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.

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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.

Wishing you and your family a Happy Australia Day 

As always, we got hit with plenty of support questions, our clients get their moneys' worth. Fortunately, our support lines were all open today.

Update today on Sunday there were some problems in NSW with EFTPOS through Telstra other than that it is very quiet, so quiet its unnerving at POS Solutions 

A competitor made another nasty attack on us, the last attack on us readers here may recall was to attack us as our prices were too low. Their solution was interesting, they raised their prices. 

Now they made some new claims against us. My first reply was ignored, so I made a second reply with this and took a screenshot here.

When this was not published then I complained and asked that this attack be removed. Failing that if they wish to stand by this attack that my reply be published. It is after all natural justice that if you are attacked somewhere that you be given a chance to respond back at the place that you are attacked. Afterall we do have a Right of reply that "generally means the right to defend oneself against public criticism in the same venue where it was published" in a site that claims to be open.   

Both of these rights were denied bluntly.  So giving the readers the wrong impression that these claims are true. They are not, for example, I estimate that the savings in our XchangeIT could save a typical user of ours compared to a user of their system on XChangeIT, about $400/year in transport costs plus give our users a considerable saving in time and cash flow every month. These figures would be much higher if they are in the country. 

I ask that either this attack is removed or that my reply is published or that the site put up a notice that it is not open or fair.

It is hard to believe that 2018 is now almost behind us.  

While in my current role of director today, I spend more time behind the scenes then I used too, I can assure you that my dedication and drive to deliver the highest value product for our clients has continued and I would like to take a quick moment to share my thanks and gratitude to everyone I have had the honour and privilege to meet, work with, and interact with this year.

In 2018, we did over 220 major upgrades to our system, it is faster and more powerful then it is ever been. If you have not seen it recently you probably will not recognise it. Here are some of the notable changes we have done this year.

We did over 17,000 support calls seven days a week, 24 hours a day. We never stopped working.

A customer satisfaction score (NPS) has continued to improve. Obviously, what we are doing our clients like.

Personally, it has been a great pleasure to work with you.

On behalf of myself and from all of us at POS Solutions we extend our best wishes for the coming New Year and it is our sincere hope that 2019 will bring you joy and prosperity for you, your friends, family, and loved ones everywhere.

Bernard Zimmermann

Director POS Solutions

“In the New Year, you carry all the experiences of the past years and that is the greatest power of every New Year! This year again, you are less student and more master!” 
― Mehmet Murat ildan

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

It has been a pleasure getting to know you all and sharing your experiences.

Thank you all for your readership to this blog.

I know that every time, I come here I have learned something new and I have thoroughly enjoyed being with you as we share our love of technology.

I rarely do an article on one of our clients using our Point of Sale software unless it is exceptional, the Inline 4 Cafe is such a place. It has become a mecca of motorcycle riders and many other people. 

It is partly owned by Carl Cox probably the most famous British record producer and DJ today and possibly in the world too. 

So we were so pleased after they went looking at many restaurant and cafe software systems they picked our POS system. These guys wanted the best. This restaurant is often absolutely packed and they needed something that could handle efficiently the volume.

Here is some photos, if you are going past, I do recommend a visit. 

.A competitor of us Retail Express, who probably consider us their biggest competitor released many advertisements which we considered as being misleading and deceptive. For the full history of the matter click here 

When I first started blogging about it, it was just in frustration at Retail Express to fix the matter and the incredible refusal of the major search engines to even discuss the matter.  I was told to keep a record of the matter which I have been doing. So every month, I have to check what is happening and note it down. Since it is I believe a matter for the public, I have been doing that here.

Unfortunately, the page has grown so big, that I need to split the original page which is what I am doing.

So here is the second part.

4 July 2017

It appears that there has been a change in these dubious advertisements

Clearly, they must see us as their major competitor

In Google, they now put their name in it.

They also have added another search provider and again they have put their name on the top

On the other hand, they have dropped yahoo which maybe as their daily advertising budget for that is spent, or it may mean something more.

Is someone worried about what we consider quite dubious advertising?

Update:17 July 2017

These Retail Express advertisements that I consider to be disreputable and shameful have changed again. I am wondering what it must be worth much to them to steal our traffic in such a dodgy way. Have we really taken so many customers away from them because their latest advertisements are getting very close to us again?

Here you decide whether it is misleading

August 2017 update

Well there are some changes to the current adverting by Retail Express in relation to this form of advertising, it looks like they are no longer using Bing and Yahoo for their advertising, is it Retail Express decision or Bing or Yahoo, I do not know but most PPC that use Bing also use Yahoo and Ask. As you can see nothing in Bing, Yahoo and Ask but the modified advertisements are still going out in Google.

Still it does appear that to others like Revel, vendhq or Netsuite that POS Solutions are the ones to beat if, for example, I go to a listing of the top ePOS point of sale companies and I enter in a few of them like Idealpos, I get this, not one of them is there.

Update 30/8/2017

Well as I stated it appears that several other point-of-sale software suppliers are using us as a keyword. Retail Express have not given up but now appears to be making sure that it does not appear to be "passing on."

Vend's point of sale system, NetSuite , Revel Systems and pbsapos all use this form of advertising too. Here are some screenshoots

Update Oct 2017

Overall I was very pleased at first with this month report

If I do a google search "pos solutions australia", I get this, as you can see no retail express, no-one passing off.

Then I went to bing and did the same seach

Now what do you see? Retail Express heading states "Pos Solutions - Australian...." It is getting very close.

If I do a search with ASK.COM, I get

As you can see there is no passing off there.

