Analyzing Mobile Ordering: Why Your Organization Should Adopt, What Not To Do & The Players In The Space

So I haven’t attended an in-person game since the pandemic began. But man am I itching to post up in the Yankee Stadium bleachers on a hot summer day. Vaccine shot number two on Monday and then straight to the ballpark (two weeks later).

Speaking of returning to venues, I’ve spent a lot of time over the past two months talking to companies building future in-venue technology. The next several editions will discuss emerging technologies changing the stadium experience. This edition will kick off the series by focusing on mobile ordering & in-seat delivery. 

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Let’s dive in…

All the rage coming out of COVID is stadiums upgrading to fully contactless payment. Is this the same as mobile ordering?

Not exactly. Contactless payment generally refers to the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) or near field communication (NFC) to make secure payments. Think paying with your smartphone by holding it near a point of sale terminal. Essentially you remove cash entirely and eliminate the need to physically hand over a plastic card.

By mobile ordering, I’m referring to the ability to place an order through a smartphone and eliminate waiting in concession lines or flagging down a hawker in an aisle. 

Going contactless doesn’t address certain pain points of concession ordering. Contactless might speed up lines but doesn’t eliminate them. Fans are still distracted from watching a game. There’s no benefit to the workforce who still need to manually key in an order and then quickly round up the items. 

Early in the pandemic, everyone clamored to go cashless since the coronavirus was assumed to live on surfaces and be transmitted through touch. Though proved untrue by science – don’t stop washing your hands however – the pandemic provided the spark for more venues to go fully contactless even though the technology had existed for a while. But don’t automatically assume headlines that a venue has gone contactless means it implemented a robust mobile ordering strategy. 

Gotcha. So walk me through the value of mobile ordering.

Let’s look at the benefits of mobile ordering from three angles: 1) Improved customer satisfaction, 2) Technology can drive more dollars and 3) Removing frictions aligned with cash.

1. Improved customer satisfaction – When I meet a person who enjoys waiting in lines, it will be the first in my 32 years on this planet. People HATE lines, especially mid-game where time spent waiting could result in missing a game’s most exciting play. With mobile ordering, fans who value watching the game over getting food have an avenue to order efficiently. 
2. Technology can drive more dollars – Besides increasing your customer base, mobile ordering technology can drive additional revenue through higher per caps. If used effectively, promotions and push notifications can increase cart size. Push inventory that’s not selling. Sell hot dogs 50% off within 5 minutes of a big play. Add popcorn to an existing item for $2. As long as you cover marginal cost, additional sales are accretive to your bottom line. 
3. Removing frictions aligned with cash – We touched on this above. Cash is messy. You don’t collect any buyer payment history. It’s slow to process. It’s vulnerable to theft. Removing cash speeds up the check-out process, resulting in an increased volume of sales.

Those benefits seem obvious. Should I rush my venue to implement mobile ordering?

Lesson for any technology implementation – When you fail to consider the human element and training required, responses can be disastrous. Per Front Office Sports, MLB fans loudly complained about concession lines during opening weekend, forcing the teams to revert back to traditional walk up ordering from planned 100% digital ordering. Clearly, the pandemic accelerated the move to cashless but teams were ill prepared to deal with the high volume. 

Quick clarification before proceeding: We generally only hear when things go wrong. It’s why the media covers plane crashes so intensely but never mentions the tens of thousands of planes landing safely everyday.  Before you assume every mobile ordering implementation has hiccups, understand many venues successfully launched mobile ordering without a blip that you’ll never hear about. 

That said, it’s also very possible those MLB teams lost fans for life during those games. The in-venue experience is in constant battle with at-home viewing. Adding miserable concession lines can be enough to tip the scales for some people.

You mentioned the human element and training required. Can you elaborate on those and other operating challenges for implementation?

Identifying useful technology is only the first step to making life easier. The implementation piece is often the bigger determining factor whether technology can achieve its intended purpose (hence, why we are building a service to help sports properties navigate the entire sourcing through implementation process). 

Here are the operating challenges in my mind:

• Awareness – People won’t order through mobile if they don’t realize it’s an option. How will you introduce fans to mobile ordering technology? Will there be in-stadium signage? Will there be a stadium announcement? Will fans be made aware prior to arriving? Success relies on a coordinated effort between venue operations and marketing. 
• Access – In other words, how will customers be able to place orders? Mobile app or a QR web pass-through? I have a couple thoughts down below but what method you determine relies on connectivity in the stadium. More thoughts on this in a future edition. 
• Integration – A customer facing ordering platform will often need several integrations to be successful. That includes: 1) Point-of-sale system – To accept payments, 2) Inventory Management – Back end reconciliation of supplies, 3) CRM – To collect customer information, 4) Mobile Wallet – To allow people to link branded cards and gift cards (optional), 5) In-Seat Delivery (if a separate vendor) – See below
• Fulfillment – Fulfilling mobile orders is a different operational process. Will fans pick up from an existing concession stand or a designated pick-up area? If you use a designated pick-up area, how does that impact the customer flow in the venue? Regardless which you choose, you will need to retrain your workforce to ensure mobile orders get the same attention as walk-up customers. If I had to guess, this was a major factor in the opening weekend MLB fail. 
• Workforce Size – Similarly, understanding the demand when implementing mobile ordering will determine whether additional staff are required. Normally, you’d consider piloting in a small area of a stadium but the pandemic forced many venues to adopt without a trial period. If mobile ordering increases volume of orders by 25%, will you have enough employees to adequately handle?

