Stock that doesn't sell is alluded to as dead stock. This stock takes up space in the shop and storeroom, where it is often neglected. It usually costs money to get rid of it. The best solution is not to get it in the first place.

This is not easy. The truth is that no one wants this dead stock. Everyone is trying to get rid of it, and if you are not careful, your suppliers will often try to get rid of it by shipping it to you.

Here we will discuss how your POS software can help you to stop getting more of this stock.

In your point of sale, software go to the stock maintenance and/or stock received.

Now edit the item. See the image below.

See where the red arrow is pointing. Mark it here as discontinued.

From now on, it will show it as NOT WANTED. If it does come into the shop by some chance, our point of sale software will put it on a list to be instantly returned.

It is a bustling day. People are busy, so they change from one cash draw to another. While this is great for keeping clients moving quickly in the queue, it can make it hard to track errors if they occur, as many people could have done it. One client told me that he got rid of two casuals. Something was always wrong with the till, but he could not figure out which one was responsible, so he got rid of both. Then he raised his hand in frustration at what he had done. The other issue is that people care less if they know that tracking is off. After spending my life in retail, having people with cash and limited tracking is asking for problems.

If you must have several people on one till then, I suggest you use frequent X-Offs. This also proves that you are actively monitoring. It is best to be prepared by having your extra cash draw ready to go. Now, if you will have extra cash draws, why not consider using the facility in our point of sale software which allows one computer to run multiple cash draws. Using this at no extra cost, you can give everyone their own cash draw. 

If something goes wrong, at least you know who is responsible.

Ignoring Valentine's Day can cost you. It is dollars considered the fifth biggest shopping day in the year. COVID has shown that even in the middle of the most significant pandemic that we have all experienced with its unprecedented shakeup of our economy and all the jobs lost, consumers did not cut back their spending on Valentine's Day.

I put in Valentine's Day for Australia for this year, last year, and 2019 (pre-pandemic) in google trends. This year's outlook looks like this.

Interest is lower now but comparable to these years.

Now, if you want some ideas, see what does sell in your shop on Valentine's Day and what stock you have? It will take you seconds to find out and give you some good ideas. Remember unlike other marketing holidays, many products on Valentine's Day are still marketable afterwards if you select wisely plus many of you are well-positioned to get the *Last-minute shopper*, the guy who needs to get something at the last minute. That guy is open to ideas for a gift and requires a card.

So in your POS software, I recommend you look at the Top N stock report, which gives you the top-selling items.

Go to Register Reports marked in green.

Select stock.

Now you will see two reports, click the one on green first. The purple you should hold in memory as you may need it before placing an order.

Now select last year Valentine's day, select the top 40 items, which should be plenty. I would suggest doing it by quality sold.

Now you will get a report with top sellers over Valentine's day, plus your current stock holding to see how you stand for Valentine's day.

Also, run his report for 2019. This was in the pre-pandemic period, and one expects that this year will be a mix of last year and 2019.

Do you have a minute spare, well what is stopping you from doing this now?

When I talk to people in a large organisation, they almost immediately discuss their customer. For example, they might tell you is that our customer is " a woman with a few kids, who works and..." Then everything they do is directed at that ideal person. They do this as this works.

This person, called a "buyer persona," is a fictional person. Yet determining this is the first step of a marketing plan that can yield significant returns.

Now, who is your customer?

Most people have to think about it. When many of my smaller customers study their customer, it turns out that they are wrong.

It is easy to get this customer demographic.

Let us start simple. Take a sheet of paper and mark it like this.

Then mark people at the counter after each transaction with the approximate category. If you are not sure, pick the most likely. The overall scheme does not matter that much if a few errors occur.

You will have your answer in a few days, although I recommend using a week.

If, for example, you want to take it further, women with kids and males' unemployed, retired, level of income, etc., are commonly measured.

Once you have your customer, give this fictional person an appropriate name that describes them. For example say, Karen, who works in her early 30s with a couple of kids.

Whenever you think of making changes to your shop, buy stock, etc. Pause, chew and consider what your Karen will think of that. How will she react? Targeting her will help you get more business as she represents most of your business.

