Try using your End of Day Options and experiment.

Yes, your POS System is a Cash Register that can do X-Offs, Y-Offs and your Z-Offs at the end of the day, but it can do much more. Why not use it as well as a computer, not a Cash Register?

These are what we call a freebie. It takes no time and effort and gives you a pile of information.

Now when you go into your End of Day, stop and look at the other options, I have highlighted in Green below.

Study them all. In particular, look at the ones I ticked as I think you will find these most useful. 

Another helpful function is to set your POS System to automatically email or SMS your shop's End of Day details to many different email addresses and mobile numbers. This is an excellent feature if you are away from the shop and a convenient paperless way to archive your end-of-day reports!

Your POS Software is not just a simple Cash Register.

Readers here will know I support using events to connect with their customers. It is tricky, but it works, and it is cheap. Find some event, and link your stock to it to sell your products. This piggyback works as you connect to the major's extensive advertising program to get a slice. Often for free.

One such event I did like was Afterpay Day. Critics said that would not be much as Afterpay was on a decline and BNPL is down. Well neither I think is true. Yes its share price dropped, but its business is doing fine. The public overall does not care about the share price. What they care about are the business offers. Millions of them would have gotten emails pushing them to buy.

Well, here is the interest in Afterpay Day this August 2022.

In red, you will see the interest in 2021 and in blue, the interest in 2022. It started earlier and finished later than last year, but if you look at the bar on the left, you can see it is identical to last year. Majors must have been happy with it, as they extended the sale dates. It is a standard pattern today that the retailers will extend the holiday to get more sales if it works.

If you want more info, Australia Post puts it on the same level as Father's Day. Click here.

I am sure those retailers who listened to us made a few sales. I hope you did.

There is a new ePay version that we are releasing now in testing. It is in beta now, with mass deployment scheduled this month. The latest version will give you access to more virtual products; click here for a list. Overall I would say with ePay that these products are popular, bring people into a shop, and pay their way.

To get involved with ePay, you must first set up an account. To do that, please click here. Now you need to tick the boxes in the following order, which I have numbered 1 to 5 in green.

Then click next and Enjoy!!!

In retail, the traffic and Customer conversion rates are what professional marketers check religiously. They are easy to set up using our software.

What I will discuss is the manual process. If it's automatic in our software, it's going to be all different as it's automatic.

Now, you need to set up a spreadsheet which will be a record book. Here are the following columns

1) Date

You can do hourly with some counters, but we will leave that to another post.

2) Summary of the highlights of the day

Examples might be raining, EOFY sale, Easter, road works mucking you up, etc.

3) The traffic

Traffic is generally considered the number of marketing groups that come into the shop. For example, a husband, wife and three kids are one buying group. If he went by himself, the husband then came into your shop. He would be a buying group. It is best described as the number of decision-makers.

The best way to get this figure is to put a people's counter at the shop's entrance. These counters are not particularly expensive; a few hundred dollars should be enough for a good one. Some cheap people count the number of people that come into the shop. This can be deceptive. In the above example, five (5) people ( a husband, wife and three kids) came into the shop, yet there was only one buying group. Some of the better people counters have options that can overcome some of this  problem. They count one person, switch off for a few seconds, and then start counting again. The idea is that the above family will all come together. It works better, but it does not solve the problem totally. Some can do both, which is better still. We use what we have.

Some cheap systems only hold one day, and some better systems have many days of counting. Depending on its cycle, e.g. if it's daily, then every day, generally first thing in the morning, a person records the number and resets the counter to zero. If it can be done monthly, even better, as this process can be monthly.

This you put in this column.

4) The number of sales for the day you get from our POS Software.

5) Now, you calculate the conversion rate as a percentage

So the conversion rate per day = (Number of sales) / (Number of people)

Most of our clients are looking here at about 30%.

Analysis

You could write a book on what you can determine with this.

It does help with rostering as it does tell you when people are coming into the shop, but its primary use is to assess marketing campaigns and shop fits.

Professional marketers determine a low and high point for traffic and conversion rates. Once you have a month of history, this is pretty easy to do. Sometimes Saturdays and Sundays need adjustments.

For example, a shop I talked about a few days ago might consider 100 low traffic and 200 high traffic.

Now they want to know what days had low or high and why. Is it something the shop did? If so, maybe they can repeat it? 

Similarly, it might determine that conversion rates of 20% are low and 40% as high.

