Zeller Reports

Love it or hate it, Black Friday is here to stay and if your business is taking part, you’ll be tapping into the $6.7 billion that is set to be splashed over the Black Friday–Cyber Monday weekend this year—a 4% increase on last year’s figures.  Black Friday—falling on Friday 28 November, 2025—has become the unofficial start of Australia’s Christmas shopping season. In recent years, it has evolved from a single day into a full sales period, with many retailers launching promotions as early as 18 November. With Australians spending at record levels, now is the time for retailers to make sure they’re set up to capture as much of that demand as possible. To help you prepare, we’ve put together 8 Black Friday strategies to maximise your success during the year’s busiest sales weekend. 1. Give your customers FOMO Black Friday shoppers expect to see limited-time deals. By giving them a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out), they’re much more likely to buy immediately instead of waiting or shopping around. Similarly, if customers think stock is limited or the deal is exclusive, the perceived value increases, even if they weren’t planning on buying right away. FOMO reduces the time a customer spends comparing or overthinking. They’re less likely to abandon their cart if they feel they might lose the deal.  Ensure your website and/or your store clearly communicate urgency. Use messaging like: “Ends at midnight”, “Only 24 hours left”, “Only 12 left at this price”, “Selling fast—over 500 sold today.” You could also use countdown timers on your website or on your social media. Learn how to add a countdown timer to your Instagram story here . Just be aware that if you advertise a limited-time offer, you are legally obligated to honour it under Australian Consumer Law (see point 7 for more on this). 2. Create deals without discounts Get creative with your Black Friday offers. If your margins are tight, you don’t have to rely on blanket discounts to drive sales, you could try bundles, tiered deals like “Buy More, Save More,” hourly flash sales, mystery boxes, or limited-edition drops that create excitement without reducing prices.  Focus on your best-sellers or high-intent products to maximise conversions, and don’t be afraid to test different formats throughout the weekend to see what resonates with your audience. Pair every offer with clear urgency (see above) to encourage shoppers to act quickly.  3. Offer Buy Now Pay Later options Many customers use Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales as an opportunity to tick off their entire Christmas shopping list. While it’s a big outlay for just one weekend, Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) programs like Afterpay, Zip, and Klarna make it more manageable by allowing customers to spread payments over weeks or months. This flexibility encourages shoppers to buy more than they might with a single upfront payment, helping businesses increase basket sizes, and sell higher-ticket items.  Ahead of Black Friday weekend, speak to your payment provider about integrating a BNPL option to your online or in-store sales. With Zeller Terminal , setting up Afterpay is straightforward. Simply follow the steps to offer Afterpay card payments with Zeller Terminal here .  4. Offer early access to subscribers If you already have an email database, make the most of it in the lead-up to Black Friday by giving subscribers early access to your offers. Exclusive previews not only drive anticipation but also reward loyal customers. If you run a loyalty program, consider offering bigger discounts to your VIP members or inviting them to an after-hours, invite-only shopping event. These personalised perks create a sense of novelty and recognition—and the more valued your customers feel, the more likely they are to make a purchase. 5. Ensure your checkout is optimised If you run an online-only store, your website will make or break your Black Friday performance. With higher traffic expected, speak to your web developer ahead of time to ensure your site can handle the surge. Even a few seconds of slow loading—or friction in the checkout process—can quickly translate into abandoned carts and lost revenue. The same principle applies in-store: your payment experience must be fast, reliable, and friction-free. Slow EFTPOS machines, limited card acceptance, or high transaction fees can lead to frustrated customers and reduced profits. Zeller Terminal accepts all cards—including American Express and China UnionPay —for one low flat fee of 1.4%, and you can enable surcharging for a fee-free solution. Zeller also gives you built-in backup. If you realise you need extra terminals to keep up with demand, you can turn your phone into an EFTPOS machine. Simply download Zeller App and enable Tap to Pay . It takes minutes to set up and could save you thousands in missed sales if queues start forming.  6. Boost your customer support More customers mean more customer service — so it pays to be prepared. Whether that’s rostering on additional staff, updating and expanding the FAQ section of your website, or integrating a chatbot to handle common queries, planning ahead helps you stay ahead of the rush. The smoother and more responsive your support experience is, the easier it is to keep customers happy throughout the Black Friday weekend, reduce pressure on your team, and prevent small issues from turning into lost sales. 7. Avoid false advertising Although you might be tempted to extend a limited-time offer if you’re flooded with sales, this would constitute false advertising under Australian Consumer Law. It pays to understand what your legal obligations are ahead of time, so that you can steer clear of unlawful advertising.  Businesses cannot falsely claim “site-wide” or “store-wide” sales, if not everything is on sale. You also cannot state “up to X% off” promotions if only a handful of products reach that discount, and you cannot use “was/now” strikethrough pricing that isn’t supported by a genuine previous selling price. Retailers also shouldn’t create a false sense of urgency through misleading limited-time offers or hide important exclusions and conditions in fine print. The ACCC actively monitors Black Friday promotions and can issue infringement notices and significant penalties for breaches.  While consumers are entitled to refunds for faulty products, retailers may set conditions on change-of-mind returns during sales periods provided these policies are clearly communicated. Ahead of Black Friday weekend, ensure you have updated the returns policy on your receipts.  With Zeller, you can quickly change the information that appears on receipts from either your Zeller Dashboard or directly on Zeller Terminal. Learn how to customise your Zeller receipt setting here . 8. Follow up after purchase Black Friday shouldn’t just be seen as a one-off sales event—it’s also an opportunity to capture new customer data and turn one-time shoppers into repeat buyers. For online stores, this is straightforward, as customer information is automatically collected and stored in your CMS. For bricks-and-mortar retailers, it requires a bit more creativity. Encourage customers to join your mailing list or follow your social accounts by offering a small gift or extra discount, run a competition requiring an email entry, or use QR codes at the point of sale to collect contact details. With Zeller, you can add a custom image to your receipts or terminal screensaver featuring a QR code that links to your newsletter signup or Instagram account. By making it easy for customers to engage at checkout—when they already have their phones out to pay—you create a frictionless way to build a valuable database of engaged customers. This enables you to follow up with targeted offers and promotions long after Black Friday has ended.

The difference between a business that thrives and one that stalls often comes down to one thing: how well cash flow is managed. In this article, we explain why having a real-time reporting engine like Zeller Dashboard is key to your cash flow management strategy – and why your bank is holding you back . The key to healthy business cash flow is twofold: monitoring and acting . Knowing where your cash is coming from and going is one thing; using that insight to guide your decisions is another. Master both, and you’ll strengthen your business’s financial health – setting yourself up for long-term success and growth.  However, keeping track of your finances can quickly become overwhelming when cash is moving through multiple bank accounts, EFTPOS systems, invoicing tools, and expense platforms. One of the smartest cash flow management strategies is to bring everything together in one place. That’s where Zeller Dashboard comes in. By uniting your business’s financial activity in one online dashboard, it gives you detailed insights and real-time visibility that your traditional bank can’t match. From tracking sales and invoice payments to managing expenses and accruing interest, read on to discover three ways you can harness Zeller Dashboard to take control of your business cash flow. What is Zeller Dashboard? Zeller is an all-in-one financial platform that helps businesses accept payments, manage their money, and pay expenses – all from one place. At the heart of it is Zeller Dashboard: a central hub for tracking your financial position in real-time, and enabling you to use that data and insight to improve business cash flow. It transforms your financial information into clear, actionable reports and insights that help you make smarter, more informed decisions. Every way that cash flows in and out of your business is tracked on Zeller Dashboard. Read on to learn how. 1. Cash flow in: card payments, invoices, and POS See all your incoming sales in one place – no matter how your customers pay. In Zeller Dashboard, your latest transactions are automatically compiled into a single report under the Payments tab (and in the Latest Payments preview on the Overview page). This report brings together payments from five different sources: Terminal, Point of Sale, Invoice, Dashboard, and Zeller App. Below, we’ve outlined each source and explained how to uncover specific insights for each within Zeller Dashboard. 1. Terminal Terminal refers to any payment accepted through Zeller Terminal . If your business uses multiple terminals, you can rename each device for easy identification and more detailed tracking. For example, to find a specific transaction processed at your ‘Front Bar – St Kilda’ device, simply filter transactions by that terminal name. You can also assign terminals to specific sites, allowing you to view all payments from a particular location by filtering by Site. To filter transactions, go to Payments > Transactions, then click on the magnifying glass icon in the top right hand corner. 