You cannot order limitless quantities of stock. Some stock is actually very limited to say the size of your refrigerator.

What is a good option with our users is focus ordering, it is advanced type of "just in time" method of stock control which allows you to plan how much stock you should have now.

What happens is the computer tracks the stock on hand, estimates the stock level required for these goods in the period (focus), if it thinks that the stock on hand is too low it can send an order to a supplier with the speed and accuracy that no-one can match.

It is easy to set up, and use for details click here.

With effective software, you can control your stock with relative ease.

For details on how to do this, please, click here

Despite all our best efforts and although we all try very hard, the reality is for whatever reason mistakes, inflated customer expectations, supplier problems, etc sooner or later we are going to have negative customers.

"Sometimes, when we reach for the stars, we fall short. But we must pick ourselves up again and press on despite the pain".

This movie, I think showed this very well.

It is done in a modern setting which showed how social media can affect a business. Not to give any spoilers what happens is a food critic gives a bad review in twitter, the chef responds at first badly, and eventually he learns about the importance of modern social media today in business.

I think you will find it entertaining and interesting. Certainly gave me food for thought.

We were very pleased that we were invited to the ANF supplier conference. When I heard who came, I was quite surprised at the quality of the delegates every notable supplier to the industry came and from the comments I heard much was accomplished. Here are Garth Brennan's comments who attended.

Hi all,

It was a very productive day today at the workshop hosted by the ANF for Newsagent suppliers and industry partners. It was very encouraging to see a room full of people wanting to not only see the Newsagency channel survive, but thrive. I left the day with a lot more confidence about the future of Newsagents, while also knowing that there is a great deal to be done by all involved.

I am hoping that we will receive a summary of what was spoken about in the next couple of days, and I will make sure everyone gets a copy of that, as it would take me way too long at the moment to go through it all. If you want to know, please give me a call, or as I said, when I get an overview from the ANF, I will send it to everyone with my comments.

It was a very full-on day, but I did manage to take a few photos.

Cheers,

I was doing some research for the ANF conference tomorrow which we together with other industry leaders were invited, and I came up with this fascinating point that I think deserves some thought.
It is from some research done by an American Professor William Poundstone.

Here are some tests on people being offered for sale a range of beers.

Test 1

People were offered a regular option of $1.80 and a premium option of $2.50.

The result was 20% of the time they picked the regular option and 80% of the time they picked the premium so the average sale was $2.36.

Test 2

He offered a cheap option of $1.60 with the same regular option of $1.80 and the premium item of $2.50.

Now this is interesting in his sample no-one brought the cheap option, but 80% of the people brought the regular and only 20% brought the premium. The average sale now was $1.94.

Test 3

So what he did was took out the cheap option and replaced it with an expensive beer. So now people were being offered a regular beer of $1.80, a premium item of $2.50 and an expensive beer of $3.40.

The result was 5% brought the regular beer, 85% the premium and 10% the expensive. The average sale was now $2.55.

If you want to see how this works in practice have a listen to this youtube.

I suggest you use some of our reports to check the products lines and the prices you have on offer.

The latest copy of Artwrap catalogue file, is now available

For this and other supplier files please visit here

Promotion marketing is possibly the most effective and popular form of reward marketing used today.

An example would be a hairdresser who advertising the eighth haircut is free another example might be a pet shop that advertises buy seven bags of dog food, and the eighth bag is free.

Since few of us require eight haircuts or large bags of dog food now, what the proprietor does is note every time you come and if within a certain period, you reach their benchmark, you get on the next visit the free item, this encourages the customer to come back.

Of course, it is not limited to the same item; it can be, for example, buy nine ink jets, and you get a ream of paper free.

Our point-of-sale system does this very well. To set it up follow the red arrows in the image below.

Note you have a wide flexibility dates, amounts, quantities, discount, etc.

The new model IP security surveillance systems are coming out, and so we have for those on a budget a few older systems. You will find these technologies are more advanced with more options then the analog cameras that many of you have. Although I warn you, they cannot do video analytic. With these systems, the camera has high resolution as it not only captures the images and video, but also compresses and converts it to a digital format. This can be streamed over the internet to a computer or smart device.

You can also add to them pan, tilt and zoom cameras, which often can do the job of several fixed-sight cameras. The added benefit of these is that they can be controlled by an operator in a remote location.

Those that do have our point of sale can integrate into it.

A tip with our point-of-sale system is that you, and your staff are not tied to one cash register. You can start the transaction on one computer and then if you need move to another cash register, and the transaction is there waiting for you. You do not need to be in the shop; you can do it on the road though your cloud.

This function is available on both our older DOS and windows systems

A promotional pack might be given say if you sell ink cartridges to the value of $60, then the person is entitled to a free USB key. These packs have proven to being very successful in moving stock.

