Club card / loyalty card / oyster card. Can I make one?
Discussion
Hi all, I run a Taxi company.
I've just been offered an opportunity to potentially take all of the nightwork from every night venue in my town.
The idea being that we work in partnership with the licensing authority, the local police and the venues themselves.
My idea is to allow punters to buy an all inclusive ticket from our website to include a return cab fare and entry ticket to the/a number of venue/s and to select their booking time for a ride home.
So how do you economically let the venues know who has paid for entry to the club without making it a logistical nightmare for the door hosts and bar staff?
My idea was to create a swipe card that could be credited with a kind of electronic voucher (ie: This person has paid for entry via the partnership cab company).
Any clever types here know how to set this kind of thing up? What's the best (read simplest) way of doing it?
I've just been offered an opportunity to potentially take all of the nightwork from every night venue in my town.
The idea being that we work in partnership with the licensing authority, the local police and the venues themselves.
My idea is to allow punters to buy an all inclusive ticket from our website to include a return cab fare and entry ticket to the/a number of venue/s and to select their booking time for a ride home.
So how do you economically let the venues know who has paid for entry to the club without making it a logistical nightmare for the door hosts and bar staff?
My idea was to create a swipe card that could be credited with a kind of electronic voucher (ie: This person has paid for entry via the partnership cab company).
Any clever types here know how to set this kind of thing up? What's the best (read simplest) way of doing it?
Plotloss said:
Barcode reader in the club.
Printable tickets with a barcode.
Thats how Fabric does it.
Ok. Flipping that on it's head. How do I get a barcode ticket in a punters hand to gain entry to the venue? They will be booking online or over the phone. Bit tricky no? Unless they can get their ticket printed in the car (more bloody machinery!)Printable tickets with a barcode.
Thats how Fabric does it.
KingRichard said:
Plotloss said:
Barcode reader in the club.
Printable tickets with a barcode.
Thats how Fabric does it.
Ok. Flipping that on it's head. How do I get a barcode ticket in a punters hand to gain entry to the venue? They will be booking online or over the phone. Bit tricky no? Unless they can get their ticket printed in the car (more bloody machinery!)Printable tickets with a barcode.
Thats how Fabric does it.
You will need a website and some software to create a database and create random looking access codes such as S34JER3. These could be seen online, and written down. At the doors the doormen have a 'list'.
That is the basic way. The more complex way might be to use a website which will send a barcode to the mobile phone of the ticket buyer. Doormen and drivers have PDAs with bar code readers, they just scan the phone screen.
Of course there are options in between, but ideally you want something small to start with and easy to get people doing it. The latter option will cost thousands to set up and program so the return time may be in years unless you can guarantee custom and a good return from day 1.
If you can get a big 'fan base' with this then the sky is the limit - people can pay extra for 'priority' tickets to the club to jump the queue, VIP tickets the works.
Just don't forget to include something that stops a barcode (password etc) being used more than once - or being guessed.
There's lots of things like this that haven't been thought through properly and have ended up with many more people being able to take advantage than originally expected (online vouchers etc).
There's lots of things like this that haven't been thought through properly and have ended up with many more people being able to take advantage than originally expected (online vouchers etc).
tigger1 said:
Just don't forget to include something that stops a barcode (password etc) being used more than once - or being guessed.
There's lots of things like this that haven't been thought through properly and have ended up with many more people being able to take advantage than originally expected (online vouchers etc).
Cheers.There's lots of things like this that haven't been thought through properly and have ended up with many more people being able to take advantage than originally expected (online vouchers etc).
I've typed out a lengthy reply to JustinP1 on my laptop but the connection broke. I will post it in a bit when my wi-fi stops farting about
I've been thinking on it all morning. I'm a bit stuck. I guess I need to know what sort of things new technology can reliably do.
Is there any way of taking payment via mobile phone, with a secure text message (ie: it can't be forwarded) to send a barcode voucher? That way we and the club get our dosh straight away, and the customer gets the cost added to his mobile phone bill?
I've heard lots of talk about this and it would ultimately create a cashless society (I fuggin' hope not!). How far advanced is it?
Plotloss said:
You can do MT billing on mobiles.
They send a text, you automate one out (the code) and they get billed when they recieve your text.
Dont know what the OFCOM max is for MT transactions though.
Hmmm, say £10 a ticket for club entry, then a cab for four people at say £40, then a waiting time surcharge...They send a text, you automate one out (the code) and they get billed when they recieve your text.
Dont know what the OFCOM max is for MT transactions though.
