First Data and Verifone have announced a partnership to help U.S. merchants reduce exposure to large-scale consumer payment data breaches and expedite merchant acceptance of EMV-enabled credit and debit cards.
Large-scale theft of consumer payment data from merchants’ integrated point-of-sale (POS) systems is among the biggest challenges facing the payments industry. Another challenge comes from the significant number of merchants POS integrators and other payment providers looking to certify new EMV-capable devices in response to the mandated fraud liability shift from bank to merchant in October 2015.
To address this burden, First Data will now offer Verifone’s Secure Commerce Architecture (SCA) solution to its U.S. merchant clients who use Verifone equipment within an integrated point of sale (IPOS) system. SCA helps to solve the difficulties of EMV compliance by eliminating the flow of consumer payment data into the IPOS. Payment data will also now flow through First Data’s TransArmor data protection solution, enabling encrypted delivery directly to First Data from the Verifone payment termin
PetSmart Agrees to $8.7B Buyout
Pet supply retailer PetSmart came to an agreement on Sunday to be purchased by a private equity consortium led by BC Partners Ltd. for $8.7 billion, one of the biggest buyouts of the year. The deal shows that investors still have the potential to drive corporate boards to explore potential buyouts and accept a price that makes a leveraged buyout possible.
Activist investor Jana Partners began pushing for a sale after disclosing a 9.9% stake in PetSmart in early July. PetSmart said BC Partners, as well as some of its fun investors, signed an agreement to buy the company for $83 per share. Longview Asset Management, which also has a 9% stake in the company, will roll a third of its holding into the deal.
The buyout price represents a 39% premium to PetSmart's closing price of $59.81 on July 2, the day before Jana disclosed its stake and called for the retailer to explore the sale. However, PetSmart's shares on Friday closed at $77.67.
In August, the retailer said it would explore a potential sale of the company, which employs 54,000 and operates 1,387 stores. The retailer faced increasing investor pressure at a time when fierce competition from large retailers, such as Walmart and Amazon, is squeezing specialty store
Online Ordering Platform Integrates Apple Pay
ChowNow is bringing the convenience and simplicity of Apple Pay to thousands of local restaurants. ChowNow is the first online ordering system to offer Apple’s new touch-of-a-button payment technology.
The addition of Apple Pay benefits both restaurants and their customers. Rather than manually inputting their credit card number and billing address, customers with an iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, or the forthcoming Apple Watch, can complete their order simply by using their fingerprint. As a result of the added convenience and security, restaurants should see increased order volumes, and hence a more profitable to-go business. Apple Analyst Tim Bajarin estimates that by the end of the year, about 30 million Americans will have access to Apple Pay via their iPhones (USA Today), meaning a broad reach for customers nationwide.
By January 2015, all ChowNow restaurant clients’ ordering apps will be updated to include Apple Pay and all new customers will receive it as a standard feature.
Updated Table Tracking System Speeds Service and Reduces Lost Revenue for Pizza Ranch
Pizza Ranch is a pizza, fried chicken and salad buffet bar with 186 locations across the Midwest. The company’s mission is “to give every guest a legendary experience.” Part of that experience is the ability to “Buffet Your Way” and order custom pizza and non-buffet menu items.
When guests order a custom pizza or non-buffet menu item at Pizza Ranch, it has to be delivered to their table in time for them to enjoy it with their buffet items. Pizza Ranch was using number cards at the tables to direct food runners to where to deliver these orders.
However, vice president of marketing Cody Pierce said there were challenges with that system. First of all, number cards were sometimes stolen and had to be replaced often. More importantly, it could take food runners several minutes of searching to find the table with the right number. As a result, many orders were taking too long from time of order to table delivery.
Occasionally, a guest would even finish his or her buffet meal and leave before custom menu items were delivered. The delay in food delivery was leading to a less than “legendary experience” for too many Pizza Ranch guests.
Pizza Ranch deployed Table Tracker from LRS. Now, when a guest orders a custom pizza or an item from the menu, he or she is handed a Table Tracker. This system directs food runners to the precise location where the guest is seated. Pizza Ranch started by testing Table Tracker in a few of its corporate-owned restaurants and noticed immediate improvements in operational efficiency and speed of service. Management then decided to expand the solution to Pizza Ranch franchises.
Immediate business benefits
Pizza Ranch saw several immediate business benefits. First, was that the system improved service and guest satisfaction. With Table Tracker, managers had a way to measure wait time and delivered past the standard delivery time. The combination of awareness and table location technology allowed food runners to consistently meet the goal delivery time and shave up to three minutes off orders. “We did see an increase in guest satisfaction with the Buffet Your Way program,” said Pierce.
Table Tracker also resulted in greater staff productivity. Pierce says the staff absolutely loved Table Tracker from the time it was first put in. No longer do they have to walk around searching for little numbers on the tables. “It gets them back quicker to delivering the next pizza that’s coming out of the oven for a Buffet Your Way request,” said Pierce. “The staff absolutely loves Table Tracker. It’s very easy to understand and operate, and it makes their jobs easier.”
Finally, Pizza Ranch saw lost revenue savings after implementing Table Tracker. There were cases before Table Tracker where the pizza was so late coming out that guests had left, or they might complain or want a discount. Since Table Tracker, Pizza Ranch has had a savings in lost revenue.
For Pizza Ranch, speed of service and customization are essential components of great service. Table Tracker is able to help Pizza Ranch meet its goal of giving every guest a legendary experience. “It’s definitely worth it,” says Pierce. “Franchisees see the value, and wouldn’t want to go back to the old way
