Even though Tower Systems does not actively promote it’s newsagency software, it’s having a stellar year in welcoming newsagents switching to it.
Full disclosure: I started Tower Systems in 1981. I sold the business to Vela APX, part of the Constellation Group, in October 2024. I continue to work for the business today.
Newsagents are one of twenty different specialty retail marketplaces Tower serves. While making up a sizeable chunk of the customer community, more new customers come from other marketplaces combined. But, and this is what’s interesting, newsagents stand out for the new customers added to the Tower community.
Looking at the many newsagents added this year, plenty are switching from other software. Quietly and consistently, newsagents are leaving the smaller software companies. I think this is happening for a couple of reasons: the software they are leaving has not kept up and the software businesses themselves have shrunk of retreated.
Software for retailers has gone through tremendous change over the last couple of years. Embedded AI tools are a game-changer for retailers saving time and helping them make more money, for real. Software without this fails the businesses.
The cost of maintaining software is considerable. While it’s easy to make noise about software innovation, it is another thing entirely to deliver.
Software companies that don’t keep their product fresh and commercially relevant often take the route of landing profitably. By this I mean they cut costs, retreat, and make money from customers who remain. This means reducing staff, moving to a lower cost space and banking more profit.
I have seen this in several retail marketplaces. I think it may be happening in the newsagency channel. I’m not critical of it, it makes sense for the business.
A vertical market software company focussed on small business customers needs, I think, 500 or more paying customers to remain commercially viable. That does not allow for the level of new feature development necessary in 2026 and beyond. There are software companies in the newsagency channel with considerably less than 500 customers.
I think what we are seeing here is unsurprising given the transition the newsagency channel itself is experiencing with store closures, the retreat of print from newsagents and newsagency business pivots.
Years down the track, if business degrees exist, they will look at the Australian newsagency channel as a case study.
In all of this change is opportunity. Change is when the nimble thrive. I know from a Tower perspective that the early adoption of AI and introducing embedded tools has been key to success. I know that in my own newsagency, early adoption of online sales has been the biggest factor in success. I know that there are newsagents today who don’t identify as newsagents because they pivoted and are more happy in their new incarnation.
This post is about change. We are in the middle of it. I think what’s happening with newsagency software is a reflection on that.
[REMOVED] has all but abandoned us. Almost non existent support and the software is not changing. So out of date. I can’t afford to switch.
NOTE: I edited the name of the company out of this comment as the company named has, in the past, been quick to lawyer-up. Wendy, with the way software is priced today, switching is low-cost, and easy. Mark Fletcher (0418 321 338).
To be clear – I edited Wendy’s comment because she names a company that has, in the past, used lawyers to complain about comments.