HOW TO
HOW TO: POS
How technology has changed the payment and ordering process.
TRANSACTIONAL TECH BY ASHLEY BRAY
Photos: Barpay.
C
ontactless has gone from buzzword to necessity in the hospitality industry as bars search for ways to reduce interactions between customers and staff. The payment and ordering process is just one area that has been revolutionized by technology. “I think overall the service industry has been somewhat reluctant to adapt technology, but now with the current situation, they’re starting to see this technology actually can save you money, and it actually is a little bit easier for the customers as well,” says Joe DePinto, director of Sales for Barpay, a contactless ordering and payment platform. According to Shift4 Payments, a leader in secure payment processing solutions, technology has helped enable barbizmag.com
establishments to actually increase transactions. Shift4 has been making its transaction data public on Shift4Cares. com since the beginning of the pandemic, and while it saw the lowest transaction volumes at the end of March, transactions have been steadily increasing since then. In a September press release, Shift4 noted that 47 states increased transaction volumes in August compared to the beginning of the summer, with more than half of all states showing an increase of greater than 20%. As of September 15, since the lowest point in late March, restaurant transactions were up over 190%. “This data suggests that restaurants, bars, and hospitality businesses have successfully adapted to the situation by implementing social distancing practices, contactless payments, online ordering,
QR Pay, and other measures to safely engage in commerce with their patrons,” says Nate Hirshberg, vice president, Marketing, Shift4 Payments. More recent data showed that, despite an anticipated seasonal slowdown, payment volume was relatively consistent between August and September throughout the majority of the country, suggesting continued recovery. Some states even grew transaction volume month-over-month in September, including Arizona, Nevada, Utah, California, Louisiana, and New Mexico. “The hospitality industry typically experiences a seasonal volume decline in the fall. The seasonality was less pronounced in our data,” said Jared Isaacman, Shift4’s Founder and CEO, in a press release. “These positive trends are
October/ November 2020
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