Creating seamless hospitality with a tech-forward business

The past year has seen hospitality businesses adopting contactless payment technology at unprecedented rates, but how can this tech be seamlessly integrated into existing ways of operating and what insights can gain from this influx of user data?

Theo Leslie, Vertical Growth Manager at WorldPay, shared some key insights in the ‘Create Seamless Hospitality with a Tech-Forward Business’ webinar, now available on demand.

“Hospitality businesses have had to rapidly pivot to keep up with change,” he explains. “We’ve seen huge growth across revenue streams such as delivery/click & collect, retail (online and onsite), cook-at-home meals and supermarket ranges.”

The pivot to eCommerce

WorldPay saw a 20% increase in eCommerce volume year-on-year in 2020 and 69% of online shoppers buying food delivery.

“Historically that growth has been driven by demographic changes,” says Leslie. “Gen Z and Gen Y grew up, became consumers and were more comfortable with the technology, whereas this increase isn’t driven by that. This increase is higher penetration into a new demographic of people.”

Higher average spend was driven partly by customers with nothing else to spend money on, but also by this entry of an older, more affluent audience to the eCommerce market.

There has been an expansion of delivery zones, with well-known brands such as Deliveroo and Just-Eat implementing a better service and a larger network of riders across a wider geographic area.

“The shift that has taken place has accelerated existing trends,” Leslie points out. “While there will be some market correction, there will also be definite permanence in some of the changes we’ve seen.”

Some of the key payment trends from the past year:

•           Digital wallet transactions have increased to 44.5% of eCommerce
•           20.5% of global PoS volume was cash; down by 32% from 2019
•           50% of restaurant transactions were through a ‘card not present’ route in the April 2020 lockdown
•           ‘Buy now pay later’ continued to gain market share, rising to 2.1% in 2020

Ease of use and the seamlessness of the customer journey also played a key part in completed transactions, with WorldPay finding that 35% of shoppers will drop out if their preferred card payment isn’t offered.

“The eCommerce world is much more fickle” explains Leslie. “You need to remove friction on the customer pathway. It's easy to drop in and out of the consumer funnel and it’s less driven by customer desire. It’s much easier to switch between brands, so you need to have a strong competitive showing in that digital world.”