A new update for the promotional packs reports now you to included those items that have been booked to an account.

Video surveillance is the best security solution available for retail today with our IP camera it is more flexible than any static security cameras at often a cheaper price.

An effective integrated point of sale system with video surveillance using video text overlay technology plus our unique facial recognition system can bring many benefits to your business and help you run your businesses more efficiency.

Here are some advantages.

- Checking refunds of goods
- Reduced cash theft by staff
- Better cash change control.
- It lows stock theft.
- Warning of known trouble makers and shoplifters entering the shop
- Traffic analysis with demographic statistical analysis
- A powerful search and scanning facility for cash handling
- It is about the only evidence that the courts will accept

Give us a call now to findout more.

Here is a person who steps into a room, note the computer identifies them with a code name as a male, who is not smiling. It can of course tell much more information.

Here are a sample of some more details, but there are 100s of pieces of information it can determine about the person.

I was looking through the current ABC circulation report comparing the Oct-Dec 2014 with Oct-Dec 2013 for newspapers and magazines.

Here are a few points I picked up.

On page one, newspapers compared to last year, are about 8% down, NSW was hit slightly harder than everywhere else mainly because of Fairfax.

If you look at the list on page 7, you notice the newspapers are broken down into three groups, print only, digital only and print/digital. I would suggest that few that take print/digital option are doing it for the digital. It's being taken up as a special offer. If you add up the print and print/digital it's clear that most people prefer print, although digital is slowly increasing. Clearly it is not easy for the publishers to get people from print to digital.

In magazines, probably because it is six months figures follow the Jan-Jun 2014 figures then the July-Dec 2013 figures. Pacific is doing better then Bauer. The categories of Mass women’s, Women’s lifestyle & fashion and Health & family are doing better then most.

You can find a good analysis here plus the original ABC report with the figures. Make your own mind up.

The ABC released its latest figure in weekly magazine circulation for the Oct-Dec quarter of 2014. Compared to the Oct-Dec quarter of 2013 weekly magazines some notable entries are:

• Women's day is 5.7% down.
• New Idea is 3.5% down.
• That's life is 6.2% down.

I suppose the only good point as people noted is that the rate of decline is less than it was about a year ago which were then double digits.

More details here

Partnership codes are used to identify suppliers who send invoices electronically. What happened a while ago is one of the largest electronic suppliers XChangeIT. we deal with, without warning anyone changed the partnership codes of one of its supplier's Hallmark cards. As such many people could not import Hallmark invoices electronically. As a result, the new version of our software has improved the handling of partnership codes.

If you find that you suddenly cannot import invoices into our point of sale its likely they have changed the Partner Code and/or account.

This can be done via the Main Menu > Stock Systems > XChangeIT > click onto the Advanced tab > set the Service Provider to be XChangeIT > set the Supplier > click onto the Find button > enter the Partner Code and the Account details of the creditor.

Note as always if you do not know what those details are, you can always email us the invoice, and we can advise

Many readers here may be interested in knowing my article on rewards programs here generated a far amount of discussion, much of it has to do with the basic theory of what is a rewards (loyalty) program?

What happened is that I went to a conference where many major retailers, e.g. 7-11 went were among other things rewards programs was discussed. So I learnt a lot of the theory besides the practical stuff that I already knew plus gained a valuable perspective how the big boys use it.

The first point is what are you trying to do with a rewards program, I would suggest what you are trying to do is to gain a greater share of customer spending by rewarding people for shopping in your particular store.

As a general rule these reward programs offer.

1. A concession on selected products in your shop
2. A point reward system which members can then redeem for goods.
3. Increased service level say silver, gold, platinum, etc.

The members of a rewards program are today usually given a card generally a cheap plastic card with a magnetic strip or barcode signifying a member's identification number. Its sole purpose being to record customer transactions.

Its important to realise that customer loyalty is just one benefit of setting up a rewards program; the fact is that as a member purchases something, the information about the item, its price, place of purchase and date is recorded to the member number. Over time, the information about members becomes substantial and as it bigger this information becomes more commercially valuable.

As the rewards program has received *consent* to send email and marketing materials to its members. Simple promotions like first rights to a special during a certain period can be sent through email. Since it has considerable demographs of the members, it may try something more complex, e.g. targeting women who have brought a product XYZ. .

By using this information, an organisation can more accurately target offers to customers, explore their marketing methods and potentially sell information to their suppliers. That is why size does matter in a rewards program as the bigger they are, the more the information is worth.

For this reason, people say that rewards program should be better described as *rewards and information programs* because that is a more accurate description.

Okay where does this leave the small retailers, well with us fairly good as he can collect and use this information. Given the wealth of information available to retailers rewards program promotions are only limited by the imagination of the marketers.

