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YOU CAN WATCH THE RECORDING OF OUR LIVE EVENT BELOW:

Vianet & special guests present ‘Power through the Pandemic: The Rise of Contactless Payment’, a seminar focused on the shift in consumer behaviour during the COVID19 pandemic. The speakers will look at how this global pandemic has accelerated the decline of cash payment in the vending, self-service & unattended sectors.

Cash has long been king in the vending market. However, with innovation in contactless payment technology and corresponding growth in consumer adoption, momentum has steadily grown towards a time in the near future when the majority of vending machines only take contactless payment.

That was in a world before COVID-19, a global crisis the many of us have endured and none of which will ever wish to experience again. Though cash use was predicted to decline over the coming years anyway, COVID-19 has catalysed an acceleration in this decline greatly, due to minimising human contact with surfaces, and also the suspicion infected cash could carry the virus and cause human-to-human transmission of the disease.

Echoing this, we also talk about the recent announcement also in the UK Budget 2021, of contactless payment limits rising to £100 . The global pandemic has accelerated a move away from cash with shoppers often being encouraged to use contactless in many retailers for public health reasons, and this change in consumer behaviours is driving further advancements in the payment world.

Your Hosts:

Mark Parry – Commercial Director – Vianet

Graham Kingaby – Managing Director – NIVO Group

Your Guest Speakers:

Joseph Scarborough – Founder & Owner – SnaxGroup

Matt Luckhurst – Regional Sales Director – OTI Global

Chris Worgan – Director – JW Vending

 

The future is more uncertain than ever, and businesses need to be tactical in utilising resources and data insight to power through the on-going global pandemic.

Vianet have seen the impact the this has had on vending and unattended businesses in various industries, and with the second wave of COVID-19 affecting the UK and Europe, humanity has a long way to go before being able to completely overcome this obstacle. Companies now have no option but adapt with long-term solutions to combat the obstacles raised by the pandemic on both an operational and commercial level.

Vending Machines Contactless DataVianet have been able to identify key trends from their data insight throughout the pandemic that really highlight the change in payment behaviour in the vending sector. The use of contactless over cash has skyrocketed, and this is likely due to both hygiene and convenience.

In Vianet’s estate, January 2020 saw on average 50% of vending machine transactions were contactless, with up to 30% uplift in overall sales since these operators installed contactless readers on their vending machines.

In 9 months, through to October, these figures continued to rise on vending machines that were still actively being used throughout the pandemic, showing a sharp rise in June with up to 68% of vending transactions coming from contactless payment devices and this continued to stay in the high 60’s right through to October. This accelerated increase of up to 18% since the start of the pandemic really does illustrate the continuous shift in consumer behaviour.

Caffia Coffee Group recently collaborated with Vianet looking for a solution for their customers to assist them in providing a safe and hygienic payment method for their coffee machines, minimising machine contact as much as possible to prevent the spread of the virus.

They were keen to partner with a supplier who could offer them an all-in-one solution, so Vianet were the perfect match offering a dedicated support team, and giving insight into their machine performance with telemetry, as well as a more sustainable contactless payment method.

Data is vital to identifying trends, requirements and adapting to change, giving you insight on your business that can make all the difference to running efficiently during unpredictable times. Data Insight gives operators the opportunity to look back at their performance and sales in key periods and see what can be adjusted to maximise profit and minimise loss.

Tchibo have recently partnered with Vianet to do just this.

“Vianet’s telemetry services allow us to monitor our machine performance to improve our business efficiencies. With the addition of contactless payment providing a fast, hygienic payment option for our customers, these services have been invaluable, especially in the current climate.” David Mackie, Coffee Systems Development Manager at Tchibo & Matthew Algie.

J&K Ross, health and safety clothing specialists, have also been working with Vianet with an interesting approach to vending during the pandemic to control and aid in reducing wastage of PPE distribution for businesses.

“The Vianet telemetry on our PPE vending machines works for our clients for many reasons. Primarily though, they like that there is control of the PPE being used on site and this can be refined to job specific roles. There is also the benefit of record keeping, and workers have access to PPE 24/7.” Jason Robinson, Key Account Manager, J&K Ross.

In November, Vianet launched their new Data Insight Portal, SmartVend, to existing VendExpert customers, with an enhanced insight platform, giving greater transparency of their business and data.

 

Vianet host their very own FREE webinar ‘Power Through the Pandemic: The Value of Data Insight in a Global Pandemic’, on Tuesday 8th December at 12pm GMT.

With special guest speakers from the industry, the webinar will cover how Data Insight can help you to operate your unattended business as efficiently as possible. Please check Vianet’s social channels to register and find out more.