From February 9, 2015, the Herald Sun will go Monday to Friday to $1.40.

A script has been sent out, which will automatically update our client's prices. For those on old DOS systems that require advise sheets to manually do the change one is being written up now.

Update: The SYDNEY TELEGRAPH also will go through a price update on the same day so another patch for that is going out now too.

This is a business tip; invoicing immediately is a good idea what is now acceptable is to email these invoices immediately too. While it is still fresh in everyone mind. Many of our clients have been doing it for years.

You go off say to a client's home, say you wash their dog, when it is finished, you go into our point-of-sale system while you are there, make an invoice and email it to them immediately.

Our software gives you many choices on what sort of pricing you use. One choice you have is whether to make the price a retail price of say $2.80, $2.80, $3, $2.99 or $2.75, etc. Now what should you do?

Today most in retail would say that prices should end in "9." This is because they say the consumers puts most emphasis on the first number, so even though $2.99 is closer to $3, it's the "2" that registers and also that consumers today are programmed to think that prices ending in ".99" are a bargain. And indeed some experiments show consumers like prices that end in "9," increases sales.

There are some that disagree, and I blogged early of these people. In their view prices that take longer to say seems more to consumers, for example, 99 cents takes longer to say then 1. As such 99 cents seems bigger than one. The same effect is $4,999.99 then 5000. The dollar sign, commas and cents all add to the length. This is because as we read the price, we pronounce it in our brain. You can read about it here.

However, there is a new twist with a study that found that like everything the situation is more complex then this. They feel if something costs $3 people tend to rely on their feelings, whereas when something is complicated like $2.87, the shopper has to use reason to determine if it's a good price.

As a rule, they found recreational or luxurious benefit items like champagne did better with rounded prices while utilitarian objects like a calculator did better as a non-rounded price.

I know I think if I see a range of products with prices like $2.79, $6.84, $3.27, etc. that the merchant is being honest with his margins.

Anyway have a read here and then decide what you want to do, after all our software gives you the choice so you can take benefit of it.

If you want to investigate it still further click here.

We have improved in the current version the backup routines which now allow both manual and scheduled backups to any media that windows sees as a drive some example would be the latest USB Flash drives, hard drives, DVD-RW; Iomega Rev drives, etc.

You can also arrange for a cloud based backup to be used. A commonly used by our clients, and ourselves is the free Microsoft onedrive. It gives you 15 GB, which is generally enough for three backup. Doing this means that in the event of the total loss of your computer through theft, fire, flood, computer breakdown or any other unfortunate event, you will not lose your data.

For more details, please click

Download .

One point of much interest we are going through now is our annual survey. I would like to thank everyone who filled it out. Our purpose in 2015 is to continue to provide our clients with the best innovative software which gives them the information and knowledge that will help them to sustain the increasing competition in industry.

Hopefully, the survey can help us to find specific areas and technologies that we need to focus on in 2015, so that we can bring you what you really need.

We are currently looking for a new helpdesk support person. We are for this position, particularly interested in someone who has point of sale experience in pet shops which we are now it appears tha market leader.

Update: Details of the position are available here.

Our software just now had an update to the packing slip so that more information, including the invoice total, freight charged and the employee who did invoice can be included. The last item the employee who did the invoice I think will be extremely useful to many.

Furthermore, invoices are now easier to send to clients in PDF format. This is because many larger clients prefer PDF.

Enjoy....

Hi Guys,

I would just like to share with you some of the exciting promotions Nextra sites are running using the Nextra Rewards cards:

- Buy 6 Cards, get the 7th Free - PosBrowser records each card purchase by a customer using their Rewards Card and automatically gives them their 7th for free! No more punching or marking cardboard cards and tallying up the amounts - PosBrowser gives you a report showing exactly how many free cards you have given away and the amount to be claimed from your supplier!

-Vouchers - When a customer accrues a set $ amount of points by spending in your store, a voucher is automatically printed for that amount. Customers get very excited when they receive that first voucher!

-Lucky Numbers - For each $5 (or any amount you like) spent by a customer, they receive a "lucky number" on the bottom of their receipt. At the end of the month PosBrowser will randomly select up to 3 winners. The prizes can be totally up to you, but many people are using Instant Scratch-it packs or in-store credit.

-Marketing - Find customers who purchased an item previously and send them an e-mail containing a special offer. This works very well for products like Inkjet Cartridges or special occasions like Back to School, Valentines Day, Christmas and more!

-VIP Only Specials - Create specials such as "Buy 2, get one free" or "Buy 3 for $10" that will only activate for Nextra Rewards members. These specials encourage membership and reward those that are already members!

