A lot of us are wondering if remote work is the future? Retailers with large offices near are wondering if these customers are coming back? Retailers selling to home offices are wondering if these customers are staying. 

Well, Google had much to do with setting up remote working with its Google Meeting product. It was also one of the first company to convert to remote work. It has decided that it wants its employees back to the office at least three days a week.  It has rejected remote working. So everyone is advised to get the Covid-19 vaccine, but it's not mandatory (yet?). If employees want to continue to work remotely after Sept 1st, they have to apply for more than 14 days per year. They are also talking of pay cuts for employees that continue to work remotely as they are less productive. The problem from what I understand is co-ordinating staff if they work remotely.

Amazon has come up with a similar decision. It also wants its staff back.

As an employer, who has had to run the office remotely, I can relate to this. How are you supposed to manage when you really do not know what people are doing? How are you train someone if they are not there? There are times when it's just so better to have everyone there to discuss a problem. Another problem is that many people at home do not have an area and facilities to run a home office. 

After the experience with remote working, we have decided for our customers' needs that we need one or more support people, a hardware and software expert always in our headquarters at all times. 

Other big tech companies like Facebook and Twitter have now decided to allow most but not *all* remote work to continue.  

These are tech companies whose work is much easier to do remotely than companies. So, I would not be so sure that remote working is the future? If it does, as Google shows, it may come with a pay cut. Another issue is that I am thinking about is if an Australian worker can do the work from home, I am sure many Australian employers feel that Indians and Filipinos have homes too!

Currently, in Australia, because of our troubled vaccination drive, US is at 40%, we are at 2%, we probably will not see a decision soon on all of this?

Anyone have any thoughts let me know?

The COVID-19 situation in Queensland now is showing that these sudden lockdowns are still happening. This is despite the vaccine rollout which unfortunately we are way behind on schedule. These shutdowns are causing havoc with our clients. This is particularly with those that deal with perishable products. I have a client now throwing out three days of food. He told me he could not justify buying quality food in his restaurant now with this happening?

If the rollout doesn't work or takes too long, retail, I am sure, will pay a heavy price again. I doubt the public know how devastating these restrictions and lockdowns can be.

This is made worse by the attitude of many landlords now toward retailers.   To be fair, many landlords have much to be worried about eg JobKeeper has ended. They know this will hit their clients, some directly but all indirectly. Then there is also the removal of the laws that allowed people to trade while insolvent. 

It is a good time if you rent to negotiate with the landlord. 

Still, there is a lot of optimism. 

People have much in savings. Plus people now want to go out. There is nice weather now, which is unusual for this time of year, which helps. I intend to join them outside, so I am taking a few days off too. I will do some blogging, but that is it. If you need me unless it is urgent, please call someone else at POS Solutions. This is the first break I have had since COVID hit, and I am looking forward to a few days off. 

I hope you have a good Easter and stay safe. 

We all in this together.

I use the button on the bottom right, a lot.

Right now, almost everyone is doing some online conferencing.

Almost overnight, video conferencing services have become a must, used by everyone. In business today, it is practically a necessity. I use it for family and business meetings. It has often replaced telephone calls as it's much easier to discuss something when we can see it. 

For example, my office above is that it is not precisely a great-looking space as it is a little messy now. At least it's an office. Many people want to appear professional, yet they have to give their presentation now in a kitchen or bedroom.

Plus, people want privacy. 

So what they do use a virtual background to change their space. To do this properly, you need a green screen to add an appropriate background.

I am in my workshop.

See the impressive skylights in my office. These types with skylights in business background images are now very popular.

Some prominent executive here, see my office.

Of course, if you want to use some fun themes to have a memorable meeting.

Here am I on the Startrek ship, zooming the galaxy.

In a cockpit of a plane

In a cartoon

I am going to have fun experimenting with this with my family with green clothes on!

A suitable virtual background can help you make an engaging meeting. You should of course pick a background that is suitable for your video call.

Want to learn more, this guy explains it well.

In business as in sports, we do not get far alone.

Today it's a public holiday in Victoria. You will find our support will be as good as usual today.  

