SMS messaging lets you reach your customers in minutes!

Direct marketing is all about one-to-one marketing, a “Call to Action” and measuring response. Direct marketing has traditionally used mail, telemarketing, and more recently, email. But one of the latest forms of direct marketing is through the use of mobile phone text messaging.

This type of direct marketing has a number of advantages over older forms including low cost of delivery and very high delivery rate. It can also include more time dependent “Call to Actions”, for example, “Come in for 20 percent off Tomorrow Only”

Who should you be Texting
If you already have a customer loyalty program, then the members of this program will form the core of your text messaging campaigns. You could add to this list by running competitions that require entry by text message, thus enabling you to capture lots of mobile phone numbers to add to your text-messaging database.

It takes much more effort to get new customers than keep the ones you already have. You may have a list from contest entries or loyalty program signups on paper.

However like any direct marketing technique, the more targeted it is, the better it will work.

So rather than sending a text message to everybody on the database advising something like “All stores have 20 percent off Store-wide this Weekend”, it is much more effective to send a message like “Downtown store – 20 Percent off Ladies Shoes this Weekend” to customers that have previously bought ladies shoes from your Downtown store before.

A good Retail Management System like CONTROL will allow you to extract a list of customers that fit the target profile of any marketing campaign you develop.

For the first marketing campaign, you may want to use a small list in order to gauge effectiveness, and to ensure you have enough stock and staff support for the results. Once conversion rates are known, you are ready for larger campaigns.

How to Write your Text Message
Text messaging is more correctly known as SMS messaging, where SMS stands for Short Message Service. In most countries the message is restricted to 160 characters, so you need to carefully construct your message.

If you compose your message in a Word Processor like Word then you can use one of the inbuilt tools to check the character count (select “Word Count” in Microsoft Word for this feature).

Here are a few example messages:

Fine Threads Promo – Free Shirt with Suit Purchase Tuesday 24th – George St & Martin Place

Exclusive Invitation! – Classy Gowns New Seasonal Preview – This Tuesday the 24th – Free Champagne and Hors Doeuvres   – 6 – 9 pm – 303 George St

How do you get your Message Out
There are many companies that will send your message to your chosen list of recipients (try Googling “SMS messaging” or “Bulk SMS” for a staggering list of companies offering this service). The service providers offer a number of ways to use their service, including just sending them the list and the message via a web interface, and they will do the rest.

The service usually includes reports of which numbers had the message successfully delivered to, and which ones failed.

How to get started

1.    Check what lists you have or can build from your Loyalty Program, POS sales and returns records, or competition entries.

2.    Determine how that list can be segmented so it can be used most effectively, remembering that one customer can be placed into multiple target lists.

3.    Check Availability of Stock to be promoted.

4.    Choose a Text Messaging Vendor that provides the type of service you require.

5.    Try the program and plan for success.

6.    Carefully track in-store visits and purchases to get an idea of Conversion Rate – a POS system like CONTROL will help you do that.

Related posts:

1. 5 Retail Business Success Tips
2. Effective Retail Promotions

Retail Promotions that Increase Revenue

Retailing is always tough and even though the economy is picking up, it is always important to maximize sales.

We have previously discussed the benefits of customer loyalty programs but in this article we will focus on attracting additional customers into the store.

One historical favourite with many retailers for generating additional revenue has been the percent off sale.

The trouble is that retailing is so competitive now that it seems that there is a sale on almost every week, so this type of sale does not work as effectively as it used to. And this type of promotion substantially reduces margins without necessarily increasing turnover enough to cover the lost margin. The net effect can be reduced total profit during sale time, rather than the increase  that you were expecting.

Here is a list of modern retail promotion ideas that are designed to not only increase turnover, but to increase profit as well. None of these ideas is completely original, but you may find the list useful for when you are planning your next promotion. The examples are for a sports store, but they could be for any type of retailer.

1.    X percent off second item. Example: buy one pair of runners (at list price) and get a second pair at 50 percent off. Not only does this appear to be a better offer than the 25 percent off which it is equivalent to, but assuming your “normal” margin is at least 50 percent, then this offer is guaranteed to get at least the same amount of profit per sale as without the promotion, but the turnover should increase substantially with the promotion, thus substantially increasing profits

2.    3 for 2. Example: 3 pair of sports socks for the price of 2. Again this promotion looks better than the equivalent 33 percent off. And with some price support from the relevant supplier, can be great for increasing brand awareness, turnover and profit.

