During this pandemic, I think my company support staff and the IT industry, in general, has done a remarkable job in keeping our community going and functioning.  In challenging circumstances, they have provided quality professional service under some extraordinary conditions 24 x 7. 

We kept every single one of our clients open. As a result, the public got from our clients, newspapers from newsagents, medicine from its pharmacist, pet food from its pet shops, garden supplies, plumbing goods etc.

This afternoon, Premier Daniel Andrews announced that Victoria would begin another five-day stage four lockdown from midnight tonight. Again because of problems in quarantine. Restrictions are here listed. If you need to know your shops or homes 5 KM radius click here.

This could not happen for our Victorian clients in a worse time, losing most of the trade with the Australian Open, Valentine's Day, the weddings, and functions now all delayed. It is another massive blow to our economy, which was starting to get back on its feet. Many are going to have stock that will need to be written off, who wants Valentine's Day stock after the day.

Still, as we head into lockdown once again, it's important to remember that we have been here before with you so we will keep doing it. We do not expect any difficulties in continuing our support to you.

Still, for now, our office will be closed.

Today marks the beginning of a new year based on the Chinese lunar calendar. Unfortunately, this Lunar New Year many will not celebrate by dining out or going to a gathering as the events are scaled-down, cancelled and being shifted online. 

Shame as I took the family last year and we enjoyed the festivities a lot.

Still, goodbye to the old year and a happy welcome to the new year!

May your wishes come true in a blissful year!

Wishing you, your staff, and your family a Happy Australia Day.  

2020 was the year when we all looked more than ever before to the right and the left. Then while we crossed the road, we got hit by a truck. Well, 2020 is over.

Every New Year brings a new cycle and the promise backed by figures that better days are coming. In fact, there is good reason to believe that it will be better than most think. Currently, the worst of COVID looks behind us. It has been challenging, alright, but we kept our clients going 24x7.  We all did very well.

So let me wish you a happy 2021 and may your wishes come true.

Here are some To-Do tips to start the new year 

- It is New Year's eve. Live the moment

- Review how you went in 2020

- List areas where you can act in 2021. Much has changed.

- Now set goals for 2021

Stay healthy

Regards From the POS Solutions Team

PS I have one question for 2020, what are the people doing with all this toilet paper they purchased now?

From my family to yours I wish you, I wish you all a great season.

Thank you for your continued support in 2020 despite all the problems. I look forward next year to continuing to enjoy and engage with you.

Well, the expression "Business as usual" isn't an expression I would use this year. Still, it seems right here.

We know that the period between Christmas and New Year is a crucial trading period for our clients. 

So for us, it will be "Business as usual." 

Our clients will be happy knowing they are getting their support as usual. 

We're always here to help. so if you have any questions or need additional advice please contact us as usual.

We are clarifying here the situation now of linking the Tabcorp machines into POS software like ours. 

This is a project that is being administrated by XChangeIT and shows much potential.

So for months now, we have been linking Tabcorp machines into our software. Directly many of our clients are now connected.  This is saving them a lot of time.

It allows sales through the Tabcorp system to get into our software electronically and semi-automated. It is:

- Faster
- Means less work for you to do.
- Has less chance of errors 
- Gives you better independent reconciliation.

As a bonus, if you want more control and/or do loyalty marketing, you can assign the Tabcorp sales to a person.

It is free to all XChangeiT customers.

*BUT* and there is always a but 

It is only available currently in South Australia. So we have for months have rolled it out to our relevant South Australian customers.  We have been waiting for the word to link in the rest of our customers.  

Yesterday, I asked for clarification and information from XChangeIT about rolling this out to all our clients. 

They told me this. 

"We await some Tabcorp material and it should be available for the January effort. This is because it looks like we will only be piloting in SA until then. If we get it sooner, I’ll pass it on."

If you want more details, click here.

Using this, you can say goodbye to almost all your paper receipts.

What it allows your customer from their bank account to print a receipt like this.

or you can have these receipts, which can be any payment type: cash, EFTPOS/Credit, Bitcoin, etc. 

