Providing Customer Trust in San Diego
San Diego boasts approximately 40,000 attendees at its pride festival and more than 250,000 at its parade. Selling at last year’s event was a first for Megan Kim, who owns two-person homemade goods provider Farmgirl Crafts. The company sells hand-poured lollipops in various shapes and flavors — like rose cardamom, chili mango and mojito — and often goes by its Lick It Lollipops candy brand name. Kim typically sells at street and craft fairs, churches, schools, retail settings and ticketed events.
“[Pride 2018] wasn’t one of our biggest events, but I definitely have to put it [on the list] for being one of our most fun events,” she said.
The company’s first day at the festival brought in $750 to $800, an amount similar to what it would make at an average street festival. The second day drew double that, however, which Kim said could be due to a change in marketing, a different tone to the day’s events and a greater number of families in attendance.
Even though her lollipops sell for just $2, she said credit card acceptance was critical. Like Roberge, Kim discovered that many festival attendees save their cash supplies. She also noted that millennials are unlikely to carry any and women seem more likely to prefer using cards.
Lick It Lollipops uses PayPal for operations like mail orders, vendor payments and invoicing, but it relies on an mPOS offering for events. Kim adopted it during a free card reader promotion and says it is not worth the time or cost of changing from a system with which she’s now familiar.
“[Customers] recognize the reader [I use],” Kim said. “[They] see it and they just relax. They continue their shopping and selecting flavors. They’re not worried about what I am doing with their credit cards.”
While Kim prefers chip payments due to liability concerns, Lick It Lollipops also enables card swiping for customers without chips or those with damaged cards.
Vendors like Wicked Good Henna and Lick It Lollipops are eager to add fun and flavor to cities celebrating Pride Month, but they need to provide payment experiences that quickly and conveniently serve consumers to do so. The right mPOS solution can make all the difference and check out customers before they move on to the next vendor.