3.    Bonus item. Example: buy a new bicycle and get a free helmet from a specified range. This is again better than a flat discount as you are not sacrificing turnover. And depending on the quality, etc. of the bonus item, often the customer can be upgraded to a better quality item, complete with a healthy margin.

4.    Package deal.  Example: golf clubs, bag and buggy for $$$. Often once the customer is attracted into the store by the advertised package, they can be upgraded to an alternate “package” at higher margins. And even if they take the promoted package, the profit from the deal is higher than if the customer only bought one component of the package at the regular price.

5.    Bonus coupon. For example, buy any pair of runners and get $20 off your next purchase. This has the great advantage that the customer has to come back to the store at a later date to take advantage of the discount. So the one promotion has actually generated two sales.

CONTROL includes facilities to create and manage all these types of promotion. Please contact me at Bernie@creativecomputing.com.au for more information about promotions and how they can be easily implemented in your retail business.

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Interview with Bernie Hogan of Creative Computing

In this article, Retail Business Newsletter talks to Bernie Hogan, Managing Director of Creative Computing, about the company’s international expansion.

Retail Business Newsletter (RBN): Some of our readers might already be familiar with Creative Computing but what does your company do?

Bernie Hogan: We specialise in business systems for multi-store specialty store retailers, such as fashion, footwear, jewellery, furniture, mobile phones, etc.. Retailers that you could find in any typical shopping center.

RBN: And how long has Creative Computing been in existence?

Bernie Hogan: Our company has been operating for over 20 years. And throughout much of that time we have been developing, implementing and supporting refining  our core product CONTROL. Naturally it has gone through many upgrades and revisions over that time.

RBN: What geographic areas does Creative Computing operate in?

Bernie Hogan: For many years we have considered Australia as our market. However, in the last 3 years, we have had success outside Australia. We have gained a customer in the US; quite a large customer in Sri Lanka; and we will be able to announce our first customers in India and Singapore very soon.

RBN: So how did your company go about entering the Indian and Southeast Asian markets?  Do you have established company branches there?

Bernie Hogan: We believed it would take too long for us to establish our own offices etc. in those areas so we are working with local partners that bring their own local market knowledge.

RBN: Could tell us about one of these partners?

Bernie Hogan: Yes. One of the partners is Syntel. They are a large multi-national IT company with over 11,000 employees. They have offices throughout India, the US, Canada, Europe and Southeast Asia.

RBN: What value does Syntel bring to the partnership?

Bernie Hogan: They have a very strong retail background. Traditionally they have been providing consulting, programming and other services to large retailers, predominantly the US but increasingly to Indian domestic customers.   They now see the benefit of having a retail system product to go to market with, especially in the Indian domestic market.

RBN: Is this an exclusive partnership that you have with Syntel?

Bernie Hogan: No. The partnership with Syntel is quite important and we are fully committed to it but retail is such a big market that we believe there is plenty of opportunity for us to have more than one partner, both Tin India and other regions.

RBN: And what value does Creative Computing offer to this partnership?

Bernie Hogan: Like I said, Syntel has been working with some of the large retailers and they have some in-depth knowledge of some of those large retailers, but mostly in the back office and supply chain side. We can provide a lot of expertise about the point of sale, the in-store processing, and also more generally about the operation of mid-size retailers.

RBN: And I gather that this type of knowledge would be difficult to gain?

Bernie Hogan: We have gained our retail expertise over many years from working with many, many retailers from many different retail segments. So without employing people with that experience it would be very difficult to come by that knowledge.

Interviewer: So these projects with Indian companies such as Syntel. Do you expect the majority of projects with Syntel to be Indian, North American, European or even Australian projects?

Bernie Hogan: We are primarily focused on the Indian domestic market. However we are already working on opportunities in the US, the Middle East and other regions.

RBN: How do Point of Sale and Retail Systems in India differ to those you in Australia?

Bernie Hogan: I think the basic functionality required at the point of sale is quite similar, however there is more requirement for “management approval” of various POS functions in India. The back office varies substantially in at least two ways. One is that the tax calculating and reporting requirements are substantially more complex in India than they are Australia. Conversely, some replenishment requirements are less complex than similar size Australian retailers. However, like many things in India, I expect that level of complexity to rapidly increase among Indian organised retailers over the next couple of years. We look forward to meeting that challenge.

RBN: What about the United States? What differences are there in the software systems compared to Australia?

Bernie Hogan: I think in general the retail operation practices are similar between the two countries, but again the tax processing and reporting requirements are much more complex in the US.

The US market is obviously a mature market for retail systems and most retailers already have systems. So, like Australia, the US retail system market is primarily a replacement market, with many, many companies competing for opportunities to replace existing retail systems. However we have a very competitive offering.

RBN: What would be some advantages to a company in the US going with a product that is provided by a company such as yourself considering your Indian partnerships?

Bernie Hogan: Firstly, the licensing fees would be less than a US product with similar functionality. And Syntel brings much lower implementation costs as they can leverage people based in India.

Bernie Hogan of Creative Computing

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AWStats Webstats Example - Visitors, Monthly Graphs

Once you have found it, you can look through some various statistics and details about where people are coming from and what they are doing once they get there. Some of the things you should look at are unique visitors and time on site. Are they getting better or worse? Did you do anything to make your traffic better one month? Is it economically feasible to do that again? Here is a screenshot of what AWStats looks like.
For more information on AWstats please go here: http://awstats.sourceforge.net/

Free Tracking from Google

Google Analytics Free High Powered Stats

Your webhost probably offers free website statistics and it probably has been collecting data since when your hosting was started so that is probably a good place to start. But some people like the more polished interface, easy centralised access, paid to unpaid traffic differentiation and the Google Adwords integration that Google hosted Analytics offers. If setup properly the package can give you visitor details, conversion rates, and cost per acquisition down to a keyword level. The ability to find the “loser” keywords in your ad spend and turn them off is often the difference between a good traffic opportunity and a terrible one.

What user metrics should you look at?
As you have probably noticed there is a lot of data that you will see when you get website statistics set up properly on your website. Most of it you do not have to worry about too much. But some of the more important ones you should look at, and watch for trends that will help your business. You should review unique visitors, pageviews, and time on site to watch if they are increasing. Filled in forms, watched videos or some other conversion goal (Google) should be logged to make the determination that the traffic is more receptive to your message. If a visitor is on your site for 3 seconds it is highly unlikely they liked what they saw. You might want to start a journal and track some of the key numbers so you can watch it throughout the year. Can you or your web design team come up with ideas or changes that improve these numbers? Most stat programs will also tell you what keywords you rank well for, and how many people came from each of these terms. For more information don’t be afraid to Google on the idea that you would like to know more about. For example you might google “How to decrease bouncerate” or “how to increase pageviews”.

By spending an hour or two to learn about the reality of your web traffic, you will no doubt be better prepared to discuss future web design projects and make better marketing decisions.

Creative Computing’s mission is to design, develop, and implement systems that allow retail business owners to operate and manage the business in a holistic fashion, meeting personal and corporate objectives.

Creative Computing’s philosophy is to continually enhance the CONTROL system through communication with users and staying in touch with current retail trends, keeping CONTROL at the cutting edge of retail system functionality.

Backing up our software and your investment are our friendly support staff that will provide all the assistance required, both during the initial implementation and in the many years to come.

For more information, go to our web site: www.creativecomputing.com.au

Related posts:

1. Website Statistics help you know what is happening with your website
2. Natural Free Search Engine Traffic for your Retail Business
3. Is your Website doing all you wanted it to do?

Website Statistics Tell you Reality

Why you got a website in the first place
Most businesses, including retail businesses have a website to inform and draw new customers. Like many store owners maybe you tried to avoid having a website for a few years, but eventually you had to give in. You have a website now and you think all your responsibilities are over in that department. That is not entirely true. Just because you have a website  does not means that it is doing all that it could be doing. In fact at this stage most people start to realise: they have no idea how many people go to their website and what brought them there in the first place.

What is the Reality of your Website Traffic?
To take your website to the next level or to make sure it is well rounded in how it gets visitors you need to know how many people come to your website, where they come from, and what they do on your website once they get there. Maybe you can make some assumptions about what they do because you get phone calls or emailed forms directly attributable to your website.

But what percentage of web visitors do that? 100%? 5%? 1%? 0.05%?

The reality is that most people have no idea. They assume that visitors are all the same and the sources of traffic are equally valuable. But not everyone who views your website will contact your business. Knowing the percentage of web visitors that  contact you helps you determine what the real value of an average web visitor is. And when you start to do specific methods of advertising, knowing how that particular traffic behaves on your site is imperative for you to determine it’s value. And all of that makes a huge difference in how you should position your website. Today we are going to talk about some of the ways that will help you know what people are doing when they get to your website. Are you interested in spending some money on website advertising? We will talk about how to track each spend and determine if that type of marketing should be done again.

Software that helps you understand your web traffic
One of the things that is great about website traffic is that it is much more trackable than other mediums of advertising. If you buy an ad in a magazine that has 100,000 circulation, there is no way of knowing how many people actually look directly at your ad for more than a few seconds. With online advertising because of the trackable click to your site, the ability to measure how long a visitor is on your site, and what they do when they are there; online advertising is the most trackable way to advertise. What you need to do is make sure the tracking is installed and working and then occasionally monitor it.

Click for our followup article on 2 Ways to Implement Free Website Statistics.

Creative Computing’s mission is to design, develop, and implement systems that allow retail business owners to operate and manage the business in a holistic fashion, meeting personal and corporate objectives.

Creative Computing’s philosophy is to continually enhance the CONTROL system through communication with users and staying in touch with current retail trends, keeping CONTROL at the cutting edge of retail system functionality.

Backing up our software and your investment are our friendly support staff that will provide all the assistance required, both during the initial implementation and in the many years to come.

For more information, go to our web site: www.creativecomputing.com.au

Related posts:

1. 2 Free Choices for Website Statistics
2. Is your Website doing all you wanted it to do?

5 Retail Store Tips to more Customers

1. Capture customer details. Gather names and contact information any way you can. If you’re a primarily online business, you can offer newsletters or specials for registered members. If you’re a more traditional retail business establishment you can collect business cards in a drawing or request information on feedback forms. Ever enter a drawing? You wanted to win so you wanted to be contacted.

2. Create a customer reward program. It can be a free meal or dessert on the customer’s birthday, “Buy 6 cups of coffee get the 7th free” special, or an invitation-only sale for preferred customers before the normal sale. Rewarding customers for loyalty is a good business practice and you can see it at many large chain businesses. Do you think they do it on a lark?

3. Use e-mail and direct-mail methods. Informing customers about promotions, new products or other news gives you an excuse to remind them about your business. This newsletter was a bit difficult to setup at first but gets easier every time. There are services that make it easier, and software that automates much of it.

4. Distribute promotional items. Calendars, pens, refrigerator magnets, and mouse pads branded with your corporate identity are another tried-and-true method of reminding customers of your business. There truly is a fine line between being overtly marketing and giving someone something that is useful and not obtrusive. Try to think: Would I appreciate and keep that item if a company gave it to me?

5. Make customer service a top goal. There’s simply no substitute for creating a positive brand experience. You must be able to deliver on time, soothe customers’ ruffled feathers, and make customers happy to be your customer. Companies such as Apple, Rolex, and Mercedes can charge premium prices by making customer service a top priority and making ownership something you want and pursue with their company.

Creative Computing’s mission is to design, develop, and implement systems that allow retail business owners to operate and manage the business in a holistic fashion, meeting personal and corporate objectives.

Creative Computing’s philosophy is to continually enhance the CONTROL system through communication with users and staying in touch with current retail trends, keeping CONTROL at the cutting edge of retail system functionality.

Backing up our software and your investment are our friendly support staff that will provide all the assistance required, both during the initial implementation and in the many years to come.

For more information, go to our web site: www.creativecomputing.com.au

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1. Knowing Your Customer One of the Keys to Retail Success
2. Natural Free Search Engine Traffic for your Retail Business

Not quite sure what the Local Business Center is?

Go to Google.com.au. Search your business name, then your city or your state. For our company, Creative Computing the search would be “creative computing” What pops up is several listings that are natural, and then the third result is the Local Business Center with a map. Pretty nice, don’t you think? That is a good way for your business to make sure that you rank for several of the first listings in Google for your name. In our case, there was a computer magazine in the USA from a longtime ago with the same name as our company. This Local Business Center listing helps make sure that you have the best chance of outranking other listings and pushing them down. It also gives people an easy way to get to a map to your business or the phone number.

Creative Computing Search with Local Results

Okay. Now, try this search. Enter your area of business (area of expertise),  city, state, or country. For Creative Computing, one search would be “pos sydney”. What shows up currently in Google is different than just 10 links like normal! Looking at our search, we show up, in the middle of the 6 or 7 businesses listed next to the map, near the top amidst the other companies that offer similar services.  This is an example of universal search and it happens most often when someone types in a keyword plus a city or address.

POS Sydney Local Business Center

To find your business or some competitors you might need to narrow the search more. If we type in “POS St Leonard’s” the listings get more exact and now we are number one for that search.

Another search that currently shows maps with results is “Pizza Sydney”.  If you go to Google and search for “pizza Sydney” you will see some listings with a map and a link to reviews of the restaurant chains.  The example is below. This is a great way to tell customers more about your business. Of course it is also a way that angry customers can vent about poor service. Currently some of those reviews are negative, about 2 hour delivery times.

Pizza Sydney Local Business Center

Where did your company pop up in a search of your industry and city? Was it on the list? Chances are either (a) your company is not listed OR (b) it is listed, but there is some piece of information that is amiss… like the wrong address, incorrect phone number, no operating hours, or no link to your website. Pictures and videos can be added as well.

If searches for your keyword and city are showing map results you probably should try to get a listing that shows in those results.

How do you get control over your business listing in Google? It’s actually pretty easy, takes less than ten minutes and is FREE!

1. Sign up with Google. Go to Google Accounts. Enter an e-mail, a password and set up a Google Account. Google will send you a confirmation e-mail with a link. You should get that within 10 seconds of setting up your account. Open the e-mail, click the link and your Google account is activated.

www.google.com/local/add

2. Log into your new Google account, then in a Google search, type in “Local Business Center.” This will take you to a sign up page. Enter your business name, address, phone, fax, web, etc. Sometimes, Google recognizes your address and gives you an option to “Claim This Listing.” Sometimes, it actually posts a listing that is your old address. And sometimes, it has no record of any address. If the listing is not 100% accurate, do not claim it. Go ahead and click “Enter a New Listing.”

3. Once you have done this, you will be asked to verify your listing. You have three choices probably: telephone, SMS, or postcard. If you are sitting in your office, it’s easy go the telephone route. Just click “Verify by Telephone” and Google will call you within seconds. It’s an automated call, follow the instructions and enter the Verification PIN Number. Then you are verified and the listing(s) will start showing up in Google soon. It might be best to check back the next day.

4. Within 24 hours, your listing will be active in Google Maps and in the Local Business Center.

What else can you do with the Local Business Center? You can obtain reviews from customers, post photos, film and post videos, create coupons, update your contact information, give details about your payment methods, and offer general service descriptions. Most importantly, by creating and updating your listing, you keep Google in the loop with your latest business info. And, after all, who is better equipped to broadcast your business’ most current information than you?

Our core product CONTROL is an integrated and scalable Retail Management System for retail stores, wholesale, franchise and manufacturing businesses. It provides a unique blend of premade modules, custom integration and tuning to give businesses the great results, more reliably, faster, and more cost effectively than completely custom solutions.

To find out how we can help you run your business please tell us about your business or visit us at our homepage.

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Natural Free Marketing Tactics for Retail Businesses

In past newsletter articles we have discussed the popularity of researching retail purchases online. The three large portions of Internet Promotion for websites are Natural Search Engine Traffic, Paid Search Engine Traffic, and Links from other websites. In this article we will talk about SEO or natural Search engine traffic. It is the traffic most websites get free and naturally from the standard creation of pages and content on their site. With changes to your website this traffic can increased. It is valuable targeted traffic and can help you get a leg up on your competition.

What Natural Traffic is:
Natural Search Engine Traffic is the traffic that comes to your website free from search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. There are more search engines but those are the main ones and comprise the majority of traffic generated free from search engines. These search engines all have automated programs called robots that scour the web and actually read the material on your website and decide what that website is about. They apply formulas that change with time and further refine what each site and page is perceived to be about. Then when someone searches for a term like “Sydney Restaurant” the search engine compares it’s database with the search term and determines the most likely relevant pages to show. They are decided based on what content is on the page and the amount and type of links to a website.

How to do Bad Search Engine Optimisation:
To get more traffic from this type of search you should have your most relevant services and products typed more often on your page. If you do not, the search engines cannot determine that your company sells that type of product. So if you never mention a keyword on your product it is unlikely the search engines like Google will know your site is about that. Additionally there are strong and trusted places to put your keywords on your website. If you do not do this it is considered bad web form. The strongest place to use your keywords is in the <title> tag. This should be done on the home page and all subpages if possible. Or at least the pages with lots of content. Additionally Tthe header tag of each page should be used and include the keyword.

How to do Good Search Engine Optimisation:
• Unique Title Tags on all Product Pages if possible
• Header Tags <h1,h2,etc> that include unique content and somewhat match the Title Tag
• The main page keyword used in the content of the page.
• A good site structure that promotes ease of use.
• A linking structure that sometimes uses the keyword in the linked text (blue underlined).

Need more help?
Look at other sites: You can find more help by using Google to search for your chosen keywords or phrases. Then go to the top ranking pages and look for that word or phrase on the page. That is what has worked for them. See how many times they use the term? Where it is used on the page and code? In our example above we mentioned “Sydney Restaurants”, here is the Google search for that term.
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&ei=oGcKSrHvFdKUkAWgy5WlCw&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=sydney+restaurants&spell=1
All of the sites on the front page have “Sydney” and “Restaurants” in the title tag and on the page in various places. This all helps and you should look at your competitors page and mimic what they do well and then do it better.

Google SEO Articles: There are countless articles on the Internet about Search Engine traffic. You can look at some of them and learn more. This article is just a primer and some people have spent years on this and many large companies have departments of people working on this one issue. You may not have the budget to hire someone but you can learn from other’s expertise.

Talk to your Webmaster: You can discuss SEO with your web designer(s) and see what their background is and if they do that themselves or can outsource it. They may have to work with the Internet Marketer at some point so it is good that they have some planning time and can coordinate with whoever is doing the changes.

Buy a Book: There are typically fairly good books at bookstores or on Amazon.com. They may not have the latest information but will  have a good rundown on keyword selection and how to accomplish better traffic. Best to get one from a reputable author and a very recent published date so the information is fairly relevant. A good online ebook on SEO is seobook.com by Aaron Wall. He is a noted authority on search engines and keeps this online book quite up to date. His continuing forum is a bit expensive but may be what you need to get your feet wet.

Hire an Internet Marketing Company: There are consultants and companies that do Search Engine Optimisation as a job and concentrate their practice on it. Some of the bigger companies require large budgets and typically handle different aspects of your website from branding, strategy, web design and then marketing. Finding a company that is a good match might take some time but the resulting traffic should be well worth the effort.

Creative Computing’s mission is to design, develop, and implement systems that allow retail business owners to operate and manage the business in a holistic fashion, meeting personal and corporate objectives.

Creative Computing’s philosophy is to continually enhance the CONTROL system through communication with users and staying in touch with current retail trends, keeping CONTROL at the cutting edge of retail system functionality.

Backing up our software and your investment are our friendly support staff that will provide all the assistance required, both during the initial implementation and in the many years to come.

For more information, go to our web site: www.creativecomputing.com.au

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1. Get free rankings with Google Local Business Center
2. 2 Free Choices for Website Statistics

Website Marketing for your Retail Business

You try to do all that your business needs to succeed. You pick a good location. You choose the right products and sell them at the right price. You train staff and try to give them a good environment to sell in. You advertise in the places that you advertised in before, and seemed to make an impact. But recently  most business, even retail business has changed and how customers are drawn to retail businesses have changed from more traditional advertising channels such as yellow pages and walk in traffic.

What has changed Retail Lead Generation is the internet. I imagine that  you go online to research products and services for you and your business. Whethere they have a physical location or not. And so do a lot of other people.

The amount of time people spent online cannot be underestimated. In March of 2008 research showed that Australians were spending more time on the internet than watching TV for the first time. Weekly it averages 13.7 hours in this survey and is expected to continue to rise.
And these people go online to do research on items they are considering buying. 

Australian Centre for Retail Studies research analyst Alana Jones says that up to 50 per cent of consumers do some online research before shopping “in store”. Since so many people now go online to do some research, your business really should be positioned to be seen by some of these shoppers. And to be the retail store they walk into to do the final evaluation and purchase.

