Rural Supplies / Produce businesses are not your usual retail businesses. While for sure they sell items, these businesses do this often in a way and through processes that are different to everyday retail.
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 article outlines these facilities. Come back and check it out as we will add information here specifically for your type of business.
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 businesses like yours, and ours.
- Quotations. Easily create a quote based on what a customer wants. If they decide to proceed, the quote can be actioned quickly and easily.
To learn more about creating a Quote, click HERE. - Hazardous goods. Include appropriate warnings on documents provided with hazardous goods for the protection of your customers and your business.
- Make what you sell. Using the manufactured goods facilities in the software it is easy to make goods. For example, you might order feed items in bulk, combine these to your own recipe and sell your own home brand feed based on multiple raw material purchases.
To learn more about the Manufactured Goods facility, click HERE. - Share knowledge. On receipts and other touchpoint documents, include local knowledge in general or by product that shows your business as being an expert.
To learn more about showing Extended Descriptions on receipts, click HERE. - Bundled goods. Package several items together for a single price. This could be into a physical hamper or simply 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 facility in the software. It is easy to bundle and unbundle, managing stock on hand all the way through.
To learn more about the Manufactured Goods facility, click HERE. - Repairs. If you offer a repair service, you can use the repairs facility 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. Your repairs business can grow as a result.
To learn more about the Repairs facilty, 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.
- Sell by weight. This is easy and accurate. Retailer gives you the ability to specify different units of measurement such as kilograms, metres, cubic metres and price them accordingly.
To learn more about using Units of Measurement, 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. - 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 to 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.
- Layby. You have complete control over how this is setup including the terms, rules and more.
To learn more about the Layby facility, click HERE. - Manage remotely. Plenty of our 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.