of it is wrong because of supplier's errors. In fact, it is estimated that currently about 13% of all shop theft is caused by suppliers much of it caused by faulty data.

The other issue is that over time, much of the information in the point of sale becomes less relevant or correct as people are always changing so trying to make the shop better. What I will show you here is how to quickly and extremely efficiently modify your existing stock details.

Let say, for example, that you wish to make an electronic gaming section in the gift departments by putting some of your stock items together in a separate group.

I go to stock editing marked with a green arrow.

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Now for this example, I am going to use the stock description marked with a green arrow, but as you can see, I could use dissection, family, active status, barcodes, locations, etc.

Since I am making an electronic gaming section, I put in here xbox and press find.

I then add in another electronic game halo, and press find again.

I keep going until I have all the stock I require.

Now I press Stock Edit, and you can see that the stock titles are listed here, where the green arrow is, well not all of them; I want to move so I simply highlight the ones I require see red arrow and where the blue arrow is put in the dissection I require, here it is GIFTS -GF. Then press to update.

It will then move them into that dissection.

This of course is only the start with the power of this section, which is a terrific time saver. I suggest you have a look at this section as it can save you heaps of time.

The guys on support on Saturday felt really good after a client called up for support and then faxed that our software was excellent how he felt so much in control because of the quality of our training, and the support was marvellous even on the weekends. It always feels great to receive these comments!

If you want to read the full text and more check out our testimonial section above.

Just what are people interested in *NOW*, in retail. Well, this may help you to find out.

What you are looking at is a real-time chart of what is selling in retail in the US now.

I found myself mesmerized and thought it was a unique and original way to see what’s going on. I am sure it will give you some ideas. 

Some point I noticed is that online is much less than in point of sale bricks and motor stores, how big gun sales were in the US which is in the bottom left and how much more is sold in printed books than ebooks, actually printed books sales have increased this year while ebook sales have fallen 20%.

Product Bundle Pricing or Group selling is probably the most successful and common marketing tool in retailing at the point of sale today.

Go into a McDonald shop and you will get a concession if you buy a meal, of a burger, chips and a drink. Add the items up and you will find it cheaper to take the meal. The point is without this offer you probably would not have brought these items. It's an up sell.

In its simplest form, it can be a "Buy one, get one free" known by its acronyms BOGO, BOGOF, or BOGOHO. Of course our clients have something much better, a whole system to generate these group sells. With our software, you can set specials in your shop such as multiples of one item for a discounted price, multiple items combined for an advertised price or buy some and get one free so say you could set up a bakers dozen so when your customers buy 12, they can get one free.

Many of you have heard of the current problem with XchangeIt which we believe is changing its process to suit other software vendors and bow to their limitations of their software. If done it holds back our clients, this is something we find unacceptable so our clients will be advised by us to use their group sell facility.

Actually, I think its worth all our clients to look at the power they have in the group sell facility. One marketing idea that works is to combine several products into one package, this is what we are going to do with XchangeIT so no messy menu keys and better sales history.

This has proven to be an effective method of moving unsellable stock. What you do is add to an attractive item this less interesting item as a bonus at a slightly marked-up price. Alternatively do what McDonald's do and make a kit that people can buy.

You will find it one of the most effective ways to generate traffic in your shop and generate sales. Here is where you do it.

Experiment say with buy 6 of a range of stock and they can get a different product at a discount. Note its extremely flexible.

Another idea is to set up so the customer can buy many separate times and when they reach the desired level, they get the benefit. In a program, particularly effective in coffee shops of ours, people can buy over time 12 coffees, and they will receive the 13th item free. If you want to you can make it more complex still such as “Get 12 coffees and get 20% off 13th coffee between 2pm - 3pm Weekdays and 5% on Weekends between March & June; Valid only if you bring in your physical barcode card”

You will find you are only limited by your imagination.

This quote was put on the wall in our office and for years, I read it every time I went to work. They are good words. In part this getting drummed into us is probably the reason why our support is known for being the best.

We are now currently going to start our annual support survey for this year. We have done it for 33 years, and we are still seeking feedback from you in relation to the services we provide you our community. 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 by your suggestions then, please contribute.

Thanking you in advance

Bernard

PS We are adding a question this year to see what accounting systems you are using as we wish to know some figures and information about this too.

One big problem with tablets in a point-of-sale environment is security and what is happening is too many get stolen.

So I am pleased that we now have these new range of table mounted stands for tablets. What I like about these can swivel, rotate and are flip-able. They come as well with a key to secure your tablet.

Knowing what people are interested and thinking of around you, is a big plus in retail and Google Trends give you a great and extremely accurate tool for doing that free.

Here is an example, this is a chart of people interest in the USA over the last month before the recent election. Donald Trump is in red, as you can see he is getting most of the interest. Maybe I would not have been surprised with the US election if I had looked at it.

Pretty impressive, especially in comparison to all these so-called experts who let us all down and are eating crow now.

I have been using it for years to measure public interest as readers, here will know to measure marketing holidays and products over time. For example, I did not have a clue about how popular Halloween would be this year compared to last year as my daughter's school does not celebrate it and few of my co-workers talk about it, so I used Google Trends, which showed that it would do better this year, then last and overall it was right.

I think if you are offering a product or service to the public, and you want to know whether there is a demand for it, then Google Trends can be priceless for you. It is the best "NOW" analyser tool on offer.

It's easy to use; I will show you a simple example but when you get to know it, it can do much more.

To start all you do is click here.

This gives you what people in Australia are interested in currently. If you read up on that it will tell you what is of interest to your clients now.

Even so, let us say you were interested in seeing how much people have in lottoland. Enter in lottoland in the search line, change the region to Australia, change the dates for the last two years (I always like two years of history so you can see seasonal trends).

Now add say lotto, tatts and tattsloto (note, I am a Victorian here)

You get a chart like this.

As you can see its minor at present, although this can change but at the moment no need to over react. Probably of more concerns now is the very slight trend of all of them down but what is interesting is that when lottoland goes up so does everything else so maybe its not taking any clients away but drumming up interest in lotto in general.

Anyway, you can use this tool to see what people are searching within the Google search engine and so what they are interested in, You can then use it to base you retail strategy on these results. It deserves serious consideration.

For a youtube on how to use it, please click here.

Well, the latest Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) figures on weekly magazines is a shocker. I decided to add a few more years to the report to get a longer perspective. It did not make the picture prettier as it showed not just that its down but that the downward trend is getting bigger. Here it is.

If you look at these figures, you can see several magazines NW, OK! and YOURS which are hovering at dangerous figures. In my experience that figure is about 50,00 copies.

I counted it from 2013 to 2014 in this quarter it dropped -6.8%

From 2014 to 2015, it dropped -11.7%

In 2015 to 2016, it dropped -13.0%

So what is going to happen to them in 2016 to 2017???

These declines must in someway be reflected in my clients figures.

Having said that our point of sale software has stock control as standard unlike others and will handle through focus your stock control even in difficult trading conditions like this. So it will automatically adjust the figures which are going here based on current trends. It will also alert you when your stock is low so allowing you to see about getting new stock so you do not miss a sale all with great simplicity and ease.

If you wish to investigate further here are some links.

ABCs: Woman’s Day circ slips below 250,000 amid more category declines

Weekly Mags Suffer Dip In Sales For Last Quarter, Woman’s Day Still Leads The Pack

It was a great honour to be interviewed on The Asian Entrepreneur, one of Asia’s leading magazine for entrepreneurs and leaders. Read more here.

In my interview, I shared my thoughts, insights and ideas on what it was like to have a startup company and the difficults of making it happen and grow into something good.

My favourite question here that I think is very important for all people attempting to be an entrepreneur and create something from nothing was in the section “Any tips for achieving success?” My answer was

Get used to failure, refusal, negativity and mockery.

I see to many people, that if something goes wrong, they do not even start, or they stop. But something will always go wrong, We all fail sometimes, we all have done stupid things, we all have put our foot into it and we all have listened at some stage to the wrong people. As an American president stated
“Sometimes when we reach for the stars, we fall short, but we must pick ourselves up again and press on despite the pain."

or another American president stated

"whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again because there is not effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deed, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievements and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly."

Business can and is tough, no one said it would be easy. It's not for everyone, but you need to believe in yourself and keep going. It is worth it; you are worth it., now go out and do something amazing.

Marketing point of sale is highly competitive, particularly when you are in the lower price range like us. Unfortunately in markets that are extremely competitive often distortions creep in. One such example occurred recently when users of a competitor's point of sale software were shocked when they discovered that their point of sale software did not include stock control. They discovered it is an optional extra which they need to buy plus they have to pay more for support if they do buy it.

Several where confused as although they were assured that the pricing was open, transparent and public where they could simply look up a price list.

I was stunned to that their point of sale did not automatically include stock control, so when people rang me up upset, I decided to investigate.

I looked up online some dictionaries. I could not see anything in the Macquarie or Oxford but the Cambridge dictionary here states
"a computer system that records a store's sales and which products it has in stock,"

Which states what I though was true that a point-of-sale system has stock control.

I then looked up the Britannica, which did not state anything the Wikipedia encyclopedia here states
"Businesses are increasingly adopting POS systems, and one of the most obvious and compelling reasons is that a POS system...and more efficient stock control."

Which makes it a bit unclear whether POS Software does or does not require stock control to be point of sale only that it needs to make stock control more efficient.

I looked up our website and its quite clear that we consider a point of sale includes stock control. We actually call a system that does not have stock control to being a scanning system. The last scanning systems we sold was in DOS. So a lot of people out there have systems roughly equivalent to these older DOS systems as the more modern DOS systems have stock control.

Which makes me think that this open price listing practice is like the official photo of actors, models, Presidents, Prime ministers, etc. yes its the photo of them but its hides much as its done by a master photographer who knows how to use items like exposure, angles, positioning and poses.

