With Paris 2024 fast approaching, we look at how best practice, and making checkouts traveller-friendly, can help retailers cash in on event-based demand spikes.
Major events drive major spend
And they don’t get much bigger than the Summer Olympic Games. Between July and August, more than 15 million visitors are expected to travel to Paris for the games, generating between EUR 6.7 and 11.1 billion for the city.
But this is just one of many lucrative international opportunities. With a population of 747 million people over 44 countries, Europe is a hub for some of the world’s largest sporting, music and cultural events. Whether it’s the Olympics, The Euros, or Taylor Swift, many cities, not just Paris, are playing host to multitudes of travellers, fans and supporters this summer.
Checkouts need to be ready to win
Local merchants, restaurants and bars, hotels and traders can’t afford to miss out on these valuable opportunities to capture additional spend.
But with high footfalls, comes the stress of trying to manage infrastructure and resources to support the uptick in demand. No matter how great the promotions, how well stocked the stores, or how prepared the staff, without fast, reliable and visitor-ready checkouts, outlets could fail to maximise sales.
How to raise your retail game at international event hotspots
If you’re fortunate enough to be trading in or near major event destinations, here are some of the POS-itive actions you can take to ride the volume spikes and reap the rewards:
- Make sure you can accept multiple payment methods
It’s likely that many visitors, especially from outside the EU, will be cashless, preferring instead to use a card or their mobile phones to make a purchase. Consider extending your offering with the likes of Diners Club, Amex, Alipay, PayPal and mobile wallets like Google and ApplePay. And make sure all the options are clearly visible at the POS. - Encourage contactless to reduce bottlenecks and speed throughput
If you don’t offer contactless yet, now is the time. And if you do, make sure shoppers know you accept it and encourage them to use it by having dedicated and clearly signed card only checkouts. Eventgoers are often on tight schedules and don’t want to spend time queuing if it’s not necessary. Remember contactless payments are two times faster than with a PIN, that means you can make twice as many sales in the same timeframe. - Don’t lose out due to size
Even the smallest retailers, now need to offer contactless digital payments. If a mobile POS is outside of your budget, don’t worry there are now options like Castles Technology’s SoftPOS that let you turn your phone or tablet into a fully functioning payment acceptance device. - Ensure that your checkout offers dynamic currency conversions (DCC)
While savvy travellers may want to get the best deal for their money by making a payment in the local currency – some prefer having the transaction made in their own currency even, if that means a higher exchange rate and fee. It’s good to be able to have both options so make sure your checkout can offer DCC for those coming from non-Euro countries.
- Look at boosting sales points with mobile POS
Having access to quick to deploy, easy to use mobile POS devices can help you ramp up checkouts rapidly where throughput is expected to be high. Especially in busy bars and restaurants where being able to pay at table is vital in ensuring fast turnaround and good service. - Use unattended and kiosks to boost convenience and reduce stress
If you’re running multilane checkouts, prevent frustration and avoid staff from becoming overwhelmed by adding unattended checkouts or even kiosks for popular items like water, snacks and event-branded merchandise. By pushing smaller sales through self-service options, you can free staff to focus on those customers making larger sales.
- Use a POS provider that gives you dedicated support
Transaction volumes at major events can place a lot of strain on even the most resilient of devices leaving retailers at risk of downtime. Ensure you never miss a sale by ensuring your payment solution provider can provide the technical support you need to keep things running smoothly with minimal disruption.
At Castles we’re on your team
We have all the tools you need to stay out in front. As well as world leading Android POS and unattended devices, we provide dedicated customer services including a European technical centre, with multi-lingual support running 24/7. In addition our POS devices can be connected via our terminal management platform CasHUB, to enable remote reporting, diagnostics, as well as software updates, security patches and fixes.
Discover how Castles helps you win https://www.castlestech.com/products/