You could easily be looking at a ton plonked straight on someones phone bill. Is that likely to cause problems at bill payment time and disputes and a bad image...
Hmmm! 
KingRichard said:
Plotloss said:
You can do MT billing on mobiles.
They send a text, you automate one out (the code) and they get billed when they recieve your text.
Dont know what the OFCOM max is for MT transactions though.
Hmmm, say £10 a ticket for club entry, then a cab for four people at say £40, then a waiting time surcharge...They send a text, you automate one out (the code) and they get billed when they recieve your text.
Dont know what the OFCOM max is for MT transactions though.
You could easily be looking at a ton plonked straight on someones phone bill. Is that likely to cause problems at bill payment time and disputes and a bad image...
Hmmm! The barcode system would work. I have seen it in action on Tickets at the O2 arena in London. You could buy a ticket online at 5pm, print it out 5 minutes later and the barcode would be read on the door. On the PDAs it will flag up if the bar code has already been read.
It would work on phones too, as it did there. You could get access to some O2 area by texting a number with your name. The text back is a bar-code which is scanned at the door. Whole process takes 30 seconds.
I think the advantages of this type of system would be that the type of people caning that amount of money away might be short of money - they could pay for the whole night on their credit card, instead of cash!
The only problem might be how cost effective it is. For example if you calculate that you are only profiting £1 per transaction extra and it costs £20k to implement the whole system you may be waiting a long while and risk it may not take off.
The way to make it work would be if you could use it to expand and take money you wouldnt already do. Perhaps you can work out some kind of mutually agreeable terms with a few clubs or bars to incentivise people to use you. For example - pay for your taxi up front and get your club entrance half price.
You get the guarantee they use you, they get the guarantee that they will get that person through the door buying drinks.
JustinP1 said:
KingRichard said:
Plotloss said:
Barcode reader in the club.
Printable tickets with a barcode.
Thats how Fabric does it.
Ok. Flipping that on it's head. How do I get a barcode ticket in a punters hand to gain entry to the venue? They will be booking online or over the phone. Bit tricky no? Unless they can get their ticket printed in the car (more bloody machinery!)Printable tickets with a barcode.
Thats how Fabric does it.
You will need a website and some software to create a database and create random looking access codes such as S34JER3. These could be seen online, and written down. At the doors the doormen have a 'list'.
That is the basic way. The more complex way might be to use a website which will send a barcode to the mobile phone of the ticket buyer. Doormen and drivers have PDAs with bar code readers, they just scan the phone screen.
Of course there are options in between, but ideally you want something small to start with and easy to get people doing it. The latter option will cost thousands to set up and program so the return time may be in years unless you can guarantee custom and a good return from day 1.
If you can get a big 'fan base' with this then the sky is the limit - people can pay extra for 'priority' tickets to the club to jump the queue, VIP tickets the works.
Sending a code via SMS would be a goer. You would need to be able to validate and mark the code as expired. You would want a three stage expiry system:
Stage One: Mark taxi collection from home portion as expired.
Stage Two: Mark club entry as expired.
Stage Three: Mark taxi collection from club as expired.
The cheapest option would be to manage the whole lot by SMS. The sending of the code to mark a stage as expired would also validate the code with a corresponding SMS back to the driver, club etc.
plasticpig said:
JustinP1 said:
KingRichard said:
Plotloss said:
Barcode reader in the club.
Printable tickets with a barcode.
Thats how Fabric does it.
Ok. Flipping that on it's head. How do I get a barcode ticket in a punters hand to gain entry to the venue? They will be booking online or over the phone. Bit tricky no? Unless they can get their ticket printed in the car (more bloody machinery!)Printable tickets with a barcode.
Thats how Fabric does it.
You will need a website and some software to create a database and create random looking access codes such as S34JER3. These could be seen online, and written down. At the doors the doormen have a 'list'.
That is the basic way. The more complex way might be to use a website which will send a barcode to the mobile phone of the ticket buyer. Doormen and drivers have PDAs with bar code readers, they just scan the phone screen.
Of course there are options in between, but ideally you want something small to start with and easy to get people doing it. The latter option will cost thousands to set up and program so the return time may be in years unless you can guarantee custom and a good return from day 1.
If you can get a big 'fan base' with this then the sky is the limit - people can pay extra for 'priority' tickets to the club to jump the queue, VIP tickets the works.
Sending a code via SMS would be a goer. You would need to be able to validate and mark the code as expired. You would want a three stage expiry system:
Stage One: Mark taxi collection from home portion as expired.
