Context
Tisak plus d.o.o., a member of the Fortenova Group, is the largest retail kiosk chain in Croatia with more than 550 points of sale. The goal of the project was to expand the standard kiosk offering, and the assigned task included support for the distribution of electronic goods such as e-vouchers for mobile telephony, prepaid content, and digital services. At the same time, it was necessary to provide customers with a unified user experience in which they can purchase print media, pay by card, collect an e-voucher, or execute cash withdrawal via a cash advance transaction — all on a single device integrated with the kiosk’s existing checkout system.
Challenges
During the implementation of the project, it was necessary to resolve the following problematic situations:
- Before introducing the integrated solution, business processes at the kiosk were separate — distribution of electronic goods was separate from card payments, which made work difficult for cashiers and slowed down customers.
- It was necessary to ensure that all card payment transactions and distribution of e-goods were recorded in the checkout system in real time in order to enable efficient sales tracking and to implement certain restrictions for increased security.
- The card payment solution is always fully compliant with card scheme standards, but in this project it was also necessary to support security in the distribution of e-goods in terms of preventing double issuance, managing serial numbers and codes, and monitoring sales anomalies in order to restrict sales in the event of an unusually large number of transactions.
- At kiosks customers expect speed and simplicity whether they are buying newspapers, paying by card, or collecting a digital voucher, so it was necessary to simplify and accelerate all processes related to the payment terminal as much as possible.
Solution
To address the established goals, we developed an integrated EFT-POS solution that combines:
- Card payments with support for all types of card products.
- Distribution of e-vouchers for mobile phone top-ups — the payment terminal, in cooperation with the central distribution system, accepts and prints the e-voucher code at the time of purchase with the possibility of card payment.
- Distribution of other types of electronic goods from other issuers in communication with their specific systems such as Super Sport, Arena Casino, Germania, Paysafecard, and Hrvatska lutrija, also with the possibility of card payment.
- Bill payment services for various issuers.
- Cash advance functionality that allows customers to withdraw cash at the kiosk.
- Integration with the checkout system and data exchange with the checkout, which enabled integration with backend data processing and reporting systems.
- A unified user experience — the cashier at the point of sale uses only one device to perform all tasks related to payment and issuance of e-goods through a unified business process.
Result
We approached the project systematically using an agile management approach, which helped us implement it quickly and efficiently. We completed the following:
- Analysis of existing processes helped identify all types of transactions as well as external issuers of e-goods that needed to be integrated.
- Upgrade of the standard payment solution by developing specific functionalities and additional modules for distributing e-goods via integration with external services such as Hrvatska lutrija, Paysafecard, and others.
- Integration of the payment terminal with the checkout software and the central distribution platform for mobile operator e-vouchers.
- Conducting a pilot to test the system in selected kiosks. The focus of testing, in addition to the standard verification of the correctness of all components, was on processing speed, system stability, and improving the user experience.
- Full production rollout across the entire kiosk network.
Conclusion
The project showed that it is possible to unify the processing of different types of transactions on a single device and through a unified business process.
By implementing this project, Tisak gained added value, increased sales, and created a competitive advantage in its market segment, achieving benefits for customers in terms of convenience and speed of purchase.
It also ensured additional revenue from the sale of digital content and cash advance services and reduced infrastructure costs at the point of sale.