Large sporting events can have a big impact on many different kinds of business. We just had one of the world biggest sporting events in Soccer’s World Cup and coming up this month is one of the biggest sporting events in North America (HINT: It’s a ‘Super’ event). Al Speaks to Sean McCormick, Director, Business Development at Moneris about this past World Cup and how it affected spending here in Canada. He also speaks with René-Pier Plourde, Content Marketing Manager at UEAT, who talks about the upcoming big game in the US, how that may affect the restaurant business, and how restaurants can prepare for the increased business.
Large sporting events can have a big impact on many different kinds of business. We just had one of the world biggest sporting events in Soccer’s World Cup and coming up this month is one of the biggest sporting events in North America (HINT: It’s a ‘Super’ event).
Al Speaks to Sean McCormick, Director, Business Development at Moneris about this past World Cup and how it affected spending here in Canada. He also speaks with René-Pier Plourde, Content Marketing Manager at UEAT, who talks about the upcoming big game in the US, how that may affect the restaurant business, and how restaurants can prepare for the increased business.
Also in this episode:
Upcoming Events:
Chapters:
Al Grego:
Coming up on Shop Talk.
René-Pier Plourde:
What these numbers are telling us is almost 200% increase in takeout orders. This means that customers are getting out more and they will stop at their food restaurant to pick up their takeout orders to save a few bucks.
Al Grego:
Hello everyone. I'm Al Grego.
Sean McCormick:
And I'm Sean McCormick.
Al Grego:
And this is the February 20, 23 edition of Shop Talk with Moneris.
Welcome to the Shop Talk podcast, Sean.
Sean McCormick:
Thanks, Al. Good to be hanging out.
Al Grego:
So Sean, normally you're the behind the numbers guy coming on every month to share consumer spending data.
Sean McCormick:
That is correct.
Al Grego:
So you may be wondering why I asked you to co-host this month.
Sean McCormick:
It did cross my mind, Al.
Al Grego:
Well, a couple of months ago, we enjoyed one of the world's largest sporting events.
Sean McCormick:
Are you referring to the World Cup?
Al Grego:
That's right. And this month one of North America's largest sporting events takes place.
Sean McCormick:
Ah, yes. The "big game".
Al Grego:
That's right. We don't have the kind of budget to actually say it by name.
Sean McCormick:
I'm certainly a fan of both, my friend. Is that what you have me on for this month?
Al Grego:
Well, not exactly. It may or may not be a surprise to our listeners that you had a previous career in sports.
Sean McCormick:
I did. Spent a significant part of my life invested in that.
Al Grego:
And what was that career?
Sean McCormick:
I was an anchor on Rogers Sportsnet.
Al Grego:
Ooh. So who better to talk about the effect of these big sporting events on spending than our resident expert on both?
Sean McCormick:
Yes. You're connecting the dots there, Al.
Al Grego:
I have so many questions.
Sean McCormick:
Are they spending related questions?
Al Grego:
We'll get to that, but what's the biggest sporting event you got to cover?
Sean McCormick:
There were a lot of really fun ones. One of my last ones was the biggest one. That was 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Al Grego:
That certainly is big. What was that like?
Sean McCormick:
It was spectacular. I spent maybe five or six years out in Vancouver as part of my broadcasting career. Made a lot of great friends and covered some great events out there. So when the 2010 Olympics got around, I had an opportunity to go back out to Vancouver for a full month. And what a great bookend to my career. And the very last event that I covered was Canada's gold medal men's hockey victory over the US. It was spectacular.
Al Grego:
The golden goal.
Sean McCormick:
The golden goal.
Al Grego:
So crazy.
Sean McCormick:
Tears were flowing. There was literally not a dry eye in the house.
Al Grego:
Wow.
Sean McCormick:
It was amazing.
Al Grego:
Unbelievable.
Sean McCormick:
But we're not talking about the Olympics right now, correct?
Al Grego:
Were not?
Sean McCormick:
No.
Al Grego:
Oh, right. The World Cup and the big game.
Sean McCormick:
Who do you have lined up this month, Al?
Al Grego:
Well, in a second I'm going to get you to take off your co-host hat and put on your By The Numbers hat to talk about spending during the World Cup.
Sean McCormick:
Sounds good.
Al Grego:
And then I'll speak with René-Pier Plourde from UEAT to talk about the upcoming big game and what restaurants and bars can expect from that weekend.
Sean McCormick:
Big game and a big day for the restos.
Al Grego:
That's right. And finally, I'll talk to Patrick Wiltshire, who's going to come on to share some tips on setting up tipping on payment terminals.
Sean McCormick:
Al, this is a star-studded lineup.
Al Grego:
Thank you. And speaking of tips.
Sean McCormick:
Okay, here we go.
Al Grego:
Who do you have in the big game, Casey or Philly?
