Retailer, the Fishing Shop Software from Tower Systems has facilities designed for your type of business, to help you better serve your customers and to bring them back into the business.
This is all about Stickiness. Stickiness is the best way to describe what really matters to any specialty business, like a fishing and outdoors business.
Stickiness is about doing things that make customers stick to your business. Our goal is to provide facilities in the software that enhance stickiness, that make customer engagement more profitable for you.
In this article, we outline facilities that are different to what you would find in everyday POS software. Come back and check it out as we will add information here specifically for fishing and outdoor businesses.
Our goal here is to share business ideas. For technical details on how to use the facilities to which we refer, click on the links at the bottom of each section.
We believe that the more you leverage the specialisation in your business the more you differentiate your business from big business competitors. We are in an era where specialisation matters in retail, and in POS software.
- Instant loyalty rewards. Another way we can help maximise sales is with an instant loyalty reward. This is particularly useful where you see shoppers once a year or quite infrequently as is often the case in fishing and outdoor businesses.
Using rules that you control, a receipt can include a voucher offering a specific amount off the next purchase if that purchase is made in a timeframe you set.
An average 19% redemption rate for the vouchers with a third redeemed the day of purchase. Male shoppers are far more likely to redeem the day of purchase.
This instant loyalty reward facility is another way we serve your type of business. In the software, we call it discount vouchers.
To learn more about the Discount Voucher facility, click HERE. - Smart receipts. Include product care instructions on receipts, adding extra value to the purchase. Whereas a competitor will sell an item, you will sell the item plus advice on care and use.
Better still, include local fishing insights. For example, the details of a local fishing spot that is particularly good right now. Share details, how to get there, when to fish and other information. The more relevant the information you share the more it will be loved.
To learn more about adding Extended Descriptions to receipts, click HERE. - Club / community group deals / pricing. A great way to win new shoppers is through a community group. You can publish a card or voucher enabling members of a group to present this for a discount on each purchase. The software can track the purchases and at a designated time you can give the group a rebate in return for their member loyalty.
Consider being flexible of what constitutes a club. It could be that people who like to fish with a particular person are in a ‘club’.
The more groups and people you have talking about your business the better.
To learn more about the Discount Profile facility, click HERE. - Bundled goods. Package several items together for a single price. This could be into a physical hamper or simple placed with each other on the shelves with a package price. Bundling like this makes it hard for shoppers to price compare as the bundle is yours, it is what you create. To manage bundles, use the manufactured goods facilities in the software. It is easy to bundle and unbundle, managing stock on hand all the way through.
Bundles could be: rod and reel; rod, reel, net and basket; a set of handmade lures.
To learn more about the Manufactured Goods facility, click HERE. - Repairs. If you offer a repair service, you can use the repairs facilities in the software to track the work and notify the customer when a repair is ready for collection. This helps you better manage that part of the business and drive better customer outcomes. Repairs business can grow as a result.
To learn more about the Repairs facility, click HERE. - Events. Using this new facility, added Q1 2018, you can market to shoppers based on interests, past purchases, birthdays and other date related events in and around their lives. For example, you could run an email campaign for all who purchased a particular brand of reel with an offer of an add-on pack. We think it is important to leverage brands with extension marketing. We know from other marketplaces that inviting shoppers back works enough to make the small investment well worthwhile.
- BOGO. Using our Buy one get one free facility you can set offer type pricing and have it managed easily at the register, ensuring a consistent customer pricing experience.
To learn more about setting up BOGO promotions in Retailer, click HERE. - Catalogues. This facility allows you to automatically apply discounts, based on rules that you specify. There are a variety of options that you can make use of to make sales and promotions seamless during at point-of-sale.
Your marketing group or product suppliers can provide data files for any catalogues in which you participate. You can load these into the software making it easy to offer catalogue prices through the term of the catalogue offer.
To learn more about the Catalogues facility, click HERE. - Serial number tracking. If you sell any item with serial numbers you can easily track them using this facility. Customers appreciate a receipt with a serial number of the specific item they purchased, especially if the item is of a considerable value.
To learn more about the Serial Numbers facility, click HERE. - Special customer orders. This is the ability to order stock from a supplier for a specific customer. On arrival of the stock item, a barcode is printed with the customer name, for placement on to the product. The software can be set to send an alert to the customer by text or email, advising the arrival of the goods into the store. Customers love this personalisation.
To learn more about the Special Customer Orders facility, click HERE. - Gift vouchers. Sell customers who can’t decide what gift to purchase a gift voucher. Load on to this voucher any amount the customer wants. You set the rules on expiry and other voucher handling.
To learn more about the Gift Vouchers facility, click HERE. - Supplier comparison. Since you can purchase some items from multiple suppliers, use smart reports in the software to compare the performance of your various suppliers.
To learn more about the Supplier Sales Comparison Report, click HERE. - Afterpay / Humm. Integrated in Retailer is this "buy now pay later" finance option. You are settled quickly by the funder and the costs are like credit card costs. This can work better than LayBy in that you do not need to manage the goods in-store.
- Laybys. You have complete control over how this is setup including the terms, rules and more.
To learn more about the Laybys facility, click HERE. - Manage remotely. Plenty of our fishing and outdoors business owners are not in their businesses regularly. Our software has facilities that enable easy remote tracking and management. Some are obvious while others are hidden and secure, giving you peace of mind that you can leave your business.