Try it.

For the little work required you can make your marketing more effective.

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Many people are now starting to get new rates.

The good news is that the increases were less than most were expecting. There was also no surprise that nothing went down. The big problem is the Visa/Mastercard international and premium cards. I wish the ACCC would do something about these. It is unfair that the merchants have to pay for the customers premium cards. Merchants should be allowed to charge by payment category as there can be a wide range of fees on any card. 

What I did was constructed a table of costs based on our rates. 

On the top is the transaction amount and the costs are listed on the table

 As you can see, you can get a lot of savings by pushing different payment categories. Also, as important as dealing with low margin items that many of my clients do, you need to check that your margins cover the commissions. 

Of course, many other fees can come into the equation not listed here, e.g. rentals, reporting fees, chargeback fees, etc. But these are the subject of another post.

If you want to discuss with us your EFTPOS/Credit fees situation and if we can help you, well we are always willing to talk.

This is a tip on scheduling your trip using our Google Maps integration. 

The biggest problem with doing a route schedule is that some stops require an exact time. You need to go here and here, and it does not matter what happens at 3:30 PM; you have to pick up your daughter from school. Now you have a stop with an exact time. Unless you know the place well, it can be hard to estimate how long you need to get there, particularly if you leave a strange place.

Using this method can help you get a better estimate of when you need to leave. So you press here the Google map integration, which puts the spot where you are going.

Now see the green arrow pointing to the "leave now" button.

Press this; you now get three options. I find the most useful "Arrive by," so tap that.

Now put in the time and date you need to arrive at the place.

Now where the green arrow below is pointing is how long it will take and the time you need to leave to get there.

You can see that Google Maps is selecting the conservative figure for its estimates.

However, remember that Google Maps can't predict what's to come. It uses a massive amount of information it has to make a reasonable deduction and I find works well.

This festival is one of the biggest in the world and is celebrated by about 1.5 million people in Australia now  For those that celebrate it we hope for your good health, good luck and much happiness throughout the coming year.

This years animal the tiger symbolizes strength and recovery. How appropriate is that now?

If you sell your business including your customer database, you will be "trading in personal information."

I have been told that there should be minor problems with privacy on a business transfer. This is because personal information remains with the same business entity. This has never been a problem with my clients yet. 

Also, be aware that when you sell your business, you will have to sign a document that your assets, such as the computer system, are functioning. That they are fit for running your business. It is correct. On this, I have seen court cases fought over. The new owner may have very different ideas over what is a functioning computer system than you do. An old computer on its last legs became part of a small claim against the old owner. The new owner argued that it was junk and was sold as working. If there is something wrong with the system's information, you can be charged the cost of fixing the problem and any associated costs. This cost can be expensive. A week of work for a computer consultant, the new owner and an accounting office person can add up. 

Now that brings us to the issue of your customer data. As a rule, you can sell the information required for the new business. If the debts are sold, then the new owner has to have the financial information on the customers. If the debt is not sold, the new owner should not get it.

The main rule used for the rest of the data is that it should be *de-identify*. This means that the data cannot identify a person to the data. So your stock sales figures are good to give because knowing you have sold five toys does not tell the new owner who brought those toys. But, if the business does need the information for the new owner to function, it should be okay.

In the utility section of our software, you will find tools to help you *de-identify*. Select the ones that you need.

Note that we are not lawyers, so get some legal advice on this from an expert, e.g. a business agent and/or lawyer. Make sure this advice is in writing. I am telling you what these people have said to me over the years.

This question gets asked a lot. Here are some thoughts on what people say.

Buying

This is now the preferred way of doing it. Computers today are not as expensive as before, so the outlay is much less. It is by far the easiest, quickest and cheapest way. If you have the money, this is your best route.

It also has the added advantage of locking in your Instant asset write-off. On a $5,000 outlay, you can save about $1,000 on cash flow with this here in the first year so reducing your outlay to $4,000

Finance 

One option is to get a consolidated loan for the business and add the computer to this loan. The payment and rates generally are better here, plus you get more flexibility.

There are a few other options here. From what I see, most people prefer leasing. 

