Retailers are in the starting blocks to welcome visitors from all over the world for the Olympic Games. Since these tourists have a high consumption capacity, many brands are planning to take advantage of this period. To do this, they are rethinking their payment journey to adapt to different payment habits.
The massive arrival of tourists from all over the world to attend the Paris 2024 Olympic Games has required retailers to be organized. Indeed, 15 million people are expected in the streets of the capital. Souvenirs, clothing in the colors of their teams, Olympic merchandising or simply food products: these visitors from abroad plan to consume. According to an estimate given by Ayden, a financial technology platform, Games expected to drive 30% increase in sales three weeks before the event, and 50% three weeks after. A very important opportunity for retailers to seize.
However, 55% of shopping cart abandonment at checkout is caused by a lack of choice in payment methods. France is one of the last countries to use the bank card overwhelmingly as a means of paying for purchases, unlike Asian countries such as China and Japan, which pay almost exclusively with digital wallets, using their smartphones.
Give the possibility to consume
The Franprix brand has deployed the Alipay + QR Code payment solution in its stores. Offered by Lyf and Ant Group, this will allow all Olympic spectators to easily pay for their purchases.
To prepare for the influx of travelers, Franprix has equipped 170 of its stores spread across the capital, Île-de-France as well as the Rhône-Alpes and PACA regions with the Alipay + QR Code payment solution. For the brand established in many tourist areas, the challenge is to offer its foreign customers the possibility of paying for their purchases using native wallets during their stay in France. Indeed, with a store every 300 meters in Paris, Franprix presents an ideal urban network to deploy and test new payment methods in the run-up to the Olympic Games. The fintech Alipay + also took advantage of the various sports competitions to make itself known in Europe; it was a partner of Euro 2024, which took place in Germany.
If Franprix has focused on this wallet payment solution, preferred by Asian customers, it is because the latter have a strong purchasing potential. In 2019, the total amount of spending by Asian nationals in France amounted to 93 billion euros. Purchases that are not only focused on luxury products, cultural outings or restaurants, but also on everyday shopping. Outside of marked periods such as the Olympic Games, Asian tourists already represent more than 4 million travelers in France (2.2 million from China; 0.9 million from India and South Korea and 0.2 million from Indonesia and Singapore).
According to the Visit Paris Region website, Paris and the Île-de-France region welcomed 50.6 million tourists in 2019, for 21.9 billion euros in revenue. Shopping is the third favorite activity of visitors (38.9%), and who says shopping in Paris, says Galeries Lafayette. Aware of its strong appeal for tourists, the emblematic luxury brand on Boulevard Haussmann is looking to expand its payment methods.
Thus, on July 3, Galeries Lafayette announced the possibility for Indian tourists to pay with UPI, their preferred payment method, directly in store on a payment terminal. This initiative aims to confirm the brand’s desire to be attentive to international trends in the run-up to the Olympic Games. Since then, when a customer wants to pay with UPI at Galeries Lafayette, the seller simply clicks on the dedicated button in their cash register software. A dynamic QR code is instantly displayed on the screen. The customer simply scans it with their mobile application to validate the payment.
Lack of flexibility in Olympic zones
While retailers are showing a desire to adapt to the millions of tourists who will come to enjoy the Games in France, this does not seem to be the case for the Olympic Games Committee (OCOG). Indeed, it announced in April that Only two payment methods will be available at the Olympic sites: Visa bank card and cash. Thus, cardholders of other networks (Mastercard, Diners, American Express, Discover, etc.) will not be able to use them in these areas. To meet this exclusivity granted by the Cojo, Visa has installed 4,500 payment terminals in the perimeters of the “gray zones”.
This decision was accompanied by the provision of temporary Visa bank cards for spectators who do not have one. This will take the form of a physical prepaid bank card with a maximum amount of 150 euros, which will be offered at Olympic sites at counters operated by Visa, or a virtual prepaid card, capped at the same amount.
To strengthen its partnership with the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the payment company is deploying Visa Go, an application that aims to accompany visitors during their stay. Available for download throughout the competitions, it lists the hundreds of local businesses that “promote the French art of living”, but also which offer exclusive offers on the occasion of Games. The application, in addition to wanting to attract traffic to partner points of sale, allows tourists to download a prepaid card. For Romain Boisson, general manager of Visa in France, the objective is “to work to promote the games to as many people as possible, particularly to bring independent retailers on board.”
Source: www.ecommercemag.fr