Sean McCormick:
Wow. Philly looked really good in their two playoff games, but they were against the Giants who are not an awesome team and the Niners who had no quarterback. So we need to handicap that a little bit, I think. Hard to bet against KC. Patrick Mahomes looked like an absolute stud leading his team to victory on one leg. That was impressive.
Al Grego:
I feel like I've just been watching an episode of Sportsnet.
Sean McCormick:
Roll the interviews
Speaker 5:
By The Numbers.
Al Grego:
All right, Sean, so let's talk World Cup. So our numbers show that for all of Canada bar and restaurant spend was up over 10%. How did that look though regionally?
Sean McCormick:
It was really interesting to dig in regionally, Al. So what we look at when we analyze data is we look at one of the measures. The really primary measures is year over year volume. So that's looking at the very same day one year ago.
Al Grego:
Sure.
Sean McCormick:
And what we saw is in Eastern Canada, we saw huge increases, like Ontario was plus 47% year-over-year, Atlantic Canada plus 53% year over year. But as you work your way west, the year-over-year increases decline steadily to the point where in BC year over year spending volume in bars on the day of the World Cup final was minus 17%.
Al Grego:
Wow. So that seems counterintuitive.
Sean McCormick:
It does.
Al Grego:
Yeah.
Sean McCormick:
There's an assumption and it's very real. It's not even an assumption, it's very real. Soccer is hugely popular on the West Coast. Around Vancouver, the lower mainland kids are playing soccer year round. They're playing year round across the country, but it's a real epicenter of soccer passion on the West Coast. But the game started, kickoff was at 7:00 AM local time.
Al Grego:
Right.
Sean McCormick:
So you've got to, now listen, sometimes municipal governments will expand the hours that they're able to serve alcohol when it comes to World Cup and some of these other major global events. However, 7:00 AM How motivated are you going to be to get showered, brush the teeth, crush a coffee, jump in the car, meet your buddies at a bar at seven o'clock in the morning? You might as well just invite your buddies over to your house or don't invite anybody at all. It's really, really early.
Al Grego:
Just watch in your pajamas.
Sean McCormick:
Crush a coffee and a Bailey's and watch the game on your own, 7:00 AM. Whereas if you look at Eastern Canada, like Atlantic Canada, Newfoundland 7:00 AM in Vancouver is 11:30 AM.
Al Grego:
Almost lunchtime.
Sean McCormick:
Sorry, 12:30 PM. So it was really interesting is literally every province, as you worked your way east, you had an increase in the year-over-year measure.
Al Grego:
Well, as the joke goes, it's noon somewhere except when you're on the West Coast and it's seven o'clock in the morning.
Sean McCormick:
Right.
Al Grego:
That's great. And yeah, it makes total sense because as you see the numbers, they increase as you go further east. So it makes complete sense. Now in four years, we're looking at having the World Cup here in North America, so we shouldn't have that problem.
Sean McCormick:
Right. Well, we've got 10 group stage matches in Canada, which is awesome. It's going to be so much fun. Toronto and Vancouver are the two cities that are going to be hosting those games. So we expect to see spending increases for restaurants as well as the tourism industry as a whole. Similar to the F1 Canadian Grand Prix. Do keep in mind that these games are going to be played in cities that generally don't have a problem attracting tourism to begin with, Toronto and Vancouver. However, there are going to be tourists coming to town. Question is how many are going to be coming to town to go to the games?
Al Grego:
Right.
Sean McCormick:
BMO stadium in Toronto holds in and around 40,000 fans. They're going to be expanding in a little bit. But let's say half of those fans, which I think is very conservative, half of those fans will be local. So that only leaves about 20,000 tickets per game that are going to be available to tourists, be it domestic or foreign. So it'll be interesting to see what that event impact is going to be. I tend to think it might not be as obvious or prevalent as some people believe it to be. And it's definitely a hot button topic when you talk about what it's costing to bring these games to Canada. However, Moneris data from sporting events throughout the year shows that fans and businesses really get behind sporting events. So we got 10 group stage matches that are going to be played in Canada and it should be lots of fun.
Al Grego:
So it'll be interesting to see what the spike is for the tourism, but I bet you the spike for at least bars and restaurants will probably be pretty significant.
Sean McCormick:
Right, because you've got locals that are just going to be out in the bars and restaurants going and being a part of it, just celebrating. A reason to get together with friends and the soccer community as a whole, very passionate sporting community. And I fully expect that they're going to be getting behind it. So will the spend as a whole be up substantially? Very likely. Will the tourism spend be up because of it? Can we directly attribute it? That'll remain to be seen. I'll reserve judgment on that one.
Al Grego:
Yeah, we have four years to see that one happen.
Sean McCormick:
Right.
Al Grego:
All right. Thank you so much, Sean.
Speaker 5:
Featured interview.
Al Grego:
I'm joined by René-Pier Plourde. He's the head of UEAT University at UEAT. René, thank you so much for joining me today.
René-Pier Plourde:
Alan, it's great to be back.