The first point is that you introduce another person in the sale, and that guy will want to get paid. Computers do not attract the best rates so it's dearer. The big plus is that it does mean less cash needed upfront and allows you to plan your budget. One disadvantage is that a lease is hard to change once it is in place if your situation changes. 

As interest rates are expected to go up soon if you are planning to lease, I recommend locking it in now.

Renting

You are moving the finance company to the computer supplier. This is without the benefits of a detailed legal contract to govern the transaction. Generally, they want a high fee upfront to cover the computer and installation. Then payments are forever. You never own the item no matter what you pay. You also lose certain tax benefits. Plus, if you don't pay, your software stops and people suddenly lose access to their data.  

Summary

Without a detailed study of your situation, it's challenging to pick one choice over the other.

I would suggest talking it over with your accountant.

There is no lockdown, but it is not like people are getting out. I thought it was an overreaction, but one of our staff got COVID. So not knowing what to do, we told our staff if they feel that they can do their work at home, to work from home if not then to come to work. 

I went to a client shop on Friday, and it was empty in the shopping centre, no one was coming out. I got called up the next day, so I went back only to see the shopping centre completely full. What is going on? I was told that this is not uncommon in the centre even before COVID. Then when I went back yesterday, it did not look too busy to me. 

May be we are looking at some lockdown-style hesitancy due to Omicron, or are we looking at a new cultural norm?

Anyway, I took some pictures. This is Parkmore Shopping centre which is a large shopping centre in the Melbourne metro.

Enjoy.

My post on monitors brought up some comments and discussions.

At least with us, there is a difference between the monitors we recommend for business purposes and those we recommend for home use.

If a monitor breaks down at home and needs a few days or a week to fix, it is not disastrous. They generally run in clean environments, so dust and dirt are not issues. Nor is the temperature a problem as it's a controlled environment. Plus, people do treat them better.

In business, often none of this is true, particularly at the front counter.

) What is required is an easy service to reduce downtime. You are paying people by the hour to do a job, and whether they are working flat out or working slowly, it costs you the same.

) The continuous glass surface should have reinforced front glass. I have seen many screens broken, it is dangerous.

) It should be silicon sealed. Dust and dirt are everywhere. This also allows for easy cleaning and increases its reliability.

) It should be "true flat" if it's touch.

There are horses for courses.

The latest CPI figures are out here.

I think you will find it helpful to look through it to see the official inflation rates. I would be interested in your views.

Looking at the figures, the main driver now of inflation appears to be petrol if so there is little as a community we can do about it. Looking at the other figures, I do not know your views, but they do not appear correct. For example, insurance, from what my clients have been telling me, insurance seems to be higher than 2.2%. Also, food seems to be up much more than 1.9% they have quoted. Have you tried buying steak or mincemeat recently?

Anyway, these are the official figures from which many items such as our rents will be determined.

If you want a good site at giving you price history for many items, visit this site here. People find it useful for pricing toys so I have been recommending it to my clients to see the current prices for old items in their shop.

Another tip here.

A client of ours has a significant problem with their car. The insurance covered them.

However, fixing the car will take months because of the shortage of car parts. They need the vehicle for work. So they have to hire a car. The problem is that the insurance does not cover a hired car for months, so they need to pay.

I suggest you check your car insurance.

Nowadays, we cannot do face to face meetings, so online webinars do all our training.

It does have some advantages, such as being convenient to attend, and participants who come can save a lot of time as there is no travelling. 

Anyway, here is the latest one for those that could not make it.

Click here for a webinar on Stock Controlling reporting from your point of sale software.
 

A problem that is all too common in Google Maps is that the location shown there is wrong. It would be best if you did this to keep your Google Maps integration.

For this exercise, I have called up a supplier of mine, then pressed the green arrow. 

Then your Google Maps integration kicks in and presents you with the following map.

This map is a different place. It is wrong. No one said that Google Maps is infallible, only that it is good.

The problem is that here that the address in this system. See the green arrow above where it is listed as 

Google does NOT validate your address, it does not fix it. It assumes what you give is correct. Here is what it expects. 

