Piebuy: a proof of concept of m-commerce for food and drink pre-ordering at sporting and cultural events (revised). Application by Spontly Ltd

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Food and drink ordering at sports stadia and live venues is often inefficient with long queuesand unpredictable waiting times. This limits fan usage of event catering services and makesthe live event experience less satisfactory.Mobile commerce (mCommerce) offers great potential to improve event catering. Food orderscould be placed in advance via a mobile phone and paid for via online credit card payment.Food could then be dispensed without the need for cash or card handling. This would allowfaster throughput at point of sale (because cash/card handling is slow) and allow pre-orderingeven hours in advance. This would mean shorter queues; more predictable waiting times;more revenue for outlets and venues; less food waste and happier, more loyal fans. Therewould be societal benefits too: sports and other live events are an important part of nationallife which bring footfall to town centres and maintain a sense of community. More fans andhappier fans multiplies those benefits.With many UK sports clubs and venues facing financial pressures, extra revenues andincreased fan loyalty from mCommerce food and drink would be compelling. But there arebig barriers to using existing mCommerce solutions in sports stadia and venues in the UK. Inparticular (a) mobile data capacity is inadequate so connectivity on site is a problem for fans,and (b) point-of-sale infrastructure at food concessions is lacking.This project proposes a solution – PieBuy – that will provide an mCommerce service for foodand drink sales in stadia and venues without requiring major capital investment by the venueand which is robust against limited connectivity. Total UK revenues will be £30M by 2020.This proof of concept project will create a basic prototype of the PieBuy system anddemonstrate via limited live trials that (a) fans will adopt it (b) it is compatible with real worldconnectivity conditions and point of sale infrastructure (c) revenue and efficiency uplifts canbe achieved.