The same point here. Why are the conversions high or low?

The most intriguing days have high traffic and low conversion rates. ; why? Plenty came, but little was brought. What did we do wrong that day? Say we had an EOFY sale, well the people came, but what we had was not what they were interested in.

Another interesting one has low traffic and high conversion rates, but in my experience, 90% this is often the weather, as rain often does discourage window shoppers.

People that do such analysis religiously claim a 1% improvement in the shop. So if your shop does a million dollars of sales, it is worth an extra $10,000 of sales to the shop. For most, this can justify a few hundred for a people counter.

Try it out. If you want an automatic system, let me know.

Soon EFTPOS/credit rates will increase. These actual amounts are less than expected. This appears to be true of all banks. This affects new contracts made in this financial year.

Those who took our advice of locking in the rates last year are not affected.

I would suggest that if you charge a surcharge, you need to review this charge. Most EFTPOS have a portal you can check out. If not, call the customer service team at your EFTPOS bank. One problem here is although the banks are quoting a rate, these are subject to change as the banks are unsure of some of the charges. This means your actual new rate is yet to be determined. This will make it challenging for you to budget and notify your customers of your new EFTPOS charges.

How to Increase Net Profit dramatically! 

A tall order, let us look at the basic retail formula to calculate the Net profit of your shop. It will look like the one below.

Now, if you look at this formula, let us discuss what you can concentrate on to improve your shop's net profit dramatically. 

I decided to take a typical shop everyone can relate to, so I selected a gift shop and took the ATO benchmark figures here. So my shop has

​Our mission is to increase the profit dramatically, so let us take each variable in the retail net profit figure. Yet as many variables are not mentioned here, I decided to fill the equation with some typical examples.

​Traffic size: Making a significant increase in your traffic figure is tricky. You could try moving the shop's location to a better position, which may work. Better window displays, advertising, and different goods and services might help if you are a destination shop. All these items are long-term to medium-term projects. It would be hard to increase traffic dramatically.

Conversion rate: This is something that can be worked on now. Are you stocked correctly? Can customers see your products?

"It's much easier to double your business by doubling your conversion rate than doubling your traffic." – Bryan Eisenberg, Co-founder of Buyer Legends and NY Times bestselling author.

A 1% increase in this example of the conversion rate gives this shop an $8,000 profit.

Let us put a star on this one as it's actionable now.

Basket size: The shop layout can help; using your companion reports. It is much easier to sell something to someone already buying something in the shop. A standard method of doing this is to mix stock with frequently-bought-together items that can increase the basket size. See your reports on what sells with what.

This one is also actionable now so we will star this too.

Average price: This is a medium-term item. The most common method of doing this is to upgrade your products. Sell premium products in your shop. I have seen it work. I had one client that marketed $300 plus pens. You do not have to go this far, but most products have a range of premium products you can investigate. What you are looking for here is to pull some of your low-cost sales into high-cost sales.

For every 1% of your customers that buy a 30% more expensive item here, you make $1,600. It is a medium-term project. For many businesses, this is a difficult one to do. Your market sets prices. Consider re-inventing yourself here as a premium retailer.

Margin %: Few suppliers today have or are willing to give more. You may get something. In my experience, they are often ready to help sell more products, say with a stand, than reduce their price.

This is why it helps if you have something unique and can set your price.

The other problem is that few suppliers do have a dramatic percentage of your turnover. This produces many accounts that add up together. This makes it challenging to increase your margins as even a dramatic drop with one supplier will have little effect.

In this example, a 1% reduced cost gives this business $4,160 extra.

Shop costs: The big problem with reducing costs here is that the big ones are almost fixed and impossible to move. Labour is the big one, and how well do you think you will go asking your staff to take a pay cut? For your efforts, you may even end out in trouble. Checking your roster in your software can help here. Looking at your traffic reports would help too.

Rent is another one that is hard to move. Again it is a long-term proposition. Depending on your circumstances, you may be able to do something.

The other costs, the problem here is that nothing is costly, like the suppliers above. It is not one whole but a lot of odds and ends that add together. This makes it very hard to reduce them, and as they make up about 10% of this business, even a dramatic drop in one will have little effect.

Most businesses find selling more with the existing costs easier than reducing costs.

Overall, this means there are two actionable ways of immediately increasing your business.

1) Conversion rate
2) Basket size

Please have a chew; we will discuss these two items in detail soon.