The space between 37 and the minus sign is confusing Google. If you change it to 37-49 Browns Road, it will be fine. So if you intend to use the Google Maps integration, I suggest that you change the address in your system where the green arrow is pointing.

We will discuss bulk change of addresses in a later post.

​There are three main types of monitors—Square, widescreen and ultrawide screens on the market now.

You can see the problem often when running your computer you get black bands around the active screen. Some application uses square and some uses widescreen.

Until recently, except in Point of Sale (POS), the market has been moving to wider screens.

The problem in a shop counter space is a premium. A widescreen shows less for the same size, so POS software is generally designed for square.

Now what is happening is that the new monitors for POS are switching from square to widescreen. The main reason for this push from square to widescreen is cost. Monitor manufacturers can save money using the same parts for computer monitors and TVs. Also, widescreens are cheaper to produce for the size.

So if you want a square monitor, you will soon have to pay more.

If you are buying a monitor, I suggest you buy a widescreen because the change is inevitable

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One of our competitors has come out of the dark with a recent new attack. Now they claim that we have copied them in Google map integration, and what they did was *innovation* but not us. The last time these guys made such an attack on us was to claim that we were too cheap. 

Unlike the early claim of being too cheap, we have no idea what they are talking about Google Maps. I am not sure when we first implemented Google Map integration into our software, but it was before 2009. We were early on to it, as we knew from our discussions with Google on how the system worked. Then it was all new, and no one knew how to make it work. The earliest mention about us having this integration was in our newsletters dated Tuesday 26th May 2009, showing DOS users how to use it. Yes, it was available in our older DOS versions too. As it was a new development that was long stopped in DOS by then, we did it earlier, but I cannot find when.

And before anyone jumps up and down on me, let me say that I looked at some other competitors. They have Google Maps too. Generally, they use a paid service like Pointy. Since we wrote our own API, there is no charge for our users for Google Maps.  

Before 2009, it was innovative. It is not innovative in 2022, and pretending that it is, I think, is an absurdity.

So summing up, I am sure that now their users are glad that finally, they have some of the benefits, which our users have had for over 13 years. 

Now let us move on and discuss how do we use it?

The easiest way in your software is to look for a box marked "Show Google Map". It is in many places, e.g. see the green arrow in the supplier screen below.

Once you press that box out will pop out in Google Map the location in a map.

You then have the full facilities of Google Map, although you can do much more than in this simple example.

The following are some of the significant uses our clients are using their Google Maps integration for:

1) If you are going to go to a place you have never been to before. Who knows how far and what the traffic is like going there. Using Google Maps, they can get an estimated time of arrival and an estimated time of return. This makes it much easier to get organised.

2) The primary use that people use is to send the address to their phone, so they can use it for directions while in the car. This saves time.

3) Failed deliveries due to wrong addresses are costly for retailers. It can be a significant cause of customer dissatisfaction. So using this Google Maps integration, you can check that you have the correct address before going out. You need some intelligence here as sometimes Google does not have a valid address. We have had discussions about this. Currently, there is nothing anyone can do about that, but we are actively looking into it.

4) See my post a few days ago on handling many locations and making a route.

I urge you to experiment with these functions and yes there are more, but we will discuss them later when I cool down.

PS Here is an interesting oddity for you, Google Maps was invented in Australia and is an Australian Product. It is True Blue, we do get around us Aussies.

A/B testing is a formal system used when you have an idea you want to test. It's simple to understand, easy to implement into any aspect of your business, and free. It is used by both large and small companies alike to make business decisions that increase store sales.

All you need is accurate information from your POS Software and some time.

You pick a period generally a month, like for like. An example of like to like is Jan 2021 to Jan 2022, Feb 2021 to Feb 2022, etc.

For this post, I will consider the example of swapping your books and art supplies.

Now make sure you have the sales information for these departments in the previous period you are adopting. Then that can collect the same information for the coming month.

So do you have the book and art supply sales?

If so, make the change and wait a month.

After the month, go to register reports.

Now select the item marked "Sales Comparison for a Given period".

Now select the dates that you wish to compare. You will get pages of detailed information showing how you are performing compared to the previous period. Now see what was more successful.