Stage Two: Mark club entry as expired.
Stage Three: Mark taxi collection from club as expired.
The cheapest option would be to manage the whole lot by SMS. The sending of the code to mark a stage as expired would also validate the code with a corresponding SMS back to the driver, club etc.
KingRichard said:
plasticpig said:
JustinP1 said:
KingRichard said:
Plotloss said:
Barcode reader in the club.
Printable tickets with a barcode.
Thats how Fabric does it.
Ok. Flipping that on it's head. How do I get a barcode ticket in a punters hand to gain entry to the venue? They will be booking online or over the phone. Bit tricky no? Unless they can get their ticket printed in the car (more bloody machinery!)Printable tickets with a barcode.
Thats how Fabric does it.
You will need a website and some software to create a database and create random looking access codes such as S34JER3. These could be seen online, and written down. At the doors the doormen have a 'list'.
That is the basic way. The more complex way might be to use a website which will send a barcode to the mobile phone of the ticket buyer. Doormen and drivers have PDAs with bar code readers, they just scan the phone screen.
Of course there are options in between, but ideally you want something small to start with and easy to get people doing it. The latter option will cost thousands to set up and program so the return time may be in years unless you can guarantee custom and a good return from day 1.
If you can get a big 'fan base' with this then the sky is the limit - people can pay extra for 'priority' tickets to the club to jump the queue, VIP tickets the works.
Sending a code via SMS would be a goer. You would need to be able to validate and mark the code as expired. You would want a three stage expiry system:
Stage One: Mark taxi collection from home portion as expired.
Stage Two: Mark club entry as expired.
Stage Three: Mark taxi collection from club as expired.
The cheapest option would be to manage the whole lot by SMS. The sending of the code to mark a stage as expired would also validate the code with a corresponding SMS back to the driver, club etc.
Hi,
Might be able to help...
My company has a micropayment systems for mobiles, so good and services can be bought and paid for via the mobile without ever having to go near a PC. Could be linked into either Barcodes (and yes they can be scanned - although this can depend on the rendering of the image on the handfset screen) or unique X digit length codes . System is network agnostic, thus MNO does not get any of the transactional revenue.
Might be worth a chat.
Cheers
David
Might be able to help...
My company has a micropayment systems for mobiles, so good and services can be bought and paid for via the mobile without ever having to go near a PC. Could be linked into either Barcodes (and yes they can be scanned - although this can depend on the rendering of the image on the handfset screen) or unique X digit length codes . System is network agnostic, thus MNO does not get any of the transactional revenue.
Might be worth a chat.
Cheers
David
Minnsy said:
Hi,
Might be able to help...
My company has a micropayment systems for mobiles, so good and services can be bought and paid for via the mobile without ever having to go near a PC. Could be linked into either Barcodes (and yes they can be scanned - although this can depend on the rendering of the image on the handfset screen) or unique X digit length codes . System is network agnostic, thus MNO does not get any of the transactional revenue.
Might be worth a chat.
Cheers
David
Ok. Just skim read that, and have no frigging clue what mst of it meant Might be able to help...
My company has a micropayment systems for mobiles, so good and services can be bought and paid for via the mobile without ever having to go near a PC. Could be linked into either Barcodes (and yes they can be scanned - although this can depend on the rendering of the image on the handfset screen) or unique X digit length codes . System is network agnostic, thus MNO does not get any of the transactional revenue.
Might be worth a chat.
Cheers
David
You have to be prepared to talk to me like a retard if you want to work with me
Once again, with less syllables please
Minnsy said:
Hi,
Might be able to help...
My company has a micropayment systems for mobiles, so good and services can be bought and paid for via the mobile without ever having to go near a PC. Could be linked into either Barcodes (and yes they can be scanned - although this can depend on the rendering of the image on the handfset screen) or unique X digit length codes . System is network agnostic, thus MNO does not get any of the transactional revenue.
Might be worth a chat.
Cheers
David
Hmm this barcode thing on mobile phones has me intrigued. Tried a couple of phones now with a CCD scanner and no joy and off an LCD pane;. Will have to dig out a laser scanner and give it a go.Might be able to help...
My company has a micropayment systems for mobiles, so good and services can be bought and paid for via the mobile without ever having to go near a PC. Could be linked into either Barcodes (and yes they can be scanned - although this can depend on the rendering of the image on the handfset screen) or unique X digit length codes . System is network agnostic, thus MNO does not get any of the transactional revenue.
Might be worth a chat.
Cheers
David
ing idiot Gassing Station | Business | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff