New in Infinity — December 2025

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you and your team reduce operational complexity and create a differentiated omnichannel customer experience.

Infinity is a modular platform and you may need additional components or licensing to access some functionality.

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INFINITY API

Seamlessly create and update item details in bulk

We’ve made creating and updating stock items in bulk using APIs more seamless and cost-effective. Product dimensions are now supported, as are kitsets and custom product options, meaning you can update a wider range of granular item detail without having to drown in complex spreadsheets. 

You can also retrieve and update site-specific variations for a master product and update site-specific item configurations.

Take the hassle out of processing cancelled orders

You’ll no longer have to waste effort doing a manual refund at the POS when a customer cancels an online order. Instead, cancelled lines can now be handled automatically via the Infinity Sales Order API, saving you time and streamlining the process.

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INVENTORY

Easily find the right supplier when entering invoices

If you have to enter invoice details manually after goods have arrived, you’ll now be able to find the right supplier much more quickly and easily, instead of having to search through a list that includes suppliers you no longer use.

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CUSTOMER AND LOYALTY

Protect against fraud when using epay digital gift cards

If you’re a New Zealand retailer who uses epay gift cards in conjunction with Infinity, you can now offer your customers the flexibility of using either plastic or digital cards.

To make the move to digital cards more secure, we’ve implemented a layer of fraud protection by allowing you to define the digital cards that can be scanned at the POS. If a customer scans a card that isn’t on your permitted list, then it needs to be swiped on the magnetic reader instead. And as an added layer of protection, a PIN needs to be entered when a card that is on your permitted list is scanned during balance enquiries and redemptions.  

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PRICING AND PROMOTIONS

Offer ‘spend more, save more’ discounts

Offering customers discounts based on the total value of a transaction is a great way to reward their decision to shop with you. Our new total sale discounts let you scale your promotion, meaning the more a customer spends the greater the reward.

You can decide which customer types to includes in the promotion, how long you want a promotion to run, which products you want to include and whether you want to reward customers with a dollar-off or a percentage-off discount, giving you flexibility over how the reward is designed and delivered.

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REPORTS AND ANALYTICS

Easily customise point of sale documents

Customising point of sale documentation is an effective way to communicate both your brand and the vital information your need to give to customers. We’ve made it easier to get those essential documents just right by introducing an integration with FastReport.

Using standard templates, you can customise your customer order and tax invoice layouts to easily add logos, QR codes, barcodes and custom fields such as customer emails, as well as lines of text in the font of your choice.  You can also create your own templates, although you’ll need to obtain a licence from FastReport first.

The integration is designed to use A4 layouts, but you can use thermal layouts by resizing them as required.

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POINT OF SALE

Refund prepaid sales without losing revenue

If you use Infinity’s enhanced returns module, you can now prompt your store staff to refund items to a specified payment type. So, for example, if the customer paid with a gift card, you can prompt staff to issue the refund as a gift card balance, so it will be spent with you in the future instead of being given away as cash.

Easily locate scheduled stock takes

Completing stock takes is all about getting the details right. If your store staff carry out scheduled stock takes at the POS, they’ll be able to locate the right stock take more easily now that they’re listed alphabetically by name, speeding up the process and letting the team get on with what really matters – entering accurate stock counts.

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TECHNOLOGY

Get the latest SQL Server support

On 19 November, Microsoft announced the general release of SQL Server 2025. To keep pace with these latest changes, we’ll be adding Infinity RMS support on SQL Server 2025 by 1 April 2026.

We also need to let you know that Infinity RMS support on SQL Server 2012 and SQL Server 2014 will end on 1 April 2026.

Existing Infinity installations operating on current SQL Server versions will remain functional, but support for issues related specifically to SQL Server 2012 and SQL Server 2014 will no longer be provided.  If you’re running either of these versions, you’ll need to upgrade to access new releases of Infinity RMS after 1 April 2026.

Simplify upgrades using the Infinity Upgrade Service

You have more options when it comes to upgrading Infinity now that you can use the Infinity Upgrade Service on a Restricted Back Office and on POS stations that connect directly to the Back Office, simplifying automatic upgrades across a wider range of environments.

We’ve also made using the Upgrade Service easier and more reliable by enhancing the EventLog Report to let you confirm that the Linker is running as a service before you begin the upgrade.  

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To find out more about any of these enhancements and add them to your Infinity platform, contact us. 

If you’d like to get our regular ‘New in Infinity’ updates in your inbox, sign up to our newsletter.

Low tech, high risk: why you need to keep pace with IT investment

It used to be a truism that the retail industry spent less on IT compared to other industries such as health and banking, mostly thanks to its focus on physical stores where IT played a less vital role and its lower dependence on data storage.

But times have changed and retail’s IT budgets have changed along with them. In 2024, over 72% of global retail chains reported increasing their IT budgets compared to the previous year.

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What’s driving investment?

The driving force has been consumer demand for seamless omnichannel shopping, along with the proliferation of cloud-based services, integration of AI and investment in cybersecurity. As retailers have gone online not only have they had to invest in robust cloud servers and CRMs, they’ve also needed to up their game when it comes to securing customer data.