2. Point of Sale Point of Sale refers to any payment processed through your POS system – whether it’s Zeller POS Lite or another POS integrated with Zeller Terminal . If you’re using Zeller POS Lite, you can view detailed insights into your sales within Zeller Dashboard by navigating to the POS Lite tab. Here, you’ll find visual reports showing your Top Items by Revenue and Top Items by Quantity Sold. For deeper analysis, you can export a detailed sales breakdown – including the number of units sold, prices, SKUs, and categories – to create customised reports. You can also filter by specific dates and times, such as reviewing how many of one item you sold during the Christmas period last year compared to the year before, helping you forecast stock and ingredient orders more accurately. 3. Invoice Invoice refers to any Zeller Invoice paid by card (invoices paid via bank transfer appear in the Finance tab – see below). In the Invoices tab, you can view all your invoices – paid, unpaid, or drafted – and filter them to find exactly what you need. You can also create new invoices directly from this tab, making it easy to manage your billing in one place. To see a rolled-up or month-by-month summary of all your invoice payments, head to the Overview page and filter by Invoices. This gives you a clear snapshot of your invoicing performance and cash flow at a glance. 4. Dashboard  Dashboard payments refer to any payment received via Zeller Virtual Terminal . This feature lets you send a secure payment link directly from Zeller Dashboard via email, SMS, or any platform you choose. Your customers can then pay privately using their card details, from anywhere, at their convenience. You can find more detailed reporting about these payments under Transactions within the Payments tab. 5. Zeller App  Zeller App Payments refer to any sales made using Tap to Pay on Zeller App , an EFTPOS solution that works on Apple and Android smartphones. Like Zeller Terminal, you can name your devices for easy tracking – for example, ‘Helen’s iPhone XR’ – and assign them to specific sites, then filter transactions by device or site on the Transactions page. Sales from the above channels are settled nightly, 365 days a year. Once settled into your Zeller Transaction Account , your balance is updated automatically on the Accounts page, as well as in the Finance tab on the Overview page. From here, your funds are ready to be used.  2. Cash flow out: debit cards and expense management Once your funds have settled, they’re ready to pay for your business expenses. For even greater clarity on where your money is going, Zeller Dashboard lets you create unlimited accounts and cards, giving you detailed insights into your outgoing cash flow. A smart cash flow management strategy is to set up multiple Zeller Transaction Accounts for different purposes – for example, marketing, direct costs, GST/PAYG/Super, operations, payroll, rent, or subscriptions and software. You can then link individual Zeller Debit or Corporate Cards to each account. Corporate cards are especially useful for managing team or project expenses, allowing you to set individual budgets, reset periods, and maximum transaction limits per card. In the Accounts tab, you can view your total available balance at a glance and track all transactions, including settlements, transfers in and out, and card spending. 3. Cash accrued: growing your business savings and cash flow management strategies By regularly monitoring the Payments and Finance tabs in Zeller Dashboard, you’ll gain a clear picture of your business’s cash inflows and outflows over time. What you do with these insights is what will make the biggest difference in improving your cash flow. Here’s how you can harness Zeller Dashboard to inform decisions that strengthen your finances: Daily: Review transactions in real time Whether you’re on your laptop or checking via the Zeller App , make a habit of reviewing sales and expenses throughout the day. Watch for anything that seems out of place – unusually low transaction values or unexpectedly high expenses. You know your business, so spotting outliers is often quick and easy. Once a week: Review the previous week’s sales At the start or end of each week, compare last week’s sales in Zeller Dashboard against your goals or past results. If you’ve fallen short, act early: increase sales, cut non-essential spending, or both. This could mean ramping up marketing efforts or pausing discretionary expenses until cash flow improves. Once a month: Identify trends With a month of data, start spotting patterns – busiest days, peak trading hours, and product performance. Use these insights to optimise staffing, opening hours, and stock levels, ensuring you’re resourced where and when demand is highest. Comparing month-to-month or year-on-year data can reveal seasonal trends. For example, October is the time to prepare for the busy summer season: reviewing last year’s sales can help you know when to hire Christmas casuals or order extra stock. Ongoing: Build a cash reserve Once you know roughly how much surplus cash you generate each week – profits not needed for immediate spending – consider scheduling automatic transfers to Zeller Savings Account , where these funds can earn up to 4% p.a. interest. A cash reserve is essential for covering late payments, rising overheads, overstocked inventory, or seasonal fluctuations. It also provides a safety net for unforeseen expenses, like equipment breakdowns, legal costs, sudden operational increases, or economic downturns.