The reason this system works well as different audiences behaves differently. Something that works for one company may not work for another. You are trying to find the best practice for your business.

It can be used for anything, shop hours, price increases, etc.

This is another example of how powerful our point of sale software is for retail management.

This Google Map trick can save you a lot of time at work. I use it a lot, and I was surprised that they did not know this trick when I was talking to a client. So here it is.

We rarely make trips from point A to point B in business. What we tend to do is when we leave work to have a few places to go too.

See the instructions here.

Now say I want to go from work to

) Shop in Dandenong

) A shopping centre in Keysborough South

) A shopping centre in Keysborough

and then come back to work

This trip will take me 42 minutes based on current road conditions.

Now since I can see the route, I change the stops slightly

Now my trip is 40 minutes

Since I think I can do better, I changed it again. Now it is done in 38 minutes.

So I have saved about 10% of my trip time.

When you have like ten destinations, the saving can be considerable.

Give it a go!

We are updating our recommended computer specifications, so these below are suggestions only. 

But, if you intend to buy some hardware soon, please talk to us first. 

Current situation

Windows 11 and the coming mass introduction of 4k monitors will mean that much of the existing computer equipment out there is going out of date. 

Keeping your computing technology up-to-date ensures that you will run the latest software.  If all you want to do is continue running what you have, make sure you are not renting software. Overall count on no updates soon for much of your existing software.

Here are my recommended computer specifications for what you should consider before making a purchase.

Anything running Windows 8 or early is asking for trouble, you need Windows 10 and 11 now.

As for Windows 11, you need 1 gigahertz (GHz) so if you are being offered anything less than an i7, forget it.   

The added problem is all your computers should run the latest anti-virus software. These to run fast need modern computers and is the main reason older computers run slow. 

We recommend Windows Defender, which is free.

SQL

It would be best if you ran at least SQL 2016

Besides, old versions of SQL are slowing you down now.

Monitors

You spend most of your time interacting with your computer through the monitor. All your monitors now should have a resolution of 1920x1080, although 1280x1024 should work for a while. Anything less needs replacement. 

An added plus is that you and your staff will enjoy the larger monitors. They are great if someone eyesight is starting to fail, plus because the screen is bigger, it gives less strain on the eyes. 

RAM 

Want an instant performance boost? Adding more RAM is the easiest and cheapest way to upgrade your computer. It is affordable. You can do it on almost any computer. 

So, how much RAM do you need?

- 8GB for a register

- For heavier duty computers, e.g. servers, you should look to 16GB for best results.

Make sure you get the right RAM for your computer.

Speed up your computer with an SSD

If your computer still runs with a mechanical hard drive HHD, this SSD offers you high-speed start-up times and fast data transmission. 

So I would not buy a computer without an SSD drive today.

If you have not got an SSD drive on the server, get one. It will speed up everything.

As a bonus, you can keep the HDD for stuff that you need less speed.

Touchscreens 

These are great in business environments, much easier and quicker to use. It will not speed up the computer but speed up your data entry.

A modern graphics card

If you do graphics or play computer games, this will reduce the load on your computer processing, often speeding up your computer. 

Improve your cooling

Although not a speed issue, a noisy fan is painful over time. If you have one of these, consider replacing it. 

The big problem here is that hot computers tend to run slow. Check the vents to make sure that the air is circulating. If not, then clean the computer if required. 

Coolers may be an option as they have gotten much better over the last few years and are cheaper. Plus they will give more life to your computer.

keyboards and mice

These are tough to decide. I have used several of the latest gaming keyboards and mice. I have not noticed any improvement. 

Plus, I find them annoying. 

So I prefer the older ones, yet many do like them. So I leave this to personal taste.

Internet speeds

This is something that everyone complains about, and it is tough to say anything here. For many people, $60/month the internet provided is overkill, and to others, $20,000/month with a direct link to the USA is not good enough. Although it's a bit pricey if you want more speed, many of my clients are delighted with the Starlink offer. Soon I am sure NBN will be obsolete for people that need speed. 

So I leave this to personal need too.

I hope this all helps and let me know what you think.