The store, too, has seen new investment. As our recent blog said, retail POS platforms need to keep pace with customers’ ‘phygital’ expectation that their instore experience will be harmonised with the shopping they do online, while mobile apps and self-service kiosks have added another layer to retailers’ store spend.

Meanwhile, edge computing is gaining traction in high-volume environments. A recent study found around 22% of Tier-1 retailers globally have integrated edge computing to manage instore data processing and address latency issues during peak hours.

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The upside to investing

For retailers in the Asia-Pacific region, the benefits of IT investment are clear, given the rapid uptake of new technologies among shoppers. For example, three-quarters of Australians use their phone to shop online and a third use dedicated shopping apps, meaning that investing in mobile solutions is now the retail equivalent of table stakes rather than a nice-to-have.

Technology spend has come with other tangible benefits, too, in terms of both sales and cost savings. Retailers in Southeast Asia experienced a 24% increase in sales after deploying cloud-enabled logistics, while cutting-edge inventory systems have reduced shrinkage by 14% 

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The constraints

Of course, investment also comes with risks and challenges, the most obvious being the significant capital outlay that IT projects require, particularly at a time when retailers are already experiencing revenue and cost pressures.

The fear of losing revenue through potential disruption that comes with implementing a new POS is multiplied when applied across channels, while globally 36% of retailers experienced a failed IT deployment in 2023 after trying to integrate legacy systems with new solutions.

But not spending comes with risks, too, most obviously the risk of being left behind as competitors invest in the solutions and experiences that customers not only expect but demand.

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How much should retailers spend on IT?  

The simple answer is it depends. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution and the right number depends on a retailer’s specific circumstances. IT spend can vary greatly by retail category, company size and growth stage. 

Our anecdotal experience suggests that most retailers spend only 1–3% of their revenue on IT, although one study found that retail and ecommerce IT spend was 10% share of company revenue in 2023 (up from 7% in 2022), while another suggests that deploying multi-store cloud-based IT infrastructure costs between 14–22% of the annual revenue of mid-sized retail enterprises.

We’re not suggesting retailers need to invest at these levels, but they do need to scale their IT spend for opportunities that make their businesses stronger, smarter and ready for the future. 

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This blog was originally published in February 2024 and updated in December 2025.

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Want help to find the right systems to build your unified commerce business model? 

We can help you build a foundation for operational efficiency and continuous, innovative growth. Get in touch.

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Are you ready for Black Friday?

Since arriving in the Australia and New Zealand markets around a decade ago, Black Friday has become one of the biggest occasions on the retail calendar.

As well as being a major event in its own right, Black Friday, along with Cyber Monday, marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. And it seems to get bigger every year, with deals being advertised earlier and the sale period getting longer.

In 2024, Black Friday and Cyber Monday set a new record in Australia of $2.2 billion spent online, despite a tight cost-of-living environment. Meanwhile, in New Zealand, they saw $94.6 million spent online and $734 million spent instore. Overall Q4 retail spending came in at $16.1 billion, with mid-to-late November showing the biggest increase in spend.

Clearly, the Black Friday and Cyber Monday period is an opportunity for retailers to build momentum heading into Christmas, but the returns won’t come without thought and strategic planning.

Here we look at how you can make sure you’re ready to take advantage of the Black Friday splurge so that it sets you up for end-of-year success.

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Is your inventory ready?

Perhaps the most important question you need to answer is: what are you hoping to sell? Are you showcasing a new product line, promoting tried-and-true items that you know will sell or are you trying to move excess stock?

With this question answered, you need to be sure that you’ve planned for demand and contingencies.  Use reports and analytics to gauge the volume of stock you will need on hand, and make sure your inventory management system alerts you to when minimum stock levels have been reached.

Getting stock to the right places is vital. Have you maximised shelf use, so that you’ve filled shelves with product you want shoppers to buy? Do you need to transfer slower movers into the storeroom for the duration of the sale?

And if you’re running a multi-store operation, have you planned for variation in demand across stores, and are you able to move stock across your network to meet that demand during the sale period?  

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Are your suppliers on board?

Once you know how much stock you’ll need and where you’ll need it, make sure you’ve either got what you need on hand or that your suppliers can provide it.

Have you got agreements in place with suppliers that allow you to meet demand? If you aren’t able to physically store all the stock you’re planning to sell, are suppliers able to hold more stock for you in case it’s needed?

And if you run out of stock during the sale, are you able to place customer orders with the supplier so that demand can be met in the coming days or weeks? Alternatively, are suppliers able to dropship to your customers to speed up fulfilment?

You’ll also want suppliers to help you out if you find yourself with product left over at the end of the sale, so have you come to an agreement to return unsold stock?

Finally, are your suppliers on board with your pricing strategy? Can they offer you tiered pricing that you can pass on to shoppers?

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Does your pricing strategy align with inventory?

When you’ve decided what to discount you need to get the pricing right so that you’re selling stock at required levels without compromising revenue or brand value.

Use reports to identify the price points at which discounts should be offered that maintain profitability while also attracting customers.  

Experience from the US indicates that discounts in the 10–15% and 20–25% ranges performed better than steep price cuts, suggesting consumers were more interested in getting the right product from their chosen brand rather than merely prioritising the lowest price.

