Ten months ago, we embarked on a small experiment: building a POS software connected Shopify website for a local suburban Melbourne newsXpress shop on a tight budget. The goal was to test the waters and see what could be achieved with minimal investment.

That website has, as at the end of April 2025, racked up more than $125,000 in online sales.

What a huge boost to the physical shop!

Starting with a modest product range, the website quickly began generating sales. In just the past seven weeks, this simple online store has raked in over $18,000 without any additional marketing spend or inventory investment. This new video from us takes you behind the scenes on what we have been able to do through the Hugs and Love website integration with our POS software.

The Hugs and Love website (www.hugsandlove.com.au) is a prime example of how seamlessly integrating Tower Systems POS software with Shopify can streamline online sales and fulfilment processes for local businesses. This powerful combination allows businesses to efficiently manage their inventory, process orders, and fulfill purchases both in-store and online.

By leveraging the strength of these two platforms, local shops can:

– Expand their reach: Attract new customers and increase sales beyond their physical storefront.

– Simplify operations: Streamline inventory management and order processing, saving time and reducing errors.

– Enhance customer experience: Offer a convenient and efficient online shopping experience.

The experience with this website has been valuable in helping us take care of the tech for local small business retailers and provide business advice for implementation, advice based on lived experience.

With so many offering website development services, we differentiate ourselves by providing business operational advice and support to make the revenue dream from online sales a reality.

Everything we do in this POS software / Shopify integration space is about maximising profit for the local small business retailers we are grateful to serve. Our innovation with Shopify is part of this.

Profit is vital in any business and especially vital in local small retail businesses.

If you are a small business retailer looking to earn more money from online sales, Tower Systems can help. Our team of experts will work with you to create a customised solution that meets your unique needs. We can demonstrate our POS software and demonstrate integrations like with we have done with Shopify for many of our customers. Better still, we can connect you with many other retailers for whom we have done this already.

Tower Systems is a small business focussed POS software company developing, and supporting POS software for niche specialty retailers.

Here is a video we made five months ago.

newsXpress shops across Australia are running a local in-store Mother’s Day competition. Each store has a prize pack valued at close to $400.00 to give away to a local shopper. Locals love it when a local wins.

Every card purchase is eligible to enter, not only Mother’s Day. This has been key to above-average card sales growth for newsXpress stores over the last year – this Mother’s Day promotion is the fourth of a series of seasonal promotions.

newsXpress funds the promotion for members: providing the prize packs, the in-store collateral, digital assets and more. We do this with some support from Henderson Greetings and Simson Cards.

A vital piece of this promotion is the analysis using our POS software data. This is key to the evolution of these campaigns to maximise the value for retailers. Our retail and tech expertise combine to help our local retailers cultivate more valuable businesses.

If you haven’t shopped for Mother’s Day yet, please shop local, preferably in a newsagency. There you’ll find many local Aussie made cards that also do good by supporting a local charity you’re bound to love.

Congratulations to Ravi for the fresh and fun shopping experience he and the crew are bringing to newsXpress Newstead in Tasmania. A good news story about a newsagency business on the front page of the local daily newspaper is good news for our channel. This is from The Launceston Examiner yesterday.

This is a newsXpress business, the second for Ravi. newsXpress helps its members transform their businesses, to make them enjoyable and profitable.

The future of the Aussie newsagency has been in the news late last year thanks to what we’d label inaccurate reporting by the ABC.

We are grateful to Henry Johnstone of Real Commercial for their interest in our opinion on the future of the newsagency. This video reflects our opinion on commentary about this topic and we explore why we take a different view to some others, a few we back with current data.

newsXpress helps local newsagents thrive.