-VIP Only Sales - You can also place items on sale for a date period ONLY for Nextra Rewards members. Again this encourages membership and rewards your loyal members!

-Record "Handy Notes" on customers - You can record a note against a customer, helping the staff at the register. Notes such as "Call him Mr. Jones, not Bill" or "Uses HP #45 Cartridges" can be invaluable to staff!

These are just some of the exciting features Nextra Rewards stores have available to them. All of these features are made to run automatically which makes it easy for you and your staff to use! For more information, read this attached PDF document

Download

If you would like to discuss Nextra Rewards further, please e-mail us.

Thank you again for your time,

Garth Brennan

Senior Sales Consultant - Newsagency Systems

One point that did strike me when I was in Vietnam was if you are not that concerned with looks a highly functional newsstand can be cheaply put together. It reminded me of when I was a kid and we used to put upon the ground in a busy thoroughfare a few newspapers and magazines and sell them to the passing people. It worked well.

I will be back at work on Tuesday, then I will start to work through what I am sure will be a mountain of work waiting for me. Please give me about a week to get through it all.

For those that are interested here are some pictures of my trip. Overall, I think Vietnam and Campodia are exceptionally interesting places to see particularly the tribal areas in North Vietnam, but I am in no rush to go back. One problem I had is that I do like their cooking but only a few dishes so after a while it started to taste too much of the same. Still the foreign resturants there are reasonable and good.
 

I will be having a break for three weeks going off to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. I am spending one week in each of them. Hitting the seaside, leaving my usual daily routine and checking out the sites. It’s gonna be an exciting three weeks of relaxation, everything is hopefully be smooth and perfect

and I will be back at the end of January. Recharged to give you more tips to help you make the most of your system and keep you up to date with what is happening in the industry.

I will be as usual updating you but do not expect daily posting. I will be monitoring my emails but only haphazard. I have been told that Vietnam is Internet friendly but Laos and Cambodia are not. Still I will do my best.

In the meantime, you can browse through older posts by using the ‘search’ button, checking the archives.

If you wish me to discuss some issues, please feel free to send us your ideas for topics you’d like to see as posts for 2015.

POS Solutions will be open as usual. We work 24x7.

I will see you next year!

Today we can measure the number of people who walk past your store and the number that come through the front door. How many are repeat customers, identify potential shoplifters you have target etc. Taking it further you can compare figures with previous periods too? It's a great way of assessing changes in your storefront, your advertising, a road construction blocking your footpath, etc. We can also provide you with a more advanced analytics including gender and specific age range.

Now people have asked me if something like this can be done for advertisements, well the answer is yes with dynamic QR codes, something we supply. The problem is the same here, many of our clients put out advertisements for products. There are two questions.

1) Are they interested in this product?
2) Is the price right?

People may look for an item, look at your price and move on, you do not know then whether it's there not interested in the product or whether the price puts them off. This is of major interest in pharmacies and pet shops although any retailer could use it.

Well, our QR codes can help answer these questions, here is a report of QR code that I put up last week, its page 1 of 3. I do not want to put to much up as people have a way of copying. As you can see it shows five people scanned it, 4 are unique, so one person had two attempts and when and where it was scanned in. Its not clearly a good spot so I think I will move the advertisement.

Normally about now, a slowdown here as people start to prepare for the Christmas break. Some of our clients close down. However, most are busy with the seasonal shoppers. We even send people home as there is not enough work here.

Well not now, support calls are coming in precisely like normal. The administrative staff are working like normal. Maybe everyone knows that unlike other point of sale suppliers, we just work through this period. Nothing closes down.

Anyway, it is not like its Christmas.

People are certainly getting their worth with their support contract they know we are here if they need us.

There is a lot of confusion now so we are getting many support calls at present. Firstly there is NO week 53 for returns this year. We sent a newsletter out months ago about this, but many do not appear to have read it.

Furthermore, many magazines that normally, you would get appear to be taking a seasonal holiday, in fact, it appears that Network if the documents we have are to be believed (and we believe them), then they seem to be going on holiday for almost a month with many of their weeklies, for example, TV Week and Womans Day.

To a lessor extent, it appears that Gordon and Gotch magazines, e.g. WHO, Famous, That's life are also on holidays.

If a magazine does not come that you expect over this holiday period do not be surprised.

This is a thought about the recent decision by the federal court here which ordered Coles to pay $10 million in penalties plus costs for “unconscionable conduct” in what is being called “serious, deliberate and repeated” misconduct.