These can be sent by you free to a smartphone. 

It also has significant security anti-fraud advantages. This is because fake and fraudulent receipts are much harder to justify. This because you have a trackable copy on a bank-approved secured server.

This is the most advanced receipt format available. 

Call us to give it a try now.

No cost for the first fifty (50) to start!

It was Black Friday.

Many of our suppliers now see this as their final chance to move the retail point of sale equipment before Christmas comes. So they decided to offer some outstanding offers. 

We immediately passed them on to our clients, This appears to have upset one of our competitors as they seem not to have passed on the savings. They admit that our prices are cheap, but then they accuse them of being possibly bad quality. They are not. They are excellent scanners. More importantly, they claim that they might not work with their software. If so, what does it say about their software and business practices if industry-standard barcode scanners do not work with them?  

The fact is this we now have an excellent price reduction on handheld scanners, this discount we are passing on to our clients. If you are interested, let us know while stock is available.

What point I do like about these scanners is some have antimicrobial protection. This will help now as they offer more security against the spread of pathogens. They also are designed with repeated cleaning in mind. As such, they can be wiped down with more potent disinfectants. They also have increased decode range so allowing you to keep a safer distance from shoppers. 

For over 30 years, we seek feedback on the service that we provide you over the past year in an annual survey. These responses are used to assist us in improving customer service. 

It measures the effectiveness and quality of our services. It takes only a few minutes to complete. 

If you have used our services this year, please contribute.

Unfortunately, what happened is that so many people went to fill it out this year that under our plan it crashed. The free plan would have been here better. If you were one of these people, who could not get in, could you please try again? If it's still a problem, let me know. 

Also, what has happened is that some people have filled out comments wanting feedback. Unfortunately, as they decided not to fill out their contact details, we cannot answer them.  Please remember this if you write such comments. 

I am delighted with the results. Most IT companies rate about 17 on their NPS, and we are way over 50, which is terrific.

We have a public holiday in Victoria for Melbourne Cup.

Do not be concerned as you will find our support will be on, as usual, today. As what we are doing is routing it through our interstate offices. You will also have access to our after-hours support. I am working too.

So nothing will change.

Melbourne was willing to give up its Grand Final because of COVID, but it was unwilling to give up its Melbourne Cup. 

This year, I am more interested in seeing what happens with the fashion show online that they are organising as few can attend the actual race. At least online, the women will not need facemasks, which they would need if they came.

Please try and avoid using support at the actual race time itself? I am sure that our guys on support would appreciate it? But if you have to call, they are available.

May the best horse win!

Ain't this the truth, how we are all feeling now

The coronavirus has created a lot of upheaval and uncertainty in all of our lives. However, despite these worrying times, I want to reassure you that we are here for you and will continue to service your computer and software needs.

We are now implementing several changes to ensure so we can continue to provide service across all our operations. We're ready to help you and are committed to delivering the excellent service that we always do.

If you need to make contact with us the usual methods continue; mail, online chat, email and telephone. 

Just please stay safe, and we encourage you to monitor the Australian Government's COVID-19 health alerts here.

We hope in these turbulent times, you, your staff and your loved ones stay safe.

Kind regards,

Bernard Zimmermann

POS Solution director

Sometimes, I get inspired when I talk to my clients about what they do in their shop.

Frequently, I hear from newsagents that their traditional markets are down and how it is affecting their businesses. Well, Nextra Sunbury is a newsagency, one of many nextra shops.

Ten years ago if you had gone into it, you would think that it is big but other then that, nothing extraordinary different to other newsagencies out there.  Like many newsagencies, it has experienced dramatic declines in its newspaper and magazine trade, but unlike many others today, its profitability is way up.

Why?

Because it has changed its product mix, they made the changes away from the products that were declined and switched to products that sell well and had high margins. They now sell gifts, clothing, jewellery and stunned me, shoes. They now trade between one and two million dollars annually of products with excellent margins. These products are growing now in their shop by about 28% a year.  