If you’re opting for pricing bundles and tiered discounts, does your POS allow for a seamless pricing experience for customers so that they know they’re getting the best price?

And when it comes to those shoppers who belong to your loyalty scheme, consider whether you’ve put enough emphasis on nurturing them through exclusive offers, bonus points and early access to deals.

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How are you going to manage queues?

There’s no point having inventory and pricing in place if people walk out because the queue isn’t being managed.  

Look at last year’s analytics and work out when the peak times were and then make sure that you have enough people on deck to handle those busy periods.

If you offer a click-and-collect service, consider suspending pick-ups at busy times so that shoppers aren’t waiting around to collect orders, preventing your staff from serving bargain hunters and compromising overall service.

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Is your POS up to the task?

Once you’ve decided how many of your people need to be available, are you sure you have enough POS lanes, or do you need to scale up the number of lanes?

Are you also sure that your POS can handle high transaction volumes? Once again, slow service at the POS will flow on to queue length, which could result in lost sales.

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How will you keep customers coming back?

Black Friday and Cyber Monday can see record numbers of shoppers engaging with you across all touchpoints, from instore to web store. Are you ready to reward them for their business and retain them as loyal customers?

Limited-time promotions can result in a huge spike in customers coming through the door or visiting you online never to be seen again. But giving them a reason to come back means that a single purchase on Black Friday can be the start of a long-lasting relationship that bolsters your loyal customer base and fortifies revenue streams. 

Have you thought about how you keep in touch with new shoppers through email or txt exchanges so you can offer them complementary products or services? Do you have a retention strategy in place to bring new shoppers back again and again?

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Are you ready for next year?

Getting everything in place so you can take best advantage of Black Friday can be daunting, but having the right tools at hand takes some of the pressure off.  

If you don’t have the data you need to make informed decisions about which products will perform best and how to price them, then it might be time to upgrade your systems so that you’re ready for next year.

Infinity allows you to report on inventory sales so you can see what performs well and when, while other reports give you a clear understanding of profit and loss. You can even see how well each of your employees is doing over a given period so you make sure your top performers are on the floor.

You can easily move stock around stores so that stock gaps are filled, and if items do run out you can create customer orders to be fulfilled from the warehouse, the supplier or from another store.

You also get to make complex pricing simple, so that tiered pricing becomes a breeze. And Infinity’s proven ability to perform complete transactions at speeds of less that 20 seconds on a single POS means you get the throughput and accuracy you need.

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Need help to get ready for busy sale periods?

If you’re looking to get on a solid footing for the sale season, get in touch. We’d love to show you how Infinity can help you deliver the bargains customers expect while maximising revenue.

New in Infinity — October 2025

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you and your team reduce operational complexity and create a differentiated omnichannel customer experience.

Infinity is a modular platform and you may need additional components or licencing to access some functionality.

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INVENTORY 

Schedule pre-defined POS stock takes at back office and head office

Infinity’s stock take schedule function is a great way to run pre-defined, repeatable stock takes at the point of sale. Managing site-specific schedules is even easier now that stores can create and maintain their own scheduled stock takes without the risk that they will be overwritten by the head office.

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CUSTOMER AND LOYALTY

Enhance your gift card offering

Enticing your customers with regular loyalty offers and redemptions is a key to unlocking repeat business. You have even more ways to keep them coming back now that you can use gift cards with PIN numbers, offering shoppers a wider range of options for collecting and redeeming dollar amounts at your stores.

Note that this enhancement relates to any digital gift cards using the epay New Zealand solution on Windcave devices.

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REPORTS AND ANALYTICS

Easily see the theoretical GP items should sell at, today

Setting items’ sell price can be a make-or-break decision for a retail business. You need to base that decision on the best information available, and you need to know that you won’t be selling at a loss.

Infinity’s new Theoretical GP Report gives you all this and more. It supports both your promotional and buying activity by calculating the theoretical gross profit an item should sell at right now. You can use it to get a single view of retail prices, promotional prices and the value of stock on hand based on current item and rules-based pricing master data, not sales data.

And because it doesn’t rely on sales to have taken place, you can set promotional pricing without the risk of selling items at a loss, giving you confidence that you’re making informed decisions that support your business’s profitability.  

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POINT OF SALE

Quickly identify premium delivery orders

When customers ask for items to be delivered they expect fast, reliable service. And if you offer a paid premium delivery service, such as those supported by Uber Eats and Delivereasy, expectations go to the next level.

Using Infinity, you can now easily identify priority orders at the point of sale both on screen and by way of a sound notification. Your store staff are alerted to which orders they need to act on first, allowing them to deliver the great, speedy service customers demand.    

Leverage the efficiency of Adyen referenced refunds

Spending time ensuring customers are being refunded correct amounts can add unwanted cost to your business. Infinity’s integration to Adyen now reduces this burden through referenced refunds, which tie refunds to specific payments.

Omnichannel as well as in-store transactions are supported. Online refunds can be refunded to the original card in-store either with or without the customer being present, giving both you and your customers greater flexibility and peace of mind when it comes to processing refunds.

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TECHNOLOGY

Use AOAGs to manage failovers

Infinity ETL licensing now supports Always On Availability Groups (AOAG). It uses the listener’s name instead of the name of the server running the SQL server instance, saving you the time and effort of having to manually intervene in case of a failover.