Using Marketing Lifestyle.

A lifestyle in this context means a segment of the population, for example, a particular profession, interest or age group. Common examples used are:
Seniors
Teachers

but it can also deal with almost anything

Bike riders
Gardening enthusiasts
Golfers

On its most superficial level, you offer a special discount in some departments to people in this group on a particular day. 

You put a sign on the window as" As a thank you to - ....." on date __/__/__ we are offering ................

Now try to pick a large group and, if possible, one that you only do minimum business. You do not want to give up too much discount. Try and pick an affluent segment. What is the point of marketing to people without money? You are trying to make your business known to a segment that you want to reach, creating an opportunity for them to become new customers. 

It is easy to pick an appropriate date as most of these segments have a particular date in the year for them.

Golfer's day 10th April 
Teacher's day 28th October

They work as 

1) Everyone wants a good deal.
2) Everyone wants to feel special.

Keep an eye on your calendar for these marketing dates so that you can plan your promotions well in advance and maximize their results!
If you need some ideas, use these sites; click here. Be careful as sometimes Australian dates can vary from overseas ones. 

All it costs is a sign on the window.

Make sure you use your POS System to record the sales due to this promotion to assess how well it worked.

Any printer needs cleaning; over time, everything gets dirty. You will see what is necessary as you will see signs of blurring and skipped lines on the printout. What is happening is the printer is getting a layer of toner and dirt. If you are using a laser, this reduces the beam reaching the drum, making it weaker and diffused. Also what you will see is the number of paper jams increase. This can cause printhead damage and replacement.

Soon the printer will be unusable.

So cleaning your printer is required.

Note:
- If it works well now, do not touch it.
- If it ain't broken, do not fix it.
- Remember, what you are about to do can break your warranty.

What you will need

- I recommend you make a solution of white vinegar and water. I have not found the prepared cleaning solutions any better.
- Microfibers clothes work well.
- A small vacuum cleaner you can get in most electrical shops helps.
- Some small brushes help.
- Some mechanical attribute

Steps to do:-

- Turn off the printer, and take all wires off it before attempting to clean. Wait a while; some printers store electricity, which can spark.

- Now open the printer up.

- Now, with a dry cloth, clean as usual. Avoid any electrical items and all electronics. Do not touch anything electrical. You can damage it.

Don't wipe back and forth because it will be wiped on the cloth and smeared when you go the other way. Get out of that habit.

- Look for dirt and gently lift it. The brushes and vacuum cleaners can help here. The spilled toner, dust, hair, and built-up old paper fragments can gum up your printer and sometimes need some elbow grease to remove.

- Only open what you can. If you take something out, take note of how it is designed and where everything goes while you pull things apart. You are going to have to put it together soon. Clean those items with a dry cloth. Gently wipe. If you need a moist cloth, be careful if it is electrical. This damp cloth must not be wet. Take care to prevent moisture from entering inside the printer.

If toner scatters on you, immediately wash it with cold water and dry yourself.

- Do not worry if you have only done, say, 70%. It should be enough. Better too little than too much.

- Above all, dry everything.

- Now, put it back together again.

- Now clean with a dry cloth outside. In some places, you will need a moist cloth. Careful you do not get any moisture in the gaps around the control panel or panels. For hard-to-remove stains, AJAX is good.

- Now dry the outside.

- Wait a few minutes to let any residual water dry off, and only then turn on the printer.

Besides being less of an eyesore in the shop, a clean printer will print better and last longer.

I hope this helps.

As in most of the world, Australia is switching over to allow people to register the shorter .au domain for their website. This will replace the existing websites from .com.au or .net.au to .au.

In most people's view, people are looking for speed of use, so the AU will become the dominant domain as it has overseas. If you have an Australian website for your business, you must reserve your website with the shorter domain AU. If not, it soon becomes available to the general public. The consequences of not registering your existing business name by the deadline could be catastrophic for your online business. A rival could take your online site name. From personal experience, I can tell you that unscrupulous people with little morals will steal your business name if they can. What we are doing for our clients is telling them to register the shortened AU name. Then set up an automatic redirect so people going to the short website .au will direct to the current longer one. This is no long-term solution. It will hurt your SEO doing this. Your site needs to be converted to AU.

I know it's a short deadline, but what can we do? I have asked, and NO extension would be available to give us time.

Act now. It is happening in September.

I remember the first mobiles; they had a battery in a suitcase and a phone in another small suitcase. 