What really annoys me, is if I put in google "retail express", I see no passing off at all

On a personal note, I think this is really wrong what is happening here.

October 2017 report

Well as you can see its not just retail express that are doing these advertisments in October. Checkout the fedeltapos, in the ASK.COM picture where you might looking for us and never realise that it was not us and so click on it. Please let me know what you think of these sort of advertising?

December 2017 report

Well for the first time since this began, I feel positive over this. Here are searches from google, yahoo, bing and Ask. As you can see they look kosher and halal. Why did retail express and others stop, I wish I knew.

December 2017 report

Well for the first time since this began, I feel positive over this. Here are searches from google, yahoo, bing and Ask. As you can see they look kosher and halalic. Why did retail express and others stop, I wish I knew.

Jan 2018 report

Well, for the second time since this began, I feel optimistic over this. The ads, when I checked have continued to stop, I still would like to know why retail express stopped, I wish I knew.

2 Feb 2018 report

I checked, and these advertisements are still not there.

5 March 2018 report

This is great news, I am happy to report that these dubious advertisements in our monthly check are still not there.

3 April 2018 report

All good, I cannot see these dubious advertisements in our monthly checks.

<items removed>

22/August/2018 report

I checked, and these advertisements are still not there. I wonder if our recent complaints made a difference.

21/September/2018 report

I checked, and these advertisements are still not there. 

24/October/2018 report

No such advertisements are there. 

21/NOVEMBER/2018 report

No such advertisements are there. 

12/DECEMBER/2018 report

On bing, I have nothing to report

On Google, I found that Retail Express are paying for some advertisement that uses us as the keyword "POS Solutions Australia", but this advertisement by them I do not feel is misleading against us. However, I would not consider their claim valid that they are the "No 1 Inventory POS System" as they claim.

23/Jan/2019 report

On bing, I have nothing to report

On Google, I found that retail express advertisement that uses the keyword "POS Solutions Australia" is no longer there, I wonder why they stopped, I suspect that did it not work for them.

19/Feb/2019 report

On bing, I have nothing to report

On Google, I found that retail express advertisements targeted the keyword "POS Solutions Australia" but clearly marked it on their advertisement as coming from them. 

20/March/2019 report

On bing, I have nothing to report

On Google, I found that retail express advertisements targeted the keyword "POS Solutions Australia" but clearly marked it on their advertisement as coming from them. 

19/April/2019 report

Almost the reverse of March, now on Bing, I found that retail express advertisement targeted the keyword "POS Solutions Australia" but clearly marked it on their advertisement as coming from them. 

On Google, nothing to report

5/May/2019 to 19/June report

Now on both Google and Bing, I found that retail express advertisements targeted the keyword "POS Solutions Australia" but clearly marked it on their advertisement as coming from them. 

19/July/2019

I have nothing to report on Bing or google.

8 August 2019 

Now on Google, I found that retail express advertisement targeted the keyword "POS Solutions Australia" but clearly marked it on their advertisement as coming from them. 

To be continued 

Our Pet Shop management software considered the best in Australia will be on show at AusPet 2018 at the Gold Coast Convention Centre on Friday. It has more users than any other Pet Shop Software in Australia.

Its market share has also grown this year thanks to Pet Shops upgrading to our software. What I found interesting is that none of the old-time software companies that used to go to these fairs are there now. We are the last ones left. 

What at the fair, we will be showing off the very latest in Pet Shop software.

As what will be on display is the new software version that is not yet released so even if have our software it is your chance to see what is coming up. 

So if you do get to the fair, do visit our stand #128 and say hello. We are right at the exit so there is no excuse not to come and visit us.

Visit us at AusPet 2018 - Booth 128

Today is POS Solutions 35th Birthday, it was 35 years ago, it was officially established.

It was actually over 35 years, what happened that while doing work with a client ATAC, suddenly they refused to pay for the work because they were worried that the ATO would see us as employees and not as an independent company. Make it official they demanded so the next morning over my kitchen table, I brought a shelf company from my accountant and POS Solutions was officially born.

I had no business plan, with all the arrogance of a guy in his twenties, I knew that other people were writing specialised business software and that as I was the best programmer I knew and a harder worker if they could do it, so could I.

I knew it was the start of an amazing trip and I knew that our software would be better. Over the years, our software grew and developed. Today it is estimated that POS Solutions has distributed about ten thousand copies of its software. 

One question I ask myself is :

When I look back at the last 35 years, I ask myself how were we able to do so well? In business, just to survive 35 years in business is a great achievement. 

Really we had nothing, we certainly had much fewer resources than many of the other companies out there we were battling.  Whenever we went into any venture, there was always someone already in the industry, much bigger and firmly established. In the early days, my bedroom was the office. 

The answer, I think is because *We cared much more!*

How?

As we wanted to have the best software for SMB retail, we kept spending our money on programming and system development.  Our R&D budget typically is now over $1.5 million dollars a year. On any project, we generally have twice as many programmers as our competitors. 

A company that succeed do two things very well:

They have good products which we do as R&D is our biggest expense. We continue doing this as we want the best software on the market. It is because of this massive commitment to R&D that I am even more excited about the next ten years. Every day it is interesting because it is always something new. Our software is just going to do more and get better.

These successful companies also have good service, our service in our market space is considered the best. I can tell you this after 35 years, that great customer service is of the utmost importance when it comes to growing your business and I personally make sure that it is the best.

The good news is

This new technology will enable us to help more of our clients to get more productive and efficient. We feel a deep responsibility to help them more and serve them the best we can.

A big thank you

To all of you, without you, it would never have happened our 35th birthday.