How this mobile food business doubled their orders with on the go payments

The summer is coming, which means: ice cream, walks in the park and delicious takeaway food.

Tiziana, owner of the Heartmelts food truck, is excited for this summer: people will be out, meeting in groups and hungry. She also has the right tools so she can serve more customers than ever before and grow her takeaway business.

Thanks to Pomelo Pay, Tiziana can serve many more customers in a shorter amount of time… and she never has to touch a card machine again!

How Pomelo Pay doubled the number of Heartmelts orders

Before she started using Pomelo Pay, Tiziania did most of her orders by hand:

“Before we would be writing the orders down on post stick notes, so you can imagine if it was windy... disaster. Before when I did use card machines, I found they were inconsistent and would run out of battery quite quickly or the power would simply cut out.”

Now, Tiziania uses QR codes to accept payments, and it has completely transformed the way she does business:

“Moving across to the QR code has sped up the order process. Now, people order via the QR code, and I have the Pomelo app on an ipad so whilst I’m cooking, I can see the orders come through and I can make them once they are completed. Before it took me 4 minutes to make a sandwich, now it takes 2 minutes.”

Using QR code payments has slashed Tiziania’s prep time in half and reduced staff costs, effectively doubling the number of customers and revenue. She also gets paid the next working day, making cash flow easy to reconcile. And since she doesn’t need to pay for a card machine, it costs a lot less to accept payments.

Learn more: QR Code payments: what they are and how to get started

She’s also a big fan of payment links:

“If anyone wants to pay me any other way for events I'm hired at, then I send them a payment link. I am not chasing payments and I even get a notification when the payment is completed.”

Find out how to request payments with payment links.

All in all, Tiziania is incredibly happy with her new payment system, and can’t see herself going back.

How Tiziana uses Pomelo Pay

Let’s dive a little deeper into how Tiziana uses QR codes to accept payments.

There’s an important distinction between static and dynamic QR codes: static QR codes can be printed and displayed on your shop, table or even on a mug.

Dynamic QR codes are those that are displayed online, and you would show on your phone or on an email.

Both dynamic and static QR codes can be used for payments and for accessing an online menu.

Which type of QR code does Heartmelts use? Since Tiziana displays it in her shop, she uses a static QR code.

If she wanted to, she could also set up the QR code on her iPad or phone and customers scan from there.

As you can see in the photo, Tiziania has a poster with a static QR code that says “beat the queue” - because paying with QR codes makes the whole purchasing process a lot faster for both customers and Tiziania.

“It took an hour to set up my shop with Pomelo Pay. If you have any social media or ordering system, then setting up Pomelo Pay is the easiest thing you can do. It’s much simpler than any other shop builder platform that I’ve used. It’s extremely easy to change your products/items so editing is very low maintenance.”

You can see her online shop at Heart Melts Ltd. When one of her customers wants to buy one her products, they just need to scan the QR code which takes them to her shop. There, they can pick their order and pay.

Isn’t it additional effort having to explain how QR codes work? Not really. Tiziania explains:

“People know how QR codes work now and I don’t need to explain it to my customers, and that’s why we are keeping it on the stand. It’s much easier compared to a card reader which we constantly would need to clean.”

How would a Heartmelts customer pay with QR codes? Here’s what the process looks like:

1. A customer arrives at Heartmelts and scans the QR code with their smartphone (all smartphones have an inbuilt QR code scanner)
2. Once they scan the QR code, they click on a notification that takes them to a separate screen where they see an online menu (Tiziania created hers with Pomelo Pay)
3. On the menu, they can pick what they want to order, add any dietary requirements and then complete their payment with card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. They can choose to receive the receipt via email.
4. Tiziania receives the order on her iPad and immediately starts preparing the meal. Once it’s ready, all she needs to do is deliver the order to her customer.
5. Tiziania receives the payment the next working day.

For bigger events like weddings which require a deposit, she also uses payment links. These work similarly to QR codes - except that instead of displaying a QR code, you get the option to send the link to your customer via email or any other method.

With a payment link, Tiziania can receive large payment amounts securely and conveniently - no more manual and time consuming bank transfers!

Tiziania is also very excited about our soon to be released Tap to Pay feature, which allows businesses to accept contactless payments with just their phones.

“I feel very supported and I'm very excited for the Tap to Pay feature to come out. I’m happy that as a customer, I can speak to the Customer Success Team to get demos or anything that I need. I never have any issues and all my questions are answered straight away.”

Learn more about Tap to Pay.

A bit about Heartmelts

Tiziania is passionate about making extremely tasty, guilt free food.

Heartmelts is a mobile food business that works in and around London. They are usually booked for outside events to make vegan cheese toasties, including weddings, popups and festivals. She also has a market stand where she sells vegan cheese products.

Tiziania is very proud of being 100% vegan and also tries to make as much of the food herself. She’s partnered with The Vegan Wholesaler as well as a local bakery. Heartmelts strives to be local, vegan owned and as carbon neutral as possible.

And thanks to Pomelo Pay, Heartmelts can reach more customers and grow its business using modern day payment technologies, for a fraction of the cost of other card readers.

Want to find out more? Contact our Sales Team and get started with Pomelo Pay for free!

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