Coges and PMTsolutions are proud to partner with the Broderick Group: the UK’s leading vending and refreshments specialist. The Broderick Group have been leading the way in cashless payment with Pay4Vend in the UK and quickly recognised this truely innovative application has the potential to engage its customers in the workplace and on the go making purchasing vending products one of personal choice.
Originally, the project was devised to provide users with a fast and smooth shopping experience. That required setting up the vending machines with new cashless payment systems that would be able to overcome the limitations of traditional technologies.
“The Broderick Group are changing the purchasing habits of consumers by providing them with the same experience and choices that they have in a retail store. Our customers choose to use our vending machines to select a range of refreshments because it gives them what they want, when they want it,’’ commented John Broderick, owner of the Broderick Group based in Manchester and operating throughout the country.
He continued: “As a business we have always been at the forefront of developing innovative technologies that make the purchasing experience easier for consumers and believe that by investing in these new innovations we will increase the engagement of users of vending machines by making it a more of a personal choice.’’
“Cash payments have more and more limitations. Beside high costs of storage and transport, we are facing further pain-points due to pandemic health restrictions: users are uncomfortable handling money. Many cashless technologies provide just partial solutions for vending applications,” said Manfred Sokat, CEO of PMTsolutions.
“Prepaid cashless solutions are effective in closed-loop environments, online cashless solutions are more efficient and convenient for public locations, but they are not all the same. Sometimes the user is required to enter a security PIN, which is very frustrating for them. In unattended locations the purchasing experience has to be fast and user-friendly. Moreover, some credit card readers embed their own connectivity module. That makes the hardware expensive and technically complicated. Our solution provides convenient card payment services for the customer in front of the vending machine and a secure payment platform with multiple services for the operator.”
The seamless integration of the PMTsolutions services into the Nebular platform was a key step to fully meet the Broderick Group’s needs. Nebular is a hardware and software connectivity infrastructure designed to enable cashless payments and to connect vending machines to a cloud server. Nebular opens a bidirectional communication channel between the vending machine and the vending operator. It is a powerful tool to export real-time transactions, to monitor the stock, to update prices/firmware/programming parameters remotely. Nebular, however, offers much more than just a telemetry service, it enables the vending operator to export consumption statistics to learn the user purchasing habits and to proactively launch loyalty programs.
“The partnership between Coges and Broderick Group has been thriving for some time now,” commented Lorenzo Giuliani, Sales Area Manager of Coges. “The first Coges product promoted by Broderick Group in the UK was Pay4Vend, an app for paying at the vending machine via smartphone. Coges had already launched the solution in Italy and in other countries in 2015, but we missed a reliable partner to make this application popular in the UK. John instantly understood the potential of Pay4Vend and took its development very seriously. Thanks to his persistent focus on building customer loyalty and his strategic talent, he spread it all over the country. The next step was to invest in a more powerful tool to run a deeper business analysis (ed. Nebular service), to scale up the marketing strategy. Finally, John asked for our support to extend the credit card options (ed. Pay4Vend & PMT Nebular Pay) during the Pandemic Era to make a dramatic migration to cashless. The partnership with PMTsolutions gave us the opportunity to close the loop successfully.”
The synergy between the three companies made an innovative solution possible: the PMT Nebular Pay card reader connects to the Nebular server through the Coges Engine system. In this way, both the hardware devices share the same connectivity module. A well-established system of tokenization, encryption, and intelligent architecture (Microsoft Azure servers) combined with a global Acquirer service (Worldline) provide secure payments and trusted transactions.
In this way, Broderick Group users can take advantage of an efficient, fast, and secure service. Cashless purchasing at the vending machine is no longer a hassle. It is a smooth experience, with no worries, exactly the same as in the retail store. At the same time the vending operator will exploit all the benefits of the Internet of Things.
“Broderick Group’s foremost concern is the customer and investing in innovation that improves the experience of our customers.” John Broderick concludes: “We know that switching to fully cashless vending machines is aimed at engaging our customers now and in the future. It is our aim to make vending purchase the norm by engaging our customers on a personal level through technology.”
PMTsolutions
PMTsolutions is a leading solution provider of cashless payment services. The entire processing line of all services are in one hand. Just one partner for the whole cashless services chain. From card reader or MobileApp over backend services in data center with technical connections to various financial institutions like banks, VISA, MasterCard or American Express. More information on www.pmtsolutions.eu
Broderick Group
Broderick Group is the UK’s leading vending and refreshment specialist. Innovation-led, it has built a reputation for offering bespoke solutions that work hard for its customers, which range from airports to universities, and from office blocks to leisure centers. More information on www.brodericks.co.uk
