With the approach of the summer season comes numerous opportunities for your restaurant to expand your reach and entice new customers to enjoy your offerings.
Setting up a food tent at local fairs and farmers’ markets is one of the easiest strategies for getting the word out about your amazing food.
But just how do you go about making it possible for those hungry customers to pay on the go?
Mobile payments: the perfect solution
Mobile payments enable you to free yourself from your restaurant’s countertop terminal.
Not so long ago, payment options for pop-up food tent owners were very limited. For the most part, customers could only make purchases using cash, but carrying bills and coins has become increasingly rare in recent years.
That’s due to the surge in popularity of the smartphone and consumers’ virtually universal adoption of credit cards and digital wallets.
With mobile payment processing, businesses can leverage these innovations to make customers’ on-the-go purchases easier and more secure than ever.
Advantages of mobile payments
There are several advantages to mobile payments, including convenience, portability, and a wide range of payment choices.
Toting around a wallet stuffed with cash is cumbersome, and makes buyers vulnerable to theft and loss. By contrast, paying by placing a credit or debit card or wearable device near a touchless card reader is safe and fast, with no fumbling for bills and coins.
Mobile payment technology is also highly portable, usually consisting of just mobile payment processing software, and a tablet or mobile phone attached to a free or inexpensive reader.
The upsides don’t stop there. The software can also store customers’ information and buying histories, making it possible for you to convert one-time visitors to long-term patrons.
Just think of how you can leverage these contact details to send promotions and news about new menu offerings throughout the summer and year-round. The sky is the limit.
How to get started with mobile payments
Your first step is to choose a provider.
Because there are several payment solutions for food tents from which to choose, focus on fees, ease of use, available features such as inventory tracking, integrations, and the quality of the company’s customer service.
After selecting a provider, give them your business and account information in order to sign up for an account.
If applicable, order hardware such as a mobile terminal. Then download and set up the provider’s mobile app.
After testing the system to ensure that you understand it and to troubleshoot any glitches, get ready to go live.
Be sure that you put up signage indicating all of the mobile types that you accept, including Google Pay, Apple Pay, and credit or debit cards.
Ideally, find a stable internet source to ensure that there are no interruptions when accepting payments. Using your phone’s data plan or a portable hotspot will generally be sufficient.
With the balmy temperatures come opportunities for your restaurant to flourish. Take the time to get mobile payments set up now, and your food tent will be a hit at every event where you travel this summer.
North is a leading financial technology company that builds innovative, frictionless end-to-end payment solutions designed to simplify and grow businesses of all sizes. From the front door, to the back office, the developer world, and partnerships that expand the payments landscape, North offers proactive, comprehensive merchant services, in-house processing, and more.