Note that if you currently have ETL installed, you’ll need to relicense it for this enhancement to work. Also, if the SQL Server is not part of an AOAG, the licensing logic remains unchanged.

Save time cleaning up email messages

If you use Infinity Messaging to send emails and attachments to customers, you’ll no longer need to manually clean up the database and remove obsolete records. Instead, you can use the new message cleanup processor to automatically remove these records at regular intervals, saving you time and freeing up precious space.

Get the benefit of the latest RabbitMQ features

Infinity APIs are now compatible with RabbitMQ 4, allowing you to operate the API platform on the most recent version and giving you access to the latest security features and functionality.

For customers using multiple RabbitMQ instances for high availability, the Infinity platform now supports Quorum Queues within RabbitMQ to provide the maximum availability and performance.

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To find out more about any of these enhancements and add them to your Infinity platform, contact us. 

If you’d like to get our regular ‘New in Infinity’ updates in your inbox, sign up to our newsletter.

Blending clicks with bricks: Why the store still matters

The death of the bricks-and-mortar retail store has been predicted for years now. But instead of reaching its expiry date, the physical store continues to have a lot of life left in it, even as the role it plays in the customer journey changes.

Here we take a look at the latest consumer shopping behaviours, how stores fit into those behaviours and how retailers need to think about the future of their stores to make sure they’re keeping pace with evolving shopping patterns.

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How are customers shopping, today?

There’s no doubt that growth in online channels has been the dominant story in retail in recent years, and that growth is set to continue. Still, it remains the case that most sales take place in person. In the US alone, where the retail market is projected to reach US$7.4 trillion in annual sales this year, ecommerce made up only 16.4% of total sales in Q4 2024, with the rest coming from physical stores.  

A similar picture applies globally. A recent EY survey of 20,000 consumers across 27 countries found that although the overall percentage of offline retail spend is predicted to drop from 77% in 2025 to 73% in 2028, stores are likely to remain the dominant channel for shoppers who value trusted advice, social engagement, instant gratification and tactile product discovery.

At the same time, consumers are turning to digital channels for competitive pricing and convenience. But as EY say, even as they experiment across digital channels, shoppers keep coming back to the store, with 94% of consumers browsing across channels before buying in-store.    

For retailers, this points to a need to harmonise online and physical offerings. As the EY survey finds, “Rather than digital being the anthesis of the store, successful retailers should look to find the right blend, and balance, between the two, shaping shopping behaviors and enhancing experience, loyalty and trust in the process.”

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The store of the future

So what form might that balancing take? What do increasing online sales balanced against a desire for tactile experience and personal service mean for the future of the store?

One option is to treat stores as experiential hubs where shoppers can explore and experiment before buying. Retailers with existing physical spaces can offer interactive zones and curated events that bring product offerings to life and provide the tactile experiences that shoppers crave.

As Forbes recently pointed out, this showroom model has been standard in the car industry for a long time, and it has also been adopted by leading brands such as Apple. Brand-specific showrooms like these “allow brands to maintain unique identities, create immersive bespoke experiences, control customer journeys, test innovative technologies and build stronger emotional connections with consumers.”

While this model might not work for low-margin retailers, those able to transform retail spaces into experiential zones have the opportunity to engage their customers on a deeper emotional level while building new revenue streams. 

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Laying the groundwork

Implementing this type of showroom model requires two things: experienced, knowledgeable staff, and sound data analytics.  

As Forbes says, “a new breed of retail professionals will emerge: experienced concierges guiding customers through showrooms, product specialists offering unbiased expertise, personal shoppers creating digital collections and brand ambassadors prioritizing memorable interactions over immediate transactions.”

Understanding customers and how they engage with showrooms will also require robust data. Data analysis will allow retailers to gain insight into customer movement and interaction with displays and products, and it will empower them to make the most of retail space. Among other things, they will be able to discern how much space is required, how to lay out the floorplan and where to place products for best advantage.

As with other aspects of retail, quality data is the bedrock on which all innovation is built. Shaping a customer experience that conforms to their changing behaviours and meets their needs means understanding how they interact with you. And that needs data that gives you a clear understanding of the way they move across channels and why.

Brick-and-mortar isn’t dead, but over time it will evolve into a more immersive experience that relies on knowledge, insight and expertise.

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Want help to deliver the in-store experiences that meets shoppers where they are today and where they’re heading in the future?

If you’re looking to build a future-proof bricks-and-mortar offering, get in touch. We’d love to show you how Infinity can help you offer seamless, unified, profitable customer experiences.

New in Infinity – August 2025

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PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Help us develop and improve Infinity
As part of our commitment to continuous improvement, we’re giving you the option to share information with us about how you use Infinity. We’ll use this information to identify features that can be enhanced or retired, as well as any opportunities for user training and upskilling.

When you upgrade Infinity, you’ll be able to choose whether to opt in or out of sharing data with us. If you opt in, we’ll capture and analyse menu clicks at both the Head Office and the Back Office, along with technical information such as operating system and SQL versions. This will allow us to see which features are used heavily and which aren’t being used frequently, as well as giving us an understanding of the systems Infinity is being run on.

