The curtains have now come down on the UK’s summer-long festival season. But as the giant stages are dismantled, the tents put away and the fast food vans flip their last organic burgers, it must be said that there’s still a huge opportunity for smartphone-based payments at outdoor events like these. Mobile is fast, simple and secure and where all the innovation is happening in payments today.
Outdoor festivals play perfectly to the strengths of mobile payments. These are chocked full of hundreds of small businesses, selling everything from t-shirts to smoothies, sleeping bags to vegetarian burritos, and pints to pasta. These firms will sink or swim based on their ability to serve as many customers as possible during those key ‘rush hour’ moments first thing in the morning and in between acts. Queue drop outs are an all too common sight at these events as potential customers decide to go with their second or third choice because they have a chance of getting served quicker.
Allow those same punters to pay with a simple tap of the smartphone and you’ve got the best chance of shifting those queues and maximising sales. What’s more, dealing with less cash will save money on handling fees and reduce the risk of shrinkage – always a concern at outdoor events.
Innovation everywhere
Apple Pay is the main player in smartphone payments in the UK today, having launched in July. Already a raft of major high street names have signed up, but there are just as many benefits for smaller businesses – especially those focusing on high volume, low value sales. Consumers are also keen to use it: a quarter of Brits already believe mobile payment technology is a “useful” feature, according to uSwitch.
With Android Pay on its way and other major mobile payment platforms like Samsung Pay also imminent, there’s never been a better time for business owners looking to maximise their takings by offering customers more choice of ways to pay.
It’s not all about the major platform providers either. Innovation is happening all over the sector – fuelling a buzz among consumers and a wealth of options for businesses keen to boost revenue and improve the shopping experience. One such is Yoyo Wallet. This app works almost like a mobile loyalty card – with the user pre-loading money onto the wallet and the retailer scanning a unique QR code generated for each transaction. Thanks to the rewards businesses can offer via the app, Yoyo’s owners are already claiming a “stickiness” rate of around 80%.
Elsewhere there are sector specific apps like Tab and LevelUp, which allow customers to pay in restaurants without the need to wait for the bill. The latter even offers rich analytics which could help restaurants signed up to learn more about their customers and maximise takings accordingly.
Other apps like Square Cash and Venmo have been designed to enable payments between friends. But these could also move into the retail environment one day if they build up a large enough user base.
We’ve made it our business to develop technology that allows retailers to take payments anywhere. Whether you want in-store queue busting capabilities or support out-and-about at remote events, there’s a Miura solution for your business. We support Apple Pay and are constantly reviewing the market for innovative emerging payment platforms which might also benefit our customers by offering fast, simple and secure ways to pay.
Hopefully next summer, smartphone payments will ensure it won’t take half an hour to buy that organic burger.