It has been as good as a year as we could get considering what has happened.  As a steadfast blue Carlton supporter, I was pleased with my team improvement. Tomorrow I think we will see Richmond as stronger, but either could do it. So I will be watching just for the game. It is frustrating that we have two Victorian teams in the Grand Final, and we have to watch on TV.  We cannot even host a family or friends get together to watch the game. Detail here. Queenslanders, I suggest you treat yourself to history if you can get out there. 

Please, if you can avoid using support at the actual game time itself, our guys on support would appreciate it. But if you have to call, they are available.

May the best team win!

Imagine an airplane flying over the Earth a few mm. 

Have it count every blade of grass that is underneath it. 

Now shrink the Earth to the size of your palm. 

What is in your palm is comparable to a modern hard disk.

Revenue in itself does little for you. It looks good but does nothing for the business as such. Generally all you are doing is working for the wholesaler.

Profit is in the long term the best indicator of business robustness.

But profit is often a fairy tale. You cannot pay bills with a good financial statement, to pay these you need cash. Run out of cash and generally if you are lucky you will be working for the bank.

People tell me that it is too hard to get the point of sale software going. But to accomplish any task, we all start with a small step. I was 15 years old when I went in front of a computer, and I just stared at it, not knowing what to do. Then I pressed a button. I had started.

The most important thing is we START.

Sometimes this can be very painful.

A friend of mine went to Woolworths for the oldies shopping today. He got there at 7.15 AM. He found no toilet paper (no delivery apparently), no eggs no sugar etc.

Victorian Chamber of Commerce has here put together a COVID-19 (Coronavirus) resources for business here with many useful links for you.

I do not know what to say about it, no matter what you think of the Coronavirus effect, it is clear to our community this is Economic and Social disaster.

If it continues it may grinding much of the country to a halt.  Schools are shutting down. The Australian Grand Prix is cancelled, they are talking of closing down part of Australia as they have done in some overseas country e.g. Spain, Italy, South Korea and China where 100 million people are in lockdown. In some countries now save for supermarkets and pharmacies, all malls are closed. Restaurants, public hotel dining, gyms, pools, amusement parks, zoos, bathhouses, beauty and massage salons, event and conference venues, public boats, heritage sites etc. closed too. People in religious activities have to keep at least two meters from one another.  

I have clients that have 30% to 40% of their business is Chinese tourists and most of that is gone, and that is hurting. Where is this going to go? 

The closest example I can think of is the Spanish flu which my aunty talked a lot about it, it closed down much of Australia for over a year, made sick about 40 per cent of the population and killed around 15,000. Are we looking at something like this?

Several of my clients have received advise sheets that state

- That they have to clean up frequently their public areas, door handles, public bathrooms, etc. with disinfectant.

- Make available antibacterial hand sanitisers. 

In theory, it is all good advice. The problem is that try and get antibacterial hand sanitisers now, I went six (6)  time to my supermarket, and they had none.  

One of my clients reported to me that they rang the government Coronavirus helpline, and the phone rang out.

Another told me that Coronavirus tests in Australia are now only available to high-risk people. 

Two pieces of advice, I was told besides the  handwashing everyone talks about

1) Give yourself plenty of fresh air, make sure the air in the shop circulates

2) Do not touch your face but without a mask, its almost impossible to do as a study here showed

Where is this leading too?

As an Australian, it is lovely to celebrate Australia Day because it reminds how blessed we are to be in such a wonderful country.

For those that need support, rest assured that our support lines are all open today.

First of all, a very happy Chinese New Year to all our Chinese readers, we hope for your good health, good luck and much happiness throughout the coming year.

Surprisingly for non-Chinese, the rat is actually in traditional Chinese legends considered to being quick-witted, resourceful, and smart but lack courage. With rich imaginations and sharp observations, they can take advantage of various opportunities well. As a person who has involved in a few rat hunts, I can confirm that they are all this.

For those that do not realise it, this festival is celebrated by about 1.5 million people in Australia now and here is an article on how to attract Chinese tourists. 

Perfectionism is defined by the dictionary as "refusal to accept any standard short of perfection."

It is considered as being a psychological condition as perfection, an impossibility in reality. What tends to happen is because nothing is perfect, people do nothing, procrastinate and get depressed as nothing is done. As such it becomes a fast track to unhappiness and often leads to depression.