When co-founders Jake Nolan and Michael Vlassis opened Woolcott Street in 2016, their goal was simple: transform men’s wardrobes and the way they shop for their attire . Many of their clients had grown tired of wandering through department stores, unable to find garments that fit well or advice they could trust. “It might be a bit of a cliché, but the majority of men don’t really like to shop,” Jake says. “If they do like to shop, fantastic – we’ve got a lot of different fabrics, and we can do a lot of different styles. But if they don’t, well, we try to make the whole process a lot more enjoyable than the typical chain-store suit purchase.” The result is a service designed around long-term relationships, understanding clients’ preferences, and delivering bespoke garments that look and feel right for each person. Over the years, Woolcott St has grown from two talented tailors into a team of seventeen, serving thousands of people across Sydney, Australia, and beyond. Tailoring a personalised experience The Woolcott St experience is, above all, personal. “It’s about having someone who cares about what’s in your wardrobe and what’s not,” Jake explains. By getting to know each client – their lifestyle, the events they attend, the image they want to project – the team ensures that every garment reflects who they are. The tailoring process starts with an initial consultation, either in the showroom or at the client’s home or office. From there, Jake and his team create an action plan based on timelines, fit, and preferences. After patterns are created and cloth selected, fittings take place four to six weeks later, with adjustments logged back into the client’s pattern to ensure consistency. An atmosphere fit for any occasion The showroom at Woolcott St adapts to suit the occasion. During the week, fittings with corporate clients feel calm and focused. On weekends, groups of groomsmen bring energy and laughter, often with a beer or whiskey in hand. “The general idea is that it’s fun, it’s helpful, and it’s a place where someone can step back from their day, relax, not feel pressured or overwhelmed, and know they can get the right advice to make the right decisions,” Jake says. Exceptional customer service woven in For Jake, exceptional customer service comes down to one thing: taking the time to understand the person in front of you. “It’s about not assuming things, asking the right questions, figuring out who they are as a person, what they’re comfortable in, and what the right options are for them,” he says. This approach means Woolcott St doesn’t just make clothes – they help clients feel confident in their choices. Many of their clients have been returning for years, becoming advocates for the business and sharing their experiences with others. This long-term approach is reflected in Woolcott St’s reputation, with 721 Google reviews averaging a perfect five stars. “We don’t want to see someone just once, make them something, and never see them again,” Jake says. “It’s not about one garment, ideally it’s about working with them for life and doing a really good job.” Cutting time from every invoice Behind the scenes, Zeller Invoices has transformed the way Woolcott St bills clients. Creating an invoice takes less than a minute, with products and client details pre-saved. “By streamlining the process, we’ve cut down the time it takes dramatically. Compared to manually making up PDF invoices, the difference is night and day,” Jake explains.  Payments also come through faster. “As a rough percentage, I’d say our invoices are paid about 50 percent faster than before, usually within 12 to 24 hours,” Jake says. Clients appreciate the convenience, too. “The easier you make things, the less barriers there are, the better the experience. Removing friction and making it simple for people to pay via a link in a text or email has been really positive.” Business spending, neatly hemmed Zeller Corporate Cards have also proved useful. Woolcott St uses different transaction accounts within Zeller Dashboard for different business activities, with corporate cards attached to several. “We give employees corporate cards with set limits for various activities, which means they don’t need to come to us to get approval each time,” Jake explains. “It makes business activity and tracking much easier." A savings account that measures up (where the big-4 don’t) Woolcott St chooses to keep its cash reserves in the Zeller Savings Account. “We use the Zeller Savings Account because it gives us a much higher interest rate compared to the big four,” Jake says. “Plus there are no fees or hoops to jump through. If the money’s in the account, it’s earning interest. Simple.”  A seamless suite of solutions  For Jake, the biggest advantage of Zeller is integration. “Having everything all in one place with Zeller – accounts, payments, invoices – really helps us as a business,” he says. “Instead of being spread across different platforms, everything’s integrated, which makes keeping track of everything so much easier.” Zeller’s support team, he adds, is also more responsive and easier to deal with than traditional banks. Stitching together what’s next Woolcott St has its sights set on becoming Australia’s number one tailoring outfit, with plans to open offices across the country. And while the business grows, Jake still finds joy in the craft itself. “When asked for his favourite suit, Jake doesn’t hesitate. “I’m a classic man myself – I don’t tend to go for things that are too loud. That said, I always find it interesting when we get to make something we haven’t before. Whether it’s different colour combinations or a rare fabric, or combining different garments into a unique outfit, those are the ones that really stand out to me.”