Now that you can go back to bars and restaurants without necessarily wearing a mask, we can finally indulge ourselves.
And maybe train for the future, when cash disappears in favor of payments with credit cards or via app, or contactless. Bringing with it at least three benefits. We already knew the first and second, and they are greater traceability of money and shorter payment times. We then think of when the waiter (or the shop assistant) apologizes to us, and he begins to count an infinite series of coins that, we realize with terror, are about to end up in our pockets. Thus we learn not to have the money that exactly corresponded to the account.
The third reason we discovered during the months of the lockdown, and it is the hygienic one. Beyond the now consolidated gesture and for some hard to abandon, it is not difficult to think about how many risks of infection are subjected to the continuous passage of banknotes and coins from hand to hand.
To train us for payments without cash, we said, Sunday comes to our rescue, a startup already active in several countries, and which has now also landed in Italy. Let’s find out more about what the startup Sunday service is and how it works.
Sunday, the startup that makes you pay with the qr code
So here is Sunday also in Italy, the startup that promises to save up to 15 minutes of time for each restaurant table. And here is also the site in Italian.
Sunday is already working in several countries: it has been used by more than 3 million people, and over 6,000 businesses (bars and restaurants) have registered on the platformin countries such as the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal and Canada.
But how does the startup Sunday work?
How startup Sunday works
The startup Sunday makes paying the bill in bars and restaurants almost instantaneous.
Its operation is really simple, and let’s start by revealing a secret. If so far we have always called it a startup and never an app, and why an app to be installed on the smartphone… it doesn’t exist.
The Sunday startup platform generates a unique QR code for each associated bar or restaurant table. Each time an order is placed, the relative amount can be read on the platform, which can be viewed by scanning the qr code (but, we repeat, the platform is not installed on the device). Once the code is scanned, there are several possibilities. Including that of paying the bill in full or a part that you choose. And that, as we will see, to leave a tip.
We already imagine challenges worthy of the OK Corral between friends who are mutually eager to pay for the whole dinner or offer a round of beers at the bar.
Support circuits
As soon as a customer settles the account, the merchant receives a ticket at the cashier. Payment can be made via Apple Pay, Google Pay or credit cards of any circuit.
As a protective measure for bartenders and restaurateurs, Sunday takes responsibility for reimbursing the costs if a customer leaves the venue without paying.
From restaurateurs to restaurateurs
The Sunday startup creates a virtuous circuit for everyone. Quick payments make life easier for consumers: think, for example, of the throttled times of a snack during a lunch break, when a significant percentage of the available window is wasted in the queue to pay the bill, with an anxious eye on the clock. The advantage, of course, is also of the merchantswho can focus more on quality of service.
This aspect has its positive effects. This is demonstrated by the fact that in the exercises that have adopted Sunday, tips increased by 40%. Also because in the web application customers find the integrated function that allows them to leave a tip.
But there is more: average spending increased by 12%. This is because, thanks to the haste, we often give up dessert, or perhaps a digestive.
Sunday, as stated on the website, is “made by restaurateurs for restaurateurs”. The startup was in fact born between France and the United States, thanks to the founders of the Big Mamma chain Victor Lugger and Tigrane Seydoux, together with Christine de Wendel, formerly of ManoMano (online do-it-yourself shop).
The word to the company
Giuseppe Tamola, general manager for Europe, explains the business model. Tamola says: “We were born a year ago for hygienic reasons linked to the lockdown and already present in eight countries. Within a few months of our foundation, we have raised $ 124 million in funding in the United States, and I think it’s not that frequent.
We have the simplest business model for restaurants – we just take a small commission on every transaction. If customers love it and use it, we get this commission, but it costs nothing in the restaurant. For consumers, the web app has no cost and does not require any download or registration, they just need to scan the QR Code on the restaurant table with their smartphone “.
The startup Sunday likes and works: in Italy there are already more than 100 brands that have joined the initiative.