Why bring it up here in a POS software blog because too often people look at their point of sale system and they know it does much more then what they use it for but talk themselves out of using these extra features because they think it lacks something. As it is not exactly what they think they need they do nothing. 

My advice, use what you have.

Do it, once you get going you can always make it better.

It is the first step that is the hardest. The second is not so hard. The third often is easier still.

With us, you have a support network who will give you honest feedback. We can often introduce you to people that you can talk too that are doing and what you are thinking of doing. 

Remember.

Last night as it became apparent that these bushfires were growing, some of our clients in the affected areas started ringing us up for advice on taking a backup as they are moving out. Some of them had a cloud backup (its free with us so why would they not do it?) but just in case they wanted a manual backup. Thank goodness for mobiles when this is over we really need to think about improving some of the mobile phone coverage in some areas. We also need some decent rain now to end this drought.

We have three months to go on this bushfire season.

I thought I better write this before the festivities begin today and I start on the festivities.

Like this guy here, we are to leap forward. 

I like this picture as he is not looking backward. It would be dangerous for him to do so. It shows that there is no going backwards; the way things used to be is gone.

In 2020, retail in SMB will be about data. With our software, you have one of the most powerful reporting systems for real-time data and analytics. In 2019 in our market space, after a review, it was the system selected for the Australian Government trials with its major reform of EFTPOS with the CDC cards.

This real-time data and analytics can completely transform the way you handle the strategic and tactical decisions you need to make about pricing, promotions, and product placement too often much better than you can manually? 

A typical client of ours sold 20,060 different stock lines in the 2018 year. Do you think that manually they could keep track of the stock quantities needed for each of these lines in their shop, our program can! 

The time is long past when suppliers would supply you the retailer with sales data to help you sell more. You have to get it yourself. Rather than relying on guesswork and feel, to make smarter decisions for your shop.

Here are some things that our software can do: 

1. It can predict with accurate recommendations.your stock purchases
2. It can give you essential performance metrics KPIs
3. It can forecast overall trends.
4. Give you all your stock lines a sales forecast.
5. It can do a market basket analysis that shows you what products customers are most likely to purchase together. 
6. It can help you to optimise your pricing.

Okay, I could go on and on about this stuff with the requirements now for 20/20 vision, but I’m just going to stop here, I will discuss it more in detail later.

I do want to say now a big thank you to all my readers for a fantastic year! Your support, comments and kind words mean so much to me and I am very grateful to you all.  

Forward to 2020 

Thanks for your support over 2019, we are now the second most visited site for point of sale software in Australia, only retail express beats us and not by much.

Readers, I wish you our warm and heartfelt greeting to you and your family and your business.

I hope 2020 is full of health, happiness and prosperity.  

PS My thoughts for today. I will not make any new resolutions as I never keep them anyway. Mine last year was to lose weight, it is now unchanged from the previous year, and it was a big struggle to keep it the same.  

Accept that many of the things happen in life, that I can never go back.

Switch off.

Do not worry.

Enjoy the moment

I shared a video on gift wrapping and got so many comments that I thought I should explain.

In my grandfather's shop, grandfather was very good at wrapping gifts. It is an art to do it right. It does not take long to learn and once you can do it well, it is very quick to do. It certainly helps to sell your products. In this time of year is an important part of your offering which adds value to your store. We used to have queues with people waiting to get him to gift wrap their purchases.

This video shows how quick it can be done and how good it can look.

This video will show you how to do it. It explains step by step really well. The instructions are clear and I like the different camera angles that show clearly what she is doing. 

Also note that this woman is not wasting paper because she is using the exact amount that you would use. See how good the finished product looks. 

Give it a try.

If you want to get into gifts, its a good idea.

I hope that everyone is prepared?

Short-term are you prepared for Christmas?

1) Have you checked to make sure that everything technically works? 

2) Have you checked your stock levels?

3) Staff levels?

Here is an interesting question to ask yourself, what will be the cost to your business if you cannot handle this holiday?  Are you able to deliver the level of service that your customers demand?

Medium-term are you preparing for 2020?

There is nothing you can do about change? 2020 will be different. Retail has always been changing, change is part of the retail environment.

A stale retail operator that keep things the same is not going to attract new business. What they will do is lose a small percentage of their current business!