I wonder whether many of my clients would have a case too, after all as a result of Coles's misuse of its bargaining power, they clearly suffered as well.

For people with DOS systems who need to do it manually, we are preparing information sheets, the window systems the following will be automatically updated by date and version.

Note: If you are still on DOS, please consider upgrading as these changes alone would save you about an hour and be done much more efficiently. In 2014 people should not have to manually do newspapers and magazines adjustments.

1.1.72.K
[2014-12-19]: The Saturday edition of the Financial Review will be on sale from Saturday 20th of December to Friday 26th of December inclusive

1.1.72.L
[2014-12-24]: The Weekday edition of the Age will not be published between Thursday 25th of December and Thursday 25th of December inclusive
[2014-12-24]: The Weekday edition of the AgeSub will not be published between Thursday 25th of December and Thursday 25th of December inclusive
[2014-12-24]: The Weekday edition of the Sydney Morning Herald will not be published between Thursday 25th of December and Thursday 25th of December inclusive
[2014-12-26]: The Saturday edition of the Financial Review will be on sale from Saturday 27th of December to Thursday 1st of January inclusive
[2015-01-01]: The Friday edition of the Financial Review will be on sale from Friday 2nd of January to Sunday 4th of January inclusive

1.1.72.M
[2014-12-24]: The Weekday edition of the Herald-Sun will not be published between Thursday 25th of December and Thursday 25th of December inclusive
[2014-12-24]: The Weekday edition of the Australian will not be published between Thursday 25th of December and Thursday 25th of December inclusive
[2014-12-24]: The Weekday edition of the Geelong Advertiser will not be published between Thursday 25th of December and Thursday 25th of December inclusive
[2014-12-24]: The Weekday edition of the Courier Mail will not be published between Thursday 25th of December and Thursday 25th of December inclusive
[2014-12-24]: The Weekday edition of the Daily Telegraph will not be published between Thursday 25th of December and Thursday 25th of December inclusive
[2014-12-24]: The Weekday edition of the West Australian will not be published between Thursday 25th of December and Thursday 25th of December inclusive
[2014-12-24]: The Weekday edition of the Kalgoorlie Miner will not be published between Thursday 25th of December and Thursday 25th of December inclusive
[2014-12-24]: The Weekday edition of the Illawarra Mercury will not be published between Thursday 25th of December and Thursday 25th of December inclusive

The stock files for the Back to school promotions 2015 are starting to come in, as we test them, they will be released. ANCOL in South Australia as usual is first off the mark.

Our point of sale allows you to use QR codes. Unlike other system we can use dynamic QR codes, which allows the user to get many statistics on usage and also allow them to change information if something changes. For example say you have a poster for a product of $2.95 and this product goes up to $3.95, with a static QR you need to reprint the poster with a dynamic one, often all you do is change the information in your computer to reflect the new price rise.

Both look identically to the eys here is a sample of a dynamic QR code for POS Solutions with our logo is the middle.

The predicament is that QR codes are not being used as frequently as people estimated.

How do I know, simple our QR codes can have tracking!

Many now call it a pointless. The problem is that few people (only about 20%) use them. Those that use them tend to operate them a lot, mainly for specialised functions. When did you use it last? I tried this morning, the first time in months and it failed to take me to the site. This may change as the newest phones now have QR code readers pre-installed but then they also have three new developments NFC (near field communication), image recognition applications and UPC readers there too all of which are competing for QR code's usage.

The low usage now leads many retailers to feel that a large QR code is a waste of space on the label so they do not put it on.

So although QR codes are not dying, they are certainly not thriving.

If you are going to use QR codes, I strongly suggest that you use only dynamic ones and do not worry as our system can handle them.

Some good news to our clients has been the sale of telco products. Many of them depend on telco to bring in customers into the shop. Sales have been good.

So are a reward, Touch Networks gave us a Charles Heidsieck champagne as a thank you. As it’s that time of year, when we get ready to celebrate an end-of-the-year. It will be a nice drop for us to celebrate the end of 2014 and welcome 2015.

Here is a tip what happened today is a client asked me how could he print his poster for the shop. The advertisment he came up he wanted was much bigger then what his printer can print. I think it might be useful for many people.

I suggested you go to {site removed} and put in the details of the picture you want to use either by upload your own image or "cut and Copy" You then select your printer's paper size, and the number of sheets. You can have up to a 1000 pages but that might be pricey on ink and paper. I would suggest that eight is about as big as you want to go. You get quite a lot of options so it would be worth while experimenting first with the preview image before you print something.

They then give you the PDFs to download and print.