It’s important to note that we won’t capture any data that can identify individuals, including passwords or user names.

Taking part in data sharing means you can help shape the way Infinity evolves and ensure that it remains relevant and useful to you. Even if you initially decide not to share data with us, you can opt in at any time, and vice versa.

If you have questions or concerns please contact Infinity Support.

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INVENTORY

Easily order and manage non-stock items
Ordering and managing stock can be tricky if your business needs a regular supply of items that you don’t necessarily want to bring into your inventory. So, for example, if you sell coffee you’ll need a steady number of coffee cups to be on hand, but you aren’t going to want those cups to be counted as stock items that are sold on their own. Similarly, if the coffee machine breaks down, you need an easy way of paying for a repair by purchase order without treating the repair as an item.

To help make the ordering of these items more seamless, Infinity now allows you to include non-stock items in purchase orders. When you receipt them, the quantity on hand won’t increase, so you can keep these items on hand without them impacting your inventory.

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CUSTOMER AND LOYALTY

Expand your fuel offering with automatic discounts
If you’re a fuel retailer who uses Infinity’s loyalty solution and you offer cents-per-litre discounts, you now have even more options when it comes to rewarding customers for their business. We’ve introduced discounts that apply automatically, so that purchasers save on fuel without your store staff having to manually select which discount applies, thereby speeding up transaction times while still offering customers meaningful savings.

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INTEGRATIONS

Leverage seamless integration of accounting data into Xero
If you use Xero as your accounting software, or are thinking about moving to Xero, you now have even more reason to integrate it with Infinity. We’ve listened to feedback and introduced improvements that make our Xero solution easier to deploy, use and support.

We’ve improved the overall experience by polishing the user interface, simplifying installation, enhancing logging so you can easily track errors and providing you with better troubleshooting to quickly address issues.

There’s never been a better time to integrate Infinity and Xero so you get the timely, granular, automatically updated accounting information you need while also leveraging Xero’s ecosystem of business tools.

Charge fees directly from EFTPOS devices
If you use Windcave as your EFTPOS provider, you can now add surcharges to these transactions from the EFTPOS device. This means you can charge a fee for things like contactless payments and have it recorded in Infinity, so you’ll get an accurate view of these charges in reports and transaction records.   

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To find out more about any of these enhancements and add them to your Infinity platform, contact us. 

If you’d like to get our regular ‘New in Infinity’ updates in your inbox, sign up to our newsletter.

New in Infinity – June 2025

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you and your team reduce operational complexity and create a differentiated omnichannel customer experience.

 Infinity is a modular platform and you may need additional components or licencing to access some functionality.

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INFINITY API

Leverage real-time cost information

Our Products API now lets you see a real-time value for weighted average costs if you create transactions or carry out inventory analysis in an external system.

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PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Quickly locate branch item information in clusters

Searching for detailed stock item information can be time consuming, especially if you have a lot of stores offering different prices or sourcing items from different suppliers. Head office staff can find the branch information for an item in a cluster more quickly now that they can sort branches alphabetically instead of having to know the branch’s numerical ID.

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INVENTORY

Get a consistent view of stock take results

Stock taking is one of the most important tasks in your business, and getting the count right is vital to maintaining accurate inventory data. To help your staff quickly identify and double-check variances before they complete the stock take, you can now choose to list items in the printed stock take report in the same order they appear on screen, meaning staff don’t waste time trying to match what they see on screen with what’s in the report.

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REPORTS & ANALYTICS 

Summarise stock takes by stock count group

We’ve also enhanced stock taking by giving you a new report that summarises stock takes that have been carried out based on stock count group. The Stocktake Count Group Summary Report provides an overview of stock takes that have been carried out at branches, lets you see variances and gives you the option to list results according to individual stock count groups.  

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POINT OF SALE

Monitor staff safety at the point of sale

Staff safety is a growing issue across the retail sector, with some staff regularly dealing with threatening or abusive behaviour from customers. You can now keep track of how often your staff are facing this problem by using new functionality at the POS. When your staff feel threatened, they can press an on-screen button that records the event, allowing you to monitor how often these incidences are happening and enhancing your people’s sense of well-being.

Speed up processing of sales by under-age staff

If you sell age-restricted items, such as alcohol, you need to be sure that you’re complying with the law without compromising speed of service. To help you serve customers quickly and efficiently while meeting your legal obligations, Infinity now recognises an under-age staff member each time they complete a new transaction, instead of forcing them to log back in after every sale.

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ADMINISTRATION 

Send invoices and statements to multiple debtor contacts

Managing debtor customers is a more seamless experience now that you can automatically send invoices and statements to more than one email address, saving you the hassle of manually emailing documents to the relevant people in the business and enhancing lines of communication.

So, for example, when the customer buys an item in-store, you can send the invoice to the purchasing team as well as to the customer’s primary contact. And at the end of each period, you can send statements to the primary contact and to the customer’s accounts payable, so that the right people see the amount due.

Enhance financial integrity of trading days

If you use Infinity’s extended cash management module, you can now require store staff to complete any draft trading days before creating a new one. Trading days can also be completed the next day if necessary even if new sales have been processed, giving you peace of mind that all transactions are correctly accounted for.

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TECHNOLOGY 

Use the latest Microsoft technologies

Infinity now ships with SQL Server 2022 as default, giving you the most recent version of SQL Server currently in Microsoft’s mainstream support. We also continue to support SQL Server 2016, 2017 and 2019, while customers on SQL Server 2012 and 2014 should be planning to update to a later version.

Proactively address database-related performance issues

If you use a version of SQL Server Express, you’ll now be warned when the database size reaches a threshold of 9.8GB or higher, allowing you to proactively address issues before they affect your store operations.

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To find out more about any of these enhancements and add them to your Infinity platform, contact us. 

If you’d like to get our regular ‘New in Infinity’ updates in your inbox, sign up to our newsletter.

Making sustainability sustainable

Sustainability has been a hot topic in recent years, with businesses across all sectors recognising a need to demonstrate their commitment to the environment. And retail is no different.

Real-world evidence suggests that sustainability isn’t just a buzzword or a nice-to-have anymore but something that businesses need to build into their future plans if they are going to meet demands from customers, investors and regulators.

Here we look at some of the drivers behind the move to sustainable retail and at how, when done well, taking action can help to lower costs and increase market share. We also look at how not getting things right can pose significant risks to your brand.

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What is sustainable retail?

Becoming a sustainable retailer isn’t a single action point or strategy. Instead, it can take a variety of forms, from investing in eco-friendly packaging to sourcing inventory locally or stocking only natural, chemical-free products, as well as reducing energy use and other forms of waste.

It also means taking on climate change. At a time when retail supply chains contribute to 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions, it is no surprise that decarbonising supply chains is top of the list when it comes to sustainability priorities, even as it remains one of the more challenging ambitions.

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Meeting customers’ sustainability expectations

One of the biggest drivers behind the shift to sustainable retail is consumer pressure. Globally, customers are choosing to shop with retailers who measure up to their sustainability expectations. 

In Australia, a study found that 93% of Gen Z shoppers would prefer to buy from brands that aligned with their sustainable values, while a significant number of baby boomers felt the same way, at 63%. Meanwhile, 85% of New Zealanders say they are willing to change their shopping habits to be more sustainable, and many Kiwis expect their employers to operate more sustainably.

A Deloitte study found that consumers’ decisions are influenced by a range of sustainability considerations, from the use of recycled materials to the impact of climate change. It found that 30% of customers check whether a product is recycled or biodegradable before buying, while 53% of people who had experienced an extreme climate-related event in the past year went on to buy sustainably, compared to 38% of those who had not.

Investors as well as customers are placing increased demands on retailers to demonstrate their sustainable credentials, including through adherence to environmental frameworks and regulations.

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Taking action for a sustainable world

So, how are businesses incorporating these demands into their business models?  

In 2024 Deloitte found that 51% of surveyed companies globally were using more sustainable materials, 49% were increasing energy efficiency and 48% were developing new climate-friendly products or services.

One business putting its sustainable goals into action is furniture manufacturer and retailer, Koskela. At the recent Australian Retail Association Leaders Forum 25 in Sydney, co-founder and CEO Sasha Titchkosky said all of Koskela's furniture is manufactured in Australia, reducing the carbon footprint associated with transportation. What’s more, they plan to be fully circular by 2027, so that all products will be repairable, reusable or recyclable, while an estimated 90% of their furniture will be made from recycled or repurposed materials by 2026.

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Reaping the rewards

For businesses that commit to the path of sustainability, the rewards can be plentiful.

Offering the types of sustainable products discerning customers demand can attract new buyers and build satisfaction and loyalty among existing ones. This is particularly the case for ‘recommerce’ retailers who give buyers a one-stop-shop where they can buy items new and sell them back second hand to the same store, thereby providing multiple touchpoints in a circular business model.

Tapping into the market for sustainable goods can also grow revenue by allowing retailers to charge price premiums for items that truly meet the sustainable standard.

Meanwhile, retailers can boost the bottom line by reducing costs through energy savings and other forms of waste reduction, and they can improve supply chain resilience by sourcing products locally, thereby minimising the risk of disruption and price volatility.   

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Avoiding the traps

While adopting sustainable practices can be good for business, it can also pose a risk when those practices aren’t well-implemented or when reality doesn’t meet the hype.

In one study, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission found 57% of businesses reviewed were making potentially inaccurate claims, a practice known as ‘greenwashing’. This behaviour ranged from making vague or unqualified claims about products being ‘eco-friendly’ that weren’t backed up by information that allows customers to make an informed choice, through to falsely claiming that products were ‘100% recyclable’ or ‘100% carbon positive’.  

Making these sorts of unsubstantiated claims, whether intentionally or not, can lead to loss of trust, reputational damage or even expensive litigation.

On the other hand, being transparent and specific about sustainability goals can build consumer confidence and boost return business.

When it comes to sustainability, the old saying that honesty is the best policy holds true.

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Tracking the financial impact

Being a successful sustainable retailer means understanding the financial implications of any changes you might make. While moving to sustainable practices can save money in the long run, some changes, like switching suppliers, can bring short-term costs.

Keeping an eye on your cash flow and margins is an essential part of making the shift to a sustainable business model. You’ll also need to track your inventory’s sustainable credentials to make sure you’re keeping pace with customer demand.

Infinity allows you to do all this and more, supporting you on your journey to being a sustainable retailer. Using Infinity, you can enhance and configure your stock data to capture relevant information about products’ sustainability, such as whether they qualify for a sustainability accreditation scheme.

It then arms you with a wide range of reports that offer a comprehensive understanding of your stock levels and how stock is performing, so you can see how sustainability translates to turnover.

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Want help to get the most out of sustainability?

If you’re looking for help to meet the demands of today’s and tomorrow's environmentally conscious shoppers, get in touch. We’d love to help you deliver the shopping experiences customers expect.  

New in Infinity – March 2025

Here’s new functionality across the Infinity platform that will help you and your team reduce operational complexity and create a differentiated omnichannel customer experience.

 Infinity is a modular platform and you may need additional components or licencing to access some functionality.

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INFINITY API

Leverage the latest .NET technology

Starting in April 2025, Infinity APIs will be shipped to use .NET Core 8, the latest long-term support framework from Microsoft. This upgrade will ensure enhanced security and provide cutting-edge features for operational APIs.

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PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

Monitor data changes for enhanced security

Field audit logging is a great way to keep track of changes to Infinity data fields, allowing you to protect profitability, monitor inventory and maintain system security by making sure data is being captured and maintained correctly. We’ve enhanced the item fields that you can audit by adding alternate barcodes, so you can easily see if a barcode has been changed, who changed it and when.

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INVENTORY

Get a consistent view of custom item attributes

Last year, we gave you the ability to use additional custom fields when you search for items and view their details, so you could easily see the product data and attributes most relevant to your business. We’ve now extended these changes to include purchase orders, replenishment requests and demand forecasts, giving you a consistent view of item attributes across a range of vital stock management processes.

Use branch transfer requests to maintain optimal stock levels

Every retailer knows how important it is to have the right stock in the right place at the right time. If your business has multiple sites, Infinity Cloud now makes moving stock across stores easier with the introduction of branch transfer requests.

If your store staff notice stock is running low or need to increase stock for any other reason, they can scan the items and then send a transfer request to another store. If you use Infinity Messaging, the other store will be automatically alerted to the request. It can then transfer you the stock, giving you another, seamless way to maintain optimum inventory levels.

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ORDER MANAGEMENT 

Send tax invoices to online customers automatically

You can now enhance your customers’ online ordering experience and speed up order processing in stores by automatically emailing GST invoices. Note that this will require a change to your customised A4 print layout, if you have one.

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CUSTOMER & LOYALTY 

Elevate your loyalty offering with Eagle Eye

Infinity now integrates with Eagle Eye, allowing enterprise-level businesses to take advantage of its flexible personalisation loyalty solution. The integration enables real-time earning and burning of loyalty offers, points and vouchers held in personal wallets via API for optimal customer experience.

If integrating with Eagle Eye would suit your business, please get in touch to discuss the customisations needed to get it up and running.

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PRICING & PROMOTIONS

Quickly identify pricing rules that apply to promotions

Our complex pricing solution lets you easily create promotional rules for either single items or multi-buys using multiple pricing attributes that you can then apply to promotional offers. With the latest changes, store managers can now quickly see which pricing rules apply to a promotion, giving them a better understanding of current offers.

And if you use Infinity Cloud in your stores, your store staff can also easily see which single-quantity promotional rule applies to items when they check shelf prices.

Calculate multi-buy web cart prices more reliably

If you use our web pricing solution, you’ll find we’ve improved speed and performance when a high number of rules-based product sets are in operation, meaning that multi-buys are more quickly and reliably calculated in the cart and the customer’s overall shopping experience goes more smoothly.

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REPORTS & ANALYTICS 

Track multiple stock adjustments

Keeping your inventory straight sometimes means having to adjust stock numbers in bulk, such as when a group of products was incorrectly receipted, arrived damaged or was inaccurately counted. We’ve made it easier to keep track of when this happens and to understand changes made to your stock levels by allowing you to report on groups of products that were adjusted at the same time.

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ADMINISTRATION 

Drill down on stores’ trading day results

Getting an accurate view of trading results at your stores is a vital way of understanding the cashflow through your business and your stores’ overall position. If you use Infinity’s extended cash management module, you can now easily search for individual store trading days, giving you the granular cashflow visibility you need.

 Streamline logging into Infinity Cloud

Logging into Infinity Cloud at a store branch is a more seamless experience now that the branch selector automatically defaults to the only branch in the list, making the logon faster and smoother.

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TECHNOLOGY 

Use the latest Microsoft technologies

Infinity now fully supports Windows Server 2025, allowing customers to use the most recently available Microsoft operating system in enterprise environments.

 Enhance monitoring of progress during upgrades

Monitoring the progress of automated upgrades is easier now that you can track progress and identify issues using the Infinity Upgrade Dashboard. Working in conjunction with the existing upgrade command function in Head Office, the dashboard displays the overall upgrade progress, while also allowing you to see if a specific branch has upgraded and is ready to trade, and to identify any stations that had errors. You can also see where an upgrade command was sent and should have executed but has not.

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To find out more about any of these enhancements and add them to your Infinity platform, contact us. 

If you’d like to get our regular ‘New in Infinity’ updates in your inbox, sign up to our newsletter.

5 online shopping trends in Australia and New Zealand

The growth of online shopping has been one of the biggest stories in retail for a number of years now, with major implications for how retailers reach their customers and plan everything from promotions to bricks-and-mortar presence and warehousing.

Here we look at five recent trends to keep in mind when planning your 2025 online and phygital strategies to help you tailor your offering and engage with customers in ways that best meet their evolving habits.

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1.     Online is here to stay

The past five years have delivered plenty of turbulence in retail, but a clear trend has emerged: online shopping is now part of most people’s regular shopping experience and is here to stay.

While inflation and slowing economic growth forecasts have dented consumer confidence, the portion of total spend going to online has either held firm or increased. In New Zealand, Q4 of last year saw total retail spend increase by only 1%, but online spending went up by 9% to $1.73 billion. Around 40% of all Kiwis aged 15 and over shopped online between October and December, an increase of 4.6% from the same time in 2023.

Meanwhile in Australia, at least eight out of every ten households shopped online during 2023, up 1.4% from the previous year, with at least one in seven making weekly online purchases.

When it comes to deciding how to shop, consumers are choosing the convenience of ecommerce and are building online purchasing into their everyday lives.

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2.        The generations shop differently

The shift to online, though, isn’t spread evenly across all generations, with young people being the most enthusiastic online shoppers. According to Australia Post, 21% of purchases made by 18-26-year-olds happen online, while for 27-43-year-olds the number is even higher at 23%. Gen Xers buy online 19% of the time, and baby boomers rate lowest at 14%, although the total spend among this last group continues to grow as they warm to ecommerce.

For many young shoppers, buying online has become a weekly habit. A study of shopping trends for 2025 found that 51% of Gen Z customers and 41% of Millennials shop online multiple times a week, often responding to customer reviews. Boomers are more deliberate, less frequent shoppers and are more likely to be influenced by perceived value through promotions and discounts.

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3.        Smaller purchases, more often

Age also plays a role in how shoppers have responded to tougher economic conditions. While young consumers have cut back in response to cost-of-living challenges, older buyers with higher disposable incomes are more willing to spend on items they need or want.

Overall, though, there has been a trend towards shoppers choosing to make smaller purchases more often, resulting in smaller basket sizes.  In New Zealand, consumers are buying online more often but are spending less when they do so. They are using online stores as a way of comparing prices and searching for the best deals, and they are willing to swap to a cheaper alternative if it means getting a bargain.

A similar pattern has emerged in Australia, where in 2023 consumers made smaller purchases more often, with the average basket size down 4.6% from the previous year.

Cost-conscious shoppers are also looking overseas to find the best deals. In Q3 2024, New Zealanders’ online transactions with local retailers fell to 68% from 70% the previous year, as offshore transactions grew.  And a 2024 survey of Aussie shoppers found that 11% of their online spend is done with overseas-based retailers like Shein and Temu. As economist Chris Richardson of Rich Insight said at the recent Australian Retail Association Leaders Forum 25 in Sydney, competition in this space is fierce and getting fiercer.

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4.        Big sales events dominate

The hunt for a bargain has seen high-profile events such as Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Boxing Day continue to dominate online sales numbers. Australia Post found that Australian retailers enjoyed a 7.8% year-on-year increase in online purchases during 2024’s cyber weekend, with 7.6 million households taking part, while spending over the same weekend in New Zealand was 7% higher than the previous year as instore spending held firm. Boxing Day, meanwhile, saw a whopping 30% increase in online transactions from 2023.

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5.     Instore keeps its top spot

Despite these impressive gains for online retail, instore shopping remains the single biggest sales channel. In New Zealand, for example, while online spending amounted to $1.73 billion in Q4 of 2024, instore spending came in at $14.4 billion.

What’s more, in Australia 38% of shoppers still prefer visiting a physical store to shopping online.

The split between online and instore, however, is not a hard and fast one. As Scott Fyfe, CEO of David Jones, recently noted, 70% of his customers start their digital journey online before coming into store. Even if a sale ends up being completed instore, it’s clear that shoppers use online to check prices and availability, making the web store a vital part of the overall journey.

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Meeting the moment

Online shopping is and will continue to be an essential and expanding part of the retail landscape. So how do you incorporate these trends into your strategic planning?

For a start, pay close attention to customers’ price sensitivities and spending habits so you can price goods effectively by demographic. Mature customers may be willing to pay more than young shoppers, so look at who you are enticing and targeting with promotions, and price accordingly.

Use data analytics and demand forecasting to identify the best times to run promotions, including but not limited to the major annual sales events, and then tailor deals by market segment.

Perhaps most importantly, rather than seeing online and instore as separate channels, take a phygital approach that recognises the way customers use your online store both as a place to buy and as a place to browse for instore shopping. Fully integrating these channels means establishing a single source of truth, so that both you and your customers have a reliable, real-time view of stock and price.

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Want help to modernise to make the most of your online offering?  

If you’re looking for help to meet the demands of today’s and tomorrow’s customers, get in touch. We’d love to help you deliver the seamless shopping journey customers expect.