One of these sizes took years to appear. A British Prime minister Tony Blair remarked then that it was the first time he heard guys showing off how small it was.

Tip on how to use your POS System to get better inventory control.

I will use greeting cards for this example, but it will work for anything. Using this, one of our clients improved their greeting cards sale by almost 25%, so it works and is quick. What can happen if you have a supplier that supplies you with many lines of stock, it can be hard to know what lines are working for you. If there are a lot, some I can guarantee you are bombs.

So go to Cash register reports> Suppliers> Supplier Sales Trend for 12-Month Period.

Let's keep it simple, so select a date, say last financial year and a supplier.

Now up pops a report that looks like this.

Now on the report, look at the right column, and you will see I highlighted in green stock lines that have sold nothing for 12 months. In blue, you can see that you have stock. What do you have stock of them for if they are not selling?

Investigate!

Consider being aggressive. Set a minimum sale budget, say 1 or 2. Now, if you look at the list, you will find more stock lines to look at too.

It will take a minute to check them out, so start now!

Surveys have shown small businesses believe that poor internet impedes efficiency and productivity. Almost all in Australia today feel the same. Now, how far you want to go on your internet is something for you to determine. I want to discuss the minimum internet your business should accept in our market space. 

This post will not apply if you use our cloud-based POS system. Nor will it apply if you do more than our POS Software. 

Situation

Now many internet providers offer internet plans designed for businesses. Few are that relevant in our market space; however, they often have an option of linking the phone to the internet plan. Having all your voice and internet services from one point of contact is nice. 

For our clients, they need to run
1) Updates of products and invoices from suppliers 
2) Email 
3) Updates of their software

Now, after that, you should add your requirements. I would include 
4) Zoom

Speed:
Be warned many of the advertised speeds are dubious. Use it as a guide only.

So I recommend an internet plan with at least 25 Mbps to do this. 50 MBps is better, and the cost is not much more. 

Data:
10 Gig/month would be the smallest, but this depends on what you do with your internet. For example, if you do a lot of Facebook, it does not take much to burn up a lot of data. 

One trap here is that if you use only a little data with a small plan and someone uses heaps for some reason, then some internet providers charge. I had a client babysit their eight-year-old daughter in the shop during COVID lockdown. When the bill came in for youtube, they freaked out. A $1,000+ bill.

Support: 
You need to check this. Some internet providers provide 24-hour-a-day support and most much less. Do not assume that you will give 24-hour-a-day support because they are big. 

Some do not offer telephone support at all. 

On-site, this is something you need to check; there are often big advantages to getting someone to come to you. 

I had a client whose internet broke. It was a 4G system. The internet got them to check the modem and its settings. Then a reactivation was done. It still did not work. When they rang back, they rechecked the same stuff. After a few times of this, they decided it was either the SIM or the modem. The SIM was $20, and the mobile was a few hundred. So they asked for SIM, three days later with no internet the SIM came. The new SIM did not help. Then the internet provider rechecked the same stuff, then another reactivation. It did not help. So they asked about a new modem and were told it would take a few days and a few hundred dollars. The problem was that they did not know whether it was the modem. So they asked if they could buy a modem nearby. No, they were told as the modem had to take their internet provider's SIM to work. Then they contact us. We told them their internet provider was an Optus reseller, so go to Optus. So they went to a nearby Optus shop. The Optus guy checked the SIM it was fine. Put the SIM into one of their modems, and it worked, so they brought it on the spot. It was also a bit cheaper from Optus as there was no delivery fee. In one hour, the problem was solved. Sometimes you need a person on site. Score: Five days no internet. 

Security:
Years ago, I had a client in Cairns whose internet provider did the dirty on him and many other clients. Only knew about it when the police came about it. I do not see what you can do about it. If you are worried about it, look at a VPN, which will not solve the problem as it moves the problem from the internet provider to the VPN provider. Really who can we trust here? An employee in Twitter was recently convicted of selling the personal user information of dissidents to the Saudis. In Australia this is serious but to a Saudi this is dangerous. I have a client who tells me they never discuss anything political on the net or phone with their relatives in Iran.

Growth:
Do not worry about it. You can always upgrade your internet, although this might be a problem if you have selected a two-year plan.

NBN or 4G:
I have seen problems with both, in fact, any such system. Over the years, I have come to hate the NBN. Speeds are comparable, although often 4G is faster. 