Anyway its clear that these people should have been much more cautious of the salesman who touted this transparent pricing. It did not include the basic features that I think are in point pf sale. Talking to some of them, it appears much is else is missing too.

POS Solutions recognizes that you aren’t just another faceless retailer. With us, you are not getting charged extra for features; you get the lot.

Update: This post generated a lot of discussions which is good as I think it is important that this immoral practice is stopped of selling half systems as whole systems.

What can I say other then Caveat Emptor "Let the buyer beware." All POS systems are not the same, do your homework before you make a selection!

Today someone was caught in a shop, ringing up valid sales in the training mode at the point of sale. It's believed that they were doing this for a while and just keeping the funds so pocketing these undocumented transactions. He is not going to get away with it as sales are logged in the training system too.

However, as it is a good idea to have a training system available for both in house testing and training purposes, so we recommend that the training system should have its own password that way only people under supervision can use it.

Also what I recommend is removing the training mode icon off unsecured computers at the tills.

The latest copy of Artwrap catalogue file, is now available for importing into your POS software.

For this and other supplier files please visit here

Amazon has announced that they are coming to Australia with physical shop and distribution centres in 2017 in every state. I am sure they are going to be strong competition. They already have an established retail base in Australia, which reading the comments at the moment on twitter are looking forward to Amazon coming. They expect soon to have access to more products that Amazon do not ship to Australia.

Once here Amazon intends like in England to expand into a whole range of products, including groceries. The farmers now are complaining about many of the margins Coles and Woolworth offer; I wonder what they are going to say when they see Amazon's margins? A friend who wrote a book, told me that they sell a lot, but they really cut her royalty payments down.

The fact is that Amazon with its huge buying power; its stress on on-line and first-rate delivery services will pose a unique challenge to the Australian retail business model. Will an Australian shop without an online POS Software presence be viable soon?

Here are some links, to read more.

Aldi and Woolworths to Amazon: BRING IT ON
Amazon is about to 'destroy the retail environment' in Australia, report says

The fact is give people more information and they are often able to increase the efficiency of their business.

What big data is, is the use of information from inside and outside an organisation that is analysed. This can include everything, including information dragged from the net like weather reports, google searches and then putting it together with your stock sales to discover sales patterns and customer relationships. It has proven useful to retailers looking forward to improving business efficiency and performance. As our software is becoming here larger and more diverse, the analysis of this information is leading to better understanding of what is happening in the shop. This type of information is changing the world.

If you want to see what big data has to say about your shop, we are accepting more applications now so if you want to join in the trials let me know. Its experimental and it's something that no-one else in our marketplace is offering.

We think Big Data is a game changer because it is cultural shift, computers do not think like people. They connect information in a different way and as a result come up with unusual answers to what people do.

Currently we use it inhouse for budgeting, rostering, monitoring support, doing long term planning and checking our KPIs and it has transformed our business. What I have noticed is that computers are quite blunt. If something is not working, well it tells you clearly. What is refreshing is it has no sentiment or no hidden agenda?

It you want to give it a try; you need at least five (5) years of history with our POS software, and you will need to let me know. Once you are hooked on Big Data, you do not want to stop.

Note it takes about a few weeks for me to do each of these analysis as we need to run the information though our preprocessor, run it many times with a data mining software on a very powerful computer.

We truly believe that today suppliers need to be able to supply electronically invoices and catalogue files to their clients so saving their clients a considerable amount of time. That is why one of our points of difference in our retail software is just how good our importing supplier data is and it is so as we put that much effort into it.

However, as its electronic, it needs to be accurate as there is little if any manual checking as it is automatic. Today 10,000 plus items can go into a retail system, in seconds and there is little a retailer can do to check all the information. They can at best do spot checks. Yet they need to do these spot checks, which does waste time as some suppliers are not as accurate as many suppliers claim.

In an attempt to keep the files accurate, I often call the suppliers and complain on behalf of my clients and sometimes blast them on this blog. Yesterday a supplier who produces such imports put into an invoice two magazines Picture and People with same barcode. This was not the first time they have done this. As such if a person importing them was not careful; the computer could think that they were the same product and put one of the incoming magazines as the other product. So if, for example, 10 Picture and 10 People came in, the point of sale software could say that 20 Picture and zero People magazines came in or zero Picture and 20 People magazines came in. If the retailer, then sold it, the barcode could give with the wrong magazine at the point of sale, since the customer will almost always point out the lower price, it's the retailer who will lose. After that, their sales history would be wrong and their stock holding figures plus their invoices would not match the suppliers invoices make reconciliation difficult.

So I notified the supplier and was not happy with their response. Perhaps they are pretending not to know the problem which is quite possible as they asked basic questions but the information requested is readily available to anyone in the industry (in this case title tracker) or maybe they really do not know even elementary information about their products. In any case, I was disgusted with their handling of the issue and told them that.

What should be considered is, if suppliers can be penalising people for sending faulty sales history data, why should my clients not be able to charge suppliers for defective invoices being sent? This could easily cost them as there is a big difference in price between these magazines, and a few sales and returns could be $30 dollars lost on just one magazine.