Where does this leave the discount voucher system, I do not think very well at all? They are paying the price but not getting the information.

If you are not sure if on a day your deliveries were not charged. Well, why not check your Welcome Document through the Notices button, then click Check button. It will then list out the days charged or not charged.

Looking through News Corp quarterly report, it a real pain that they do not show the Australian stuff separately but what I did notice was this comment that

Revenues for the second quarter of fiscal 2015 decreased $89 million, or 6%, compared to the prior year. Australian newspapers revenues declined 8% due to negative foreign currency fluctuations and modest advertising revenue declines.

Since the Australian dollar dropped about 16% relative to the US compared to the prior year, so I am confused what he is saying. In the quarter, the Australian dollar dropped about 4.5%, so maybe that is what he means. In any case, it appears that revenue from circulation in Australian dollars was probably stable.

I was reading of RadioShack (Tandy) going bankrupt It brought back memories of the TRS-80, for those that remember it was the first serious yet affordable computer to the public available. At one stage, it was the most popular computer in Australia.

I learnt to program on one of these, this was my first program.

100 PRINT "I LOVE YOU"
200 GOTO 100
RUN

And it filled the screen with the message "I LOVE YOU"

You could store your program too as it used for storage a cassette recorder which came free with the unit.

It was in retrospect a brilliant computer.

Customer loyalty in retailing is important. One of the main tools today to get it, are loyalty programs.

Over my recent holidays, I thought a lot about loyalty marketing, especially when I saw this advertisement in the January edition of the N-View magazine. Its about a loyalty program we wrote.

What it did not say was that the basket size of an average shopper was $16.60, but a rewards program member basket size was $26.08. I do not know why; I would have talked about a 57% increase still what it does show the importance of measurement. Just think what can happen if you do *NOT* measure! The idea that you should rely on intuition to judge something you have little no experience makes no sense. You are also going to get quite a bit of misleading answers as although all stock and services you offer to receive some marketing materials and advice offered by supplier, it is all based on their needs.

It comes down to this.

*NO* measurement = *NO* control

I would also argue that the results should never be measured in turnover but in profit. Talking in turnover is missing the point that an increase in turnover is expected when price is cannibalised and rewards programs are a cannibalisation of price. Although to be fair to Lucky Charm their rewards program is free to their members so depending on your point of view, the franchise fees are the cannibalisation of price, or it is a free benefit. Still this franchise figure is available for all members, so they can do their figures.

However, without control due to no measurements, loyalty programs will descend into discount programs, which cost the retailer more than what they get, for example, see here my thoughts on discount vouchers a scheme that has no measurements and so no control as a simple yet vital question it cannot answer, how much is existing business loss compared to the new business gained?

Many loyalty schemes are available; all differ in quality and effectiveness from one another. However, whatever you decide you need to have the reporting in your system that can measure results to questions like these:

1) What is the cost? Most loyalty marketing programs work on about a 1% cost on turnover. If you can prove an effect, this may be reduced by suppliers` help, for example, both Lucky Charm and Nextra loyalty programs use suppliers help. Actually, one of the key elements of a retail management company Brendan Geyer and his team is to show how even small rewards programs can get suppliers' help.

2) Next question what is the key driver of the increase in sales? Is your marketing program giving more sales or is it simply giving discounts to people that buy now?

3) What can you do to deliver an improved return on investment? Can you open up new marketing avenues? In my experience, you can always pick up customers by segmenting them into categories and accessing what each segment might be interested in. To do this you require their names. You can also if you have names do before and after analysis. A real benefit will come through measurement and the subsequent control of your loyalty marketing.

Please make sure your system can do this before going into a loyalty marketing program.

Ours can!
 

Although it's not a real issue, if you follow the instructions in the automatic update facility set up in our point-of-sale system you can turn off the automatic update for price rises. Why would anyone want to is something I cannot answer? The mind boggles.

At all stages, a user has full control, unlike other systems where they have to go scurry into
advice and information sheets to hurry to make a deadline before the price rise comes into effect. Of course, the other issue is if they do not make the deadline, it costs them money and many of our clients before the automatic scripting came in lost money because they missed a deadline, and they sold stock at the wrong price.

Less than a week ago, Google Earth Pro was $399. Now Google has announced that is going to be free.

So now people are ringing us up to ask us if our software integration with Google Earth will be affected if the update to Google Earth, so I tested it out and there is no problem in either the windows or DOS version. This is because the integration goes through Google Map.

If you do deliveries, house calls or pick up products, I am sure you will find the latest version of Google Earth Pro is a big improvement and well worth getting. I find it useful before going to an appointment in a new place to look at the address on Google Earth, so I know what the area and place will look like before I get there.
 

If you have not yet got it, Google Earth Pro is available here.