Billfold - cashless payments that doubles as ad space (for your venues drinks etc)

Someone realized that absolute pain it is to drag a wallet out every time you hit the bar at various clubs and concerts. Introducing Billfold, which wanst to be the solution.

We all know how it works by now, we stand in line forever. Either we're standing in line to buy drink tickets, and then standing in another line to get the actual drink (argh), or we are fumbling with cash and wallets in crowded spaces where we'd rather not be.

Billfold, an RFID point-of-sale for high-volume service, (that's nerdy speak for "cashless payment system") is designed specifically to help facilitate the speed with which the line goes, by making all transactions faster. 

Not only that, the display doubles as POS ad space, the screen which the customer sees can show drink specials, for example, and increase sales on specific items. 

At over 400 events, Billfold has boosted patron spending up to 67%.

Billfold is the product of two veteran operators, Stas Chijik and Benjamin Roshia, who specialized in large-scale events in New York City. Stas and Ben are best known for launching the food and beverage operations at the 85,000 sq. ft. mega venue, The Brooklyn Mirage / Avant Gardner. After years of successful events and a constant drive for efficiency, they tackled the final pain point in their bottom line: the glacial speed of transactions and the resulting customer wait times.

“We’ve catered and operated events since 2008, and our area of expertise is high-volume beverage service. In 2012, we began specializing in warehouse parties and became partners in high production value events that took New York by storm, growing rapidly from 1,000 to 10,000 attendees per event,” says Stas. “We saw that payments were taking up too much time and affecting sales.” A traditional point-of-sale (known as POS) takes bartenders at least a minute to run a card and get a signature, and that’s after the patrons have already held up the line, fumbling through their wallet or purse. 

Unlike similar RFID systems, which require you to 'put' a specific amount on your RFID wristband and top that sum up as you go along spending during the night, this system doesn't make you wait in two lines. The specific problem - one line for drink tickets, and one line for drinks - was the issue that needed solving so that party-goes could get down to business and party. Billfold creates a secure connection to a patron’s credit or debit card at a self-serve kiosk or online, which takes about 30 seconds. From then on, it’s head to the bar, order and pay in a matter of seconds, and off to the dance floor. “We needed it to be seamless and intuitive,” says Ben. “So we created a system that’s easy to learn for attendees and staff. The system can generally be set up with less than a week’s notice, it works with existing inventory software, and it’s priced to fit venue budgets, something most RFID systems can’t provide. It works for all aspects of an event, from food vendors to coat check and merch.” 

But that's not all, you get quick interaction, faster drink sales without the hassle of card-swiping or screen signatures - and data too.

Billfold gives operators, event organizers, and sponsors valuable first-person data about actual purchasing behavior on site. It links emails to purchases, so that organizers can follow up with targeted offers tailored to their customers’ habits. This data can also be used to create instant product pushes. If a certain beverage isn’t selling as anticipated, organizers can trigger a flash sale and promote it on the customer-facing screens. Leftover inventory can influence profitable specials. 

One recent example: The team was running a 27-hour New Year’s Eve party. After the midnight toast, they were dismayed to see cases of champagne left over. They whipped up an on-the-fly mimosa special, displaying it to Billfold’s customer-facing screens. “We sold 327 mimosas in the first hour,” recalls Ben.