Olo Q3: Item-Level Guest Data Collection Is Launchpad for 6x Card-Present Opportunity

Olo executives told investors on the company’s third quarter 2023 earnings call on Monday (Nov. 6) that they anticipate card-present transactions to become a key growth driver for its Olo Pay service as restaurant brands transition away from their long-standing legacy payment processing partnerships.

The fact that “non-digital transactions account for more than 80% of restaurant transactions today” makes the card-present opportunity even more appealing, Noah Glass, CEO of the restaurant technology platform, pointed out during the call.

The company began offering card-present processing through Olo Pay in July, PYMNTS reported at the time, making its card-present payment processing service available to diners who place in-store orders via kiosks in partnership with Bite, a provider of self-service kiosks for quick-service restaurants.

Glass emphasized the strides made in expanding payment processing to include card-present transactions since then, pointing to the launch of card-present processing through a second kiosk partner in Q3 as it prepares for full card-present implementation across all locations by next year.

He explained that a significant driver of Olo Pay’s card-not-present success is its unique ability to collect detailed guest data for all transactions, both on-premise and off-premise. Access to this granular guest data, he noted, will position the ResTech firm to capitalize on the lucrative card-present business opportunity which is six times the size of the card-not-present market.

“Being able to harvest that guest data and tie every transaction, whether it’s off- or on-premise, back to that same guest account is the secret sauce, and why we think Olo Pay is compelling for [both] card-not-present and card-present transactions,” Glass said. He added that the long-term goal is to be the platform that enables restaurant brands to “harness the power of their guests’ data” and convert the data into insights that can help them drive more traffic.

Overall, the company reported strong results for the quarter, with total revenue increasing 22% year-over-year (YoY) to $57.8 million and total platform revenue surging 24% to about $57 million YoY.

Regarding its one-click checkout feature known as Borderless, the company reported that it has received consistently positive feedback from clients since its launch roughly five quarters ago, with Borderless scaling to over 1 million guest accounts created to date.

“It’s an early milestone in our journey and we see an opportunity to make Borderless available to all of our customers. We believe this will be a win for guests and it will help make [us] an even stronger partner to drive traffic for brands, which is more important than ever in our industry,” Glass remarked.