And the findings from the Australian Centre for Retail Studies mimics other studies that say that people often go online to research a purchase, read specifications and reviews, and then ultimately go into a store and purchase the item. Being found online and being a good authority for what they are interested in purchasing is a valuable position.

Now is a good time to review what your website is, what it currently does, and what you might want it to be. Many businesses created their website 4 or 5 years ago when they were told that it would be important to have a web presence. Many of us saw it like a business card or brochure. A needed business accompaniment that we had to have, with some basic info about what we did, locations of our business, or how to get in touch with us.

But it should be so much more than that. It could be an informational brochure that can change for seasonal, cyclical or news events. It can be an advertisement that can tell you exactly how many people have looked at it and what they did when they looked at it. And it can be a hub that gives information to the latest in social media outlets such as Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin. In future articles we will touch on some specific actions you can do to make your business more visible on the internet. And that 50 percent  number of people that go online to research items? It is expected to grow at 5% for the next 5 years. That would bring the total percentage to 75% of shoppers that do research online.

Creative Computing’s mission is to design, develop, and implement systems that allow retail business owners to operate and manage the business in a holistic fashion, meeting personal and corporate objectives.

Creative Computing’s philosophy is to continually enhance the CONTROL system through communication with users and staying in touch with current retail trends, keeping CONTROL at the cutting edge of retail system functionality.

Backing up our software and your investment are our friendly support staff that will provide all the assistance required, both during the initial implementation and in the many years to come.

For more information, go to our web site: www.creativecomputing.com.au

Related posts:

1. Website Statistics help you know what is happening with your website
2. Natural Free Search Engine Traffic for your Retail Business
3. 2 Free Choices for Website Statistics

Stimulus Bill coming to your Business?

What the Proposed Tax Allowance means to retailers
Today’s Post is quite a bit different from our normal posts in that we normally discuss Retail Business Tips or how to use Retail Management Systems to make your business run better. But today we are going to discuss the Federal Governments proposed Investment Allowance. This $2.7 billion Business Tax Break is a part of the Government’s $42 billion Nation Building and Jobs Plan.

What is the Investment Allowance?
This draft Investment Allowance legislation states that if you purchase any eligible asset before 30 June 2009 and install it by 30 June 2010, you will be entitled to a bonus tax deduction of 30% of the cost of the asset. If the purchase is made after 30 June 2009, the tax deduction will drop to 10%. These bonus tax deductions are in addition to the normal deductions applying to these types of purchases. (For more details please visit Australian Government Treasury site or consult you tax advisor).
What does the proposed Tax Break mean for your business?
The proposed Investment Allowance is a great opportunity, particularly if you have been considering updating your computer systems in the next 12 to 18 months. The proposed Investment Allowance can provide a smart way to maximise and extend your IT budget.

Example.

POS Business Investment Allowance

You purchase a new retail business system before 30 June 2009 and install it before 30 June 2010. The new system includes $20,000 worth of qualifying assets. You are entitled to a BONUS tax deduction of $6,000, in addition to the normal deductions for this type of purchase.

Even if you lease the new system, it is proposed that the lease company will claim the benefit of the Investment Allowance and pass on the savings as reduced lease rates.

Actions to consider Taking.
If you have been considering updating or replacing part or all of you retail business system, it would be VERY advantageous to make a commitment before June 30 2009, for installation before June 30 2010.

How can Creative Computing help?
We are familiar with the proposed legislation.  If you wish to take advantage of this opportunity, we suggest you contact Shaun on 1300 646 536,  to discuss your particular requirements, or email us.

We are expecting to receive a large number of enquiries about this in the next few weeks so we advise you contact us soon so you don’t miss out on this great opportunity.

Read about it! Creative Computing has written a more thorough report that has some added examples of businesses and their management hardware purchases. You can view the full Business Tax Allowance here

Disclaimer: Creative Computing provides Retail Management Solutions including Point of Sale, Inventory Management, Profitability, and Customer Relationship Management to small, medium and large businesses.  However, we do not provide taxation or accounting advice, so for financial issues, we recommend you seek advice from your tax accountant or finance department.

Related posts:

1. Australian Business Tax Allowance Bill Becomes Law