With more than 2000 UK retailers signed up to its smartphone payment app, PayPal is to make shoppers lives easier by letting them order and pay ahead of time and a new ‘pay at table’ feature, both aimed at streamlining restaurant use.
Wagamama will be first to roll out pay ahead to the public and Prezzo will be trialing pay at table.
With Pay ahead, diners can choose and order their wagamama takeaway through the app, saving time when they collect it from one of the 107 wagamama restaurants.
Richard Tallboy, director of business development at wagamama, said: “Allowing customers to order ahead and pay for their take-out through the PayPal app makes the experience more convenient for our customers. Payment is already sorted so they just need to pick up their food and enjoy.”
Prezzo restaurants, meanwhile, will be rolling out pay at table, giving diners to pay quickly and adding the option of splitting the bill with their friends, through their smartphones.
This feature is designed to save customers time by ensuring they do not have to wait for their waiter or waitress to bring the bill and a PIN card machine to take payment. The Prezzo Pay At Table system is powered by MyCheck and Comtrex.
Christian Poole, marketing director at Prezzo, says: “PayPal has helped us give customers the control to view, split and pay the bill directly on their mobile phone. We’ve increased our sales, customer insights and satisfaction.”
And it doesn’t end there. PayPal is extending its ‘pay by face’ trial – where users pay using their PayPal profile – from selected Starbucks to 60 restaurants in the Gourmet Burger Kitchen (GBK) chain. The follows the success of paying by profile picture at GBK’s Richmond restaurant in 2013. GBK has integrated picture payment into its IBS EPoS system.
Katie McDermott, marketing director at Gourmet Burger Kitchen, says: “With counter service at GBK, the facility for customers to check in and pay with their PayPal profile picture has made the transaction faster and easier and we’ve got to know more of our customers by name.”