I will say this a 4G system is less reliable, but if something goes wrong, 4G is fixed, something I cannot say about the NBN. 

I am also sceptical of NBN with a 4G backup. When the NBN goes down, often, they do not switch to the 4G backup. 

Reliability: 

The best question is, I left to last, how much will it cost you if the internet goes down? 

Almost every business will experience several outages yearly, e.g. power outages, server issues and software. I have had clients that have gone down for a few minutes, hours, days and weeks. One last week was down for five days, and I will talk about their experience soon.

Now, what will it mean to you if your internet is down? To some people, it's an inconvenience; to others, it is a significant revenue loss. One shop had a string of deliveries to do in the morning. The owner told me of his frustration when he lost hours when his guys were sitting around doing nothing. Downtime can cost a business. 

I hope this is of use.

Here is a marketing idea that you may want to consider.

Afterpay day is twice a year, and interest in it has rapidly grown, as you can see below.

Today it is a massive shopping event. The last one was in March; it went well. On indications, the next one will be bigger.  After all, Afterpay has a rapidly growing user base. Currently, they have over 3 million Australians in their system who are considered good customers. So Afterpay will be actively promoting to a lot of potentially good customers. There are also 63,000 shops in the Afterpay system, including most majors, e.g. David Jones, the good guys, Kmart, etc., and most will be pushing it too.

There is no reason why you cannot join in. The next Afterpay Day sale will occur between Thursday, 18 August and Sunday, 21 August, as long as you have Afterpay, which is easy to do in our POS system and does not take long to set up. If you have not got Afterpay yet, I recommend getting it. Consider it a virtual lay-by where you don't have to wait until the customer pays in full, with fewer hassles. 

Now all you need to do to take part is make a stand of specials and stick an Afterpay day sign on top. Before you ask, no, you are not obligated to ensure they use Afterpay to buy this stock.

Want some ideas on what to put on the stand?

As a minimum, you can do this, go to the register reports > stock titled "Old Stock on hand by Date last received"

Put in a date of a year ago; now, this will give you a listing of your old stock. 

Why not use Afterpay Day to get rid of this stock now?

Start your search here if you want to make it official and do much more.

A while ago, here I showed people how to get their credit scores free. When we discussed this, a couple of people told me that checking their credit score frequently can reduce it. I checked, and it does not. This is the advantage of doing it yourself; if the bank does it, it can reduce your score. This is because bank enquiries they record. Now suppose you speak to a mortgage broker. The broker does a credit check; there is no problem. If that broker goes to ten banks on your behalf, the ten banks' enquiries will be significant. These enquiries, as they are frequent, give the impression that you are short on cash and/or are a person that keeps looking, which banks do not like. Platforms like Koalify.com.au make a real difference by connecting you with over 30 lenders and 2,000+ loan products in one place—saving you from multiple credit enquiries and helping you shop smarter for a mortgage without affecting your score.

Many consistently track their credit score, especially if they have poor credit risks.

How important are these credit scores?

In my experience, not so much if your score is over 600. I have seen people with bad scores having to go to many banks and credit providers. We had one broker we used a lot because it did not matter what the person's financial state was; that guy seemed to be able to get the money. Still, as long as you are willing to hunt around, in my experience, a bad credit score does not seem to be a significant factor to credit providers. They look mainly at your serviceability, the security and then you. You are not being silly if you go to the loan officer in the bank smartly dressed and acting confident. Still, I would prefer to go to a bank with a good credit score than with a bad one.

If you want to look at your score, the one that seems the most popular is Experian, and you can get your score here.

Note: I am not a financial expert, and this is not financial advice.

This came up with one of my clients recently when we discussed the recent class action, but it's a problem many of us have faced.

In Australia, by world standards, we have many legal cases. I read that the state in the world with the highest number of court cases per person is California, USA; the next highest is NSW, Australia. Plus, Australian Legal fees are high by world standards. One incredible screen in the SCI-FI show, Star Trek, was where they had a lawyer who did not care about money. Lawyers care about money.

Okay, so can we claim their costs?

The answer is that it depends on what they are. My client has discovered that his fees are not claimable even though they were for his business. Claimable expenses are those required to produce income and carry on a business.

The ATO guidelines are here.

Note: As a guy who got dragged into court, I can tell you it's rarely worth it. Despite what people tell you, rarely does anyone care.  Also, courts are like hospitals; once you are in, it is tough to get out. My case took about ten years before we settled. Even if you win as I consider I did, it was a waste of a lot of money. Wonder how they felt. They lost and had to pay their legal fees and a settlement to me too.

Anyone who wants to tell me their experience?

If you were affected by the Tyro outage last year in January 2021, you should by now have received an invite to join a class action. If you have not got it and think you should have it, please get in touch with me, and I will send you the details and information in the *welcome pack*.

If you have accepted the Tyro compensation offer, it does not mean that you cannot join this action. Yet, your odds of getting something are less.

You will almost certainly need to prove a legal loss to get something. That loss should be bigger than the Tyro offer of compensation to justify your entering this action. A legal loss is not the same as a business loss. I had a client whose three days of work were not considered a legal cost as he did not have to pay anything. He got transportation costs for petrol, so he got mileage and legal fees, which did cover most of his legal fees.

If you are interested in joining, you should contact the lawyers organising this case here and, if possible, your own lawyer. Also, you may want to contact Tyro directly to discuss before joining, as I am sure they are willing to discuss your specific case.

For the record, we accepted the Tyro offer, as did 90% of the people affected; we think they did their best, So we have no intention of joining this action.

PS I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. I have been with them for years. We were Tyro's very first customer. 

This is what our POS System uses, and I strongly suggest that even if you use other POS Software (some that are wrong here), use these terms instead.

The problem is that there is no standard in retail accounting. Many suppliers take advantage of this and attempt to confuse people to better present their products; 100% markup sounds better than a 50% margin. This has created significant confusion. Even experienced retailers with years of experience muck them up. So please pay attention, even if it feels like I am telling you how to suck eggs.

Retail Price (RP)

Retail Price is the price you offer to sell an item.

Recommended Retail Price (RRP)

This is the Retail price that a supplier suggests you sell their items.

In some states in Australia, in some cases, you cannot sell the item for more than this Recommended Retail Price. If the Recommended Retail Price is too low, this will present a problem.

Cost price

Cost price is the amount of money a business spends to buy an item, including all costs, such as transport. This varies. It depends on factors such as buy rates, delivery costs etc. This is why a supplier's cost price to you can be very different to your calculated cost price.

You must fully calculate the cost price to price your goods correctly. 

Margin vs Mark-Up

I will use this example, as both are generally calculated as a percentage to explain this

You sell an item for its Retail Price of $40. 
This item's Cost Price is $30. 

Markup

It is calculated from the Cost Price and is how much more the Retail Price
[ (Retail Price)/(Cost Price)-1] x 100% 
=[ $40/$30 -1 ] x 100%
=33%

Margin

The reverse 

It is calculated from the Retail Price and is how much more the Cost Price

[1-(Cost Price)/(Retail price)]x100% 
=[ $30/$40 -1 ] x 100%
=25%

I recommend that you only use margin to be consistent throughout the shop.

Here is a table for you to get the margin from a quoted markup quickly.

A modern business needs an online presence. The best and fastest way to make such a presence is a Facebook Business Page, and it is free.

Despite what many of you hear from news outlets using overseas information, Facebook in Australia figures are slightly up.

- 6 in 10 Australians use Facebook

-1 in 2 Australians uses Facebook daily

It makes sense for businesses to establish a presence on Facebook to get more customers.

On Facebook, David can compete with Goliath as the page is the same no matter what size you are.

Need help in setting up a Facebook Business Page? It is easy. To start, all you need is a few photos and supply them with a few details. If you are still unsure well for our customers, we provide such a service for free.

In all your communication, e.g. email, you should include your Facebook page address. Every one of your customers should know of it. Push it. As you name spread Facebook will push the word out to relevant people, that is how their systems are designed.

Here are some ideas on what to write about

1) Most industries have a trade cycle, a trade show for the public, etc.

2) Look on Facebook at what other retail stores like you do, take notes of what they do and change it to your needs.

3) Google can be used to generate ideas. Put in a few words applicable to your business and see what comes up. What comes up is what people are looking for now.

4) Almost all businesses have stocktaking sales, Mothers Day, Fathers Day, Xmas, etc.

5) Suppliers often notify you of their seasons and promotions. Often they provide free marketing aids, too, like photos and information.

6) If one of your suppliers suddenly grows in the market, write about how good it is and that you have these products.

7) Suppliers often have new products. Write about them. Tell them how it can help bring value to their lives.

8) School holidays often supply marketing opportunities.

9) You can check your sales reports to see when your business is busiest. Try and find out why and let people know what you have at that time.

10) New products in the shop work well too. Take a photo. Most of us have a smartphone that takes excellent photos. Please take a quick snap, add a few words, and you have done it.

11) Best sellers are also good. Go to your top-selling report, check out what is selling now well and let your customers know that you have it.

12) Your community and local area can generate ideas too. This makes you relevant to the local people.

13) Temporary Service Changes, for example, if your business is temporarily closed or you are now offering new or changing services.

14) Testimonials from happy customers are a proven way to grow revenue. Today something like 92% of people checks testimonials before buying something. I look at reviews before often buying nowadays.

15) A customer tells you are interesting story to do with your shop or products, if it is interesting to you, it probably would also be to your customers too.

16) A simple SWOT analysis can generate many ideas.

17) Tips and extra uses for using the products you market can be used.

Nothing here costs you anything.

Final notes:

a) Try to engage your audience.

b) Avoid the knockers. You will make mistakes; we all do. There is always some knocker who thinks they know it all. This is life. You are in business; you need a hard head to pick yourself up and improve.

c) The important aspect is keeping the content fresh.

d) Use Facebook's statistics to see how you are going. If something does not work, try something else.

e) Avoid politics; 50% of people will not like whatever you say.

f) Put someone in charge that likes Facebook. It will not be a job for them but a pleasure.

Try it and grow your revenue and meet customers in a new way.

We had a client last week where we got to see first-hand the mess of years of neglect with the computer system. Hidden under the counter, we found many power cords not connected. Around the computers was a dust mountain, in which we found a half-eaten doughnut. This impacts the airflow around the computers. It is a health hazard as dust is not hygienic and is highly flammable. A spark from a computer can set it off. Besides that, a fire near a computer can be costly.

The battery backup unit was not plugged into the computer, so it was useless.

We recommend you switch off the computers at least once a year, clean around the computer, check the cables and remove all unnecessary items. 

This simple step could help you avoid a technology disaster. 

Plus I am sure that all will prefer to work in a clean and less cluttered area.
 

What you can do in your POS System is set a budget for each department? Now here is a quick way that works well how to calculate such a budget in a typical shop which will take you less than five (5) minutes to do. Of course, no shop is standard, but what do you want for less than five (5) minutes of work.

Divide the shop into nine segments, as I have done above.

Now on the top in black, you will see the scores 3, 2 and 1. This is because, in Australia, people tend to go to the left when they go into a shop, so the left of the shop is more valuable.

Similarly, on the side, you will see the scores 3, 2 and 1 in black. This is because the front of the shop is more valuable than the rear.

Now when you add them up, you will see in red the totals, which is the addition of the top and side scores.

Now, add another 4 to that area segment where most of the front counter is.

If you are setting a budget, you take the total shop budget. Your call whether you do it as profit or sales. Divide by forty (40) and multiple by that segment total, for example: if the shop's budget was $800,000 a year. For the bottom front segment, see green arrow its budget would be $800,000 / 40 x 6 = $120,000

Now there is one caveat: the very front of the shop is used for display and is a decongestion zone where people often walk through without thinking. This part varies so much in different shops that you must make your own value.

The quickest way to proceed is to run a totals report for the past twelve months. Now take your total sales and divide it by 40. Now multiple by its total above for each area segment giving you a figure for each area segment.

Now for each department, look at its area segment and note its figure. If three departments share a segment, divide it by three and use this figure on the report. If a department is in a few areas, add the figures up. Now see how its sales figures compare to these figures. Maybe you have some rearranging to do?

Now here are some key points using this analysis.

1) On the right of the diagram, you will see a thick line in blue. Once people enter your shop, most shoppers will turn to the left. Count the right (4+5+6=15 points) and compare it to the left value (2+3+4= 9 points)—a big difference in score. 

This left side is what we call your power wall, as this is where customers naturally end up. It is where much of a shop's sales occur, so make sure it looks attractive. Style it up. Have your high-margin items there.

You can see why large suppliers, e.g. card companies, want you to put their product on the right side of the shop. They have done this maths too.

2) Why do most retailers prefer the front counter on the left of the shop? The space is less valuable there.

3) Why do many retailers like counters on the back. Well, the area there is less valuable.

Have a go; I am sure you will find these five (5) minutes of work helpful.