How does in-seat delivery factor in?

How I think about it – in-seat delivery is absolutely crucial coming out of the pandemic and for the next generation of fans. 

Why? Behavior is sticky, breaking habits is difficult and Americans are generally lazy. With everyone stuck inside, the pandemic accelerated the reliance on delivery services to the point customers now expect to have that option. 

With in-seat delivery, you face some of the same operational challenges as mobile ordering, namely adequate staffing and retraining your workforce. But if you can figure out a strategy that redeploys hawkers for deliveries, your operational flow can be made more efficient by transition from push supply to pull demand. 

What else should I consider as part of my mobile ordering strategy?

Your mobile ordering strategy shouldn’t be an isolated decision by venue operations. Rather consider other organizational objectives and how mobile ordering can influence fan behavior.

What’s an example? Let’s say a goal is to collect more fan information and supplement your CRM system. An asset at your disposal is your team mobile app. Thus, you can force fans to download your mobile app to access in-venue mobile ordering and then push additional notifications to that fan outside that specific game. Venue operations vendor selection would therefore benefit the marketing and sponsorship teams. 

What’s another example? An effective mobile order strategy can redirect flow positively. If you put a food pick up zone in front of a merchandise store, a fan may notice a cool new jersey they ultimately buy. Before mobile ordering, they would have headed straight to a concession stand, waited in line, maybe gotten frustrated and then headed straight back to their seat with a singular focus. With mobile ordering, free advertising of merchandising through strategic positioning. 

Who are the companies playing in the stadium space? 

There are a bunch of companies that have emerged. This list doesn’t even include mobile ordering solutions for non-sports use cases like restaurants. 

Since many of the companies aren’t solely focused on mobile ordering, I’m going through the list based on value proposition:

• Don’t have sufficient WiFi in-stadium? UK company SwipeStation has built a mobile ordering system using kiosks that doesn’t require connectivity. Additionally, their system simplifies the order preparation process to reduce the training burden on concession staff. 
• Looking for a low cost provider? Partake, which also has multiple other mobile fan engagement features, has partnered with multiple minor league baseball clubs at the lowest price point I’ve seen.
• Want a company with a flexible contract model? FanFood offers fee sharing agreements or hybrid pricing (i.e., fixed per stand) allowing a client to choose the structure best fitting their situation. 
• Think your fans are sick of another mobile app? TEXT4Service from TEZ Technologies enables ordering through a QR code without needing to overhaul your venue point-of-sale system. 
• Looking for a company that is 100% focused on mobile ordering? Tapin2 provides a complete product set enabling mobile ordering including order taker hardware, kiosks, hawker technology, suite focused products and fulfillment solutions. 
• Is in-seat delivery a priority? Several companies have grown since starting as in-seat delivery specialists, including SeatServe, Stadium Drop and sEATz. 
• Do you have an existing POS system? That company may have built their own ordering solution. For example, point of sale company Appetize has built out its own mobile and online ordering software. 
• Approaching mobile ordering from an ecommerce focus? Venuetize takes a mobile first approach to in-venue ecommerce, offering mobile wallet and a native loyalty & rewards program in conjunction with mobile ordering capabilities. 
• Looking for a comprehensive venue solution? VenueNext combines mobile ordering with mobile wallet and point of sale as a complete offering.

That hopefully provides some quick context but if you’re looking into adopting mobile ordering in your venue and want to learn more, don’t hesitate to reach out for guidance.

That was a lot of helpful information. Can you summarize quickly?

Absolutely. Key takeaways:

• The benefits to mobile ordering are numerous, including improved customer experience, ability to drive additional revenue and remove frictions associated with cash.
• However, failing to consider operational challenges before deployment can result in headaches (see MLB opening weekend wait times).
• Deploying mobile ordering technology effectively can help drive other organizational goals. 
• The space is crowded. Certain mobile ordering companies have approached the service differently, though at the end of the day, customers only care about having a seamless ordering experience. 

Until next time,

– Charles

Future topics in this series will include digital ticketing & mobile wallets, smart check-out technologies, safety & security, connectivity and in-stadium engagement.

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