What is the secret?

If you talk to them, they will tell you that the secret is to use our software profitability reports. That way, they keep track of all stock movements, including sales so that they can easily rank their products by best sellers, location, revenue, profitability, margins, seasonal sales, and much more. Then they use the information.

Taking your reporting to the next level works. 

Here are some points to consider 

• Identify your slow-moving stock, then make an action plan, eg reduce your reliance on these products, move to a different location or maybe get rid of it.

• Identify your fast-moving stock, then make an action plan, eg increase your reliance on these products and/or move to a better location and look to leverage it with companion stock.

• Find your best areas in the shop. You may be surprised. 

• Work your VIP club, Sunbury Newsagency now has a huge VIP club. This is an excellent source of repeat business.

• Use free services like Facebook and email marketing to inform customers of new products. Check out their facebook page here you will see that they are writing many posts and putting up pictures every day on Facebook.

• Help structure your seasonal inventory through analysing past years’ sales.

• Examine your stock levels and costs. You may be stunned, I heard of a small shop that depending on the greeting card companies to look after their cards, finding out that they had way over what they required in cards. The owner told me afterwards that he was shocked as they had way over what they needed, and the card company was suggesting that they buy more.

Take Advantage of Your Retail POS System

There are many other ways once you get into it that you can analyse retail sales trends in a meaningful way. You have, though posbrowser the most powerful POS system, I know. Play around with the software yourself, and learn the retail reporting and data analysis that it has to offer. Then use it. At least once a month, set up a formal review of your shop.

We are delighted to confirm that POS Solutions has been selected in the Top 10 POS Solutions providers in APAC 2019.

Today they notified me that 

"With immense pleasure, I would like to let you know that our evaluation panel has shortlisted POS Solutions for the "Top 10 POS Solution providers in APAC 2019", an annual listing of 10 companies that are at the forefront of providing solutions and tackling the challenges. The 10 honoree companies are poised to be the next generation of leaders in providing solutions to influence and create a significant impact. Being named as one of “Top 10 POS Solution providers in APAC 2019” is certainly a recognition and honor which will further the public relations and marketing opportunities to strengthen the growth and market share of POS Solutions."

Unfortunately, as this is not our marketspace we will not be putting in a submission but we are really pleased that we were considered. I think it says much about our software and offerings.

use  

If anyone is interested please let me know as we have about $12,000 worth of Hallmark stock from a former newsagent that used our point of sale in his retail shop and he has closed down, in brand new condition that we want to unload. Any reasonable offer is acceptable. FOB Melbourne.

Hallmark cards

Hallmark Wrap

Hallmark Pens AFLcards

Please be advised that our after-hours and emergency support will be running at non-stop on ANZAC Day today. It is available both for urgent and standard calls.

We would like to wish everyone a safe and happy long weekend.

Our office is currently staffed by a limited group but our team is on call for all of your emergency Point of Sale Software needs. 

I want to thank all the people that took part in our annual survey in 2018. 

Every year for the past 20 years we have been surveying our clients to see how we have been going forward. Its purpose is to see how they feel we performed. What I find very useful is that using it, I can see how we went compared to previous years, 

It is going to take me some time to process it, but so far we look overall pretty good in 2018. For those that know something about measuring customer satisfaction, I am pleased to report that our NPS is up slightly up this year and is now just over 40 which puts us well in the high group. That is pretty amazing as the average for an IT company in Australia is about -7.

So our customers are happy at least those that filled the survey are overall very happy with us 

Now I need to go through the details, and hopefully, this study can help us to find specific areas and technologies that we need to focus on in 2019 so that we can bring you more of what you need.

Here are the Chinese New Year lamps going on today on at Southbank  Melbourne.

To everyone celebrating Chinese New Year, we’re wishing you happiness and health over the coming year!

It is the year of the pig! In Chinese culture, pigs are a symbol of wealth and good fortune. So we wish you luck for that too.