Tag: point of sale

Your shop and your website should share one brain

Your customers stopped seeing a line between your shop and your website a long time ago if the products in your shop are the products on your website.

They browse on the phone, buy at the counter, and quietly expect you to know both. For an independent retailer the answer to that is not some six-figure platform. It is far simpler. Your counter sales and your online store need to share one set of stock numbers and one view of the customer.

When they do not, you are really running two businesses that happen to share a name.

Here is how that plays out. A sale at the counter does not drop the online stock count, so you oversell and disappoint someone. Your best sellers hide, because the data sits in two places and neither tells the whole story. And you lose evenings reconciling numbers that should have reconciled themselves.

What you actually want is unremarkable, and that is the point.

  • One stock count that both the counter and the website draw from.
  • A sale in either channel adjusting stock everywhere, straight away.
  • One customer record, so history and loyalty follow the shopper.
  • One report that shows the whole business, not two half-pictures.

One warning. No system fixes sloppy stock discipline on its own. The shops that run lean are the ones that count consistently, kill dead lines quickly, and trust their numbers because everything writes to the same record. Software supports that. It does not replace it.

And you do not have to solve it all at once. Start by connecting your point of sale to your online store so stock stays in step, and ask your provider what they already offer, because many independent systems now handle this well. The tidy-up is usually less work than the daily friction of keeping two systems apart. Get stock unified first, then worry about the customer view.

One step at a time is perfectly fine.

We help retailers leverage opportunities like this every day. Not as a one size fits all approach though, since every retailer is in a different situation.

Find out more: help@newsxpress.com.au.

The surcharge is about to disappear. Here is how to be ready.

On 1 October, the little card surcharge plenty of retailers have been adding at the counter goes away.

The Reserve Bank has confirmed it. From that date you cannot surcharge eftpos, Visa or Mastercard, and the card networks will enforce it through your merchant agreement. This is not a proposal you can wait out. It is coming.

For most of us in this channel the surcharge was a quiet way to claw back the cost of taking cards. That option is gone. The cost is not. It just moves onto your margin unless you do something about it.

So here is what we would do between now and September.

Ring your terminal provider first. Most systems will not turn surcharging off by themselves, and we have seen plenty of shops assume they will. Get it confirmed in writing. While you are at it, check your point of sale so no card fee is quietly sitting as a line on a receipt after the date.

Then look at your prices. Work out what accepting cards actually costs you as a share of sales. For a typical newsagency it is small, often well under two per cent, but it is real money over a year. Decide whether you wear it or lift a handful of base prices to cover it. A broad, gentle adjustment beats fiddling with every ticket.

There is a sweetener most people are missing. The RBA is cutting interchange fees at the same time, so your underlying cost of taking cards should fall. But that saving only reaches you if your provider passes it on, and there is no rule forcing them to. Ask them straight what your new rate will be. If the answer is vague, that is your cue to compare offers.

Handle this calmly and it becomes a small win rather than a headache. One honest price at the counter. No surprise fee at the terminal. No awkward chat while a customer waits. The shops that sort this out early in September will simply look more professional than the ones scrambling on the last weekend.

Find out more: help@newsxpress.com.au.