Al Grego:
So UEAT has a unique ordering ecosystem for restaurants and bars. This month there's a couple of pretty big dates coming up for restaurants and bars, the big game's coming up. What can restaurant and bar owners look forward to this month?
René-Pier Plourde:
So just taking a look at last year. So we'll just compare from 2021 to 2022, a few statistics from customers ordering food online. What we saw for the big game specifically, we saw a 21% increase for takeout orders and no difference for delivery orders. So already, okay, that tells us something. But there's also another event happening in February, which is Valentine's Day and as we know, Valentine's Day is huge for many restaurateurs, and the data from Valentine's Day are something else. So just to compare again, year over year for Valentine's Day, we saw 199% increase in takeout orders. So almost 200% increase in takeout orders and 83% increase in delivery orders.
But in the last three years, the main focus for many restaurants was on delivery. And it's not a secret that providing delivery with third party delivery apps can be pricey if you're paying up to 35% commission per order. And what these numbers are telling us is almost 200% increase in takeout orders. So this means that customers are getting out more and for the big game, they will drive up to the city to pick groceries for Valentine's Day. They will drive up to grab some flowers, a good bottle of wine, and they will stop at their favorite restaurant to pick up their takeout orders because they want to save money as well. And they're willing now to drive up to the restaurant, grab their order to save a few bucks.
Al Grego:
Now, 200% increase last year, year over year, is significant, but it was also still amongst some restrictions. This year, fewer restrictions, do you see a lot more in-house dining?
René-Pier Plourde:
Great question. So just taking a look at last summer, we saw a huge difference already. Customers, they feel more comfortable. For the past three years they've been stuck at home, want to get out more. So absolutely, we already saw that last summer, and we believe that for Valentine's Day and for the big game, it will be the same.
Al Grego:
So in preparation for the increased business for those specific days, do you have any tips for the restaurants or bar industry?
René-Pier Plourde:
Absolutely. So what does that mean for restaurants? Just going back to the increase in takeout orders, restaurants should already put a focus on inviting guests to order through their own online ordering system, not a third party delivery app, their own platform. Because on your own platform, you get access to the holy grail, which is the customer data. And with customer data, you can send tailored promotions a couple of days before the big game, couple of days before Valentine's Day, or maybe an email on the day of the event because you never know who's going to be last minute, right, Al?
Al Grego:
Right. Yeah.
René-Pier Plourde:
You never know.
Al Grego:
Yeah. You're looking at me a little when you say that. I see that.
René-Pier Plourde:
Sorry about that, man. Sorry. But I'm guilty of that by the way. But it's still having separate promotions for takeout and delivery is also a great tip because you can have a more aggressive promotion for takeout knowing that your customers are now ordering takeout more than ever. And since you're not paying a pricey commission for delivery, well you can have a perfect promotion to entice your customers to order from your platform and drive up to your restaurant, pick up their order, and have a great customer experience doing so.
Al Grego:
That's a great tip. So do you see any other trends that might be surprising for restaurateurs for this month?
René-Pier Plourde:
Trends? Well, if I may share maybe one trend that did surprise me quite a bit, especially for the big game, is we saw a great increase, and great increase I mean between 20 and 40% increase, for sushi, fast food, and tartare.
Al Grego:
Really?
René-Pier Plourde:
And what this tells us is previously when you're thinking of the big game, you're already thinking of pizza, chicken wings. But now what this tells us is restaurants shouldn't stop themselves from promoting their food for the big game and for Valentine's Day because now customers are ordering outside the traditional menu items. Some may want to treat themselves for a great sushi while watching the game. So a great tip would be, don't hold back on promoting because you have this preconceived idea that customers are only going to be ordering pizza and chicken wings for the big game.
Al Grego:
Well, I love me some chicken wings, but I'll crush some sushi during a football game, for sure. Now if a restaurant wants to know more about UEAT's ordering system, where could they look?
René-Pier Plourde:
The best place is on our website. ueat.io. So four letters, UEAT, or just simply Google. We'll give you all the information about our amazing ordering ecosystem.
Al Grego:
Okay. And the most important question I have to ask you, KC or Philly?
René-Pier Plourde:
Philly.
Al Grego:
Wow. Not even hesitating on that one, are you?
René-Pier Plourde:
Nope.
Al Grego:
All right. Well, I hope it comes true. Thank you so much, RP, for your time today.
René-Pier Plourde:
Al, that was great. Thank you so much.
Speaker 6:
At Moneris, we empower merchants to keep doing business their way while we handle the payment processing our way. What way would that be? The safe way, the always connected way, the awesome integrated tools to help you make more money way. We know your business never stops, so you deserve products that never stop working. That's why we are committed to providing our merchants with a payment partner that works just as hard as they do to make every sale. Moneris, proud partner of small Canadian business.
Speaker 5:
Ask An Expert.
Al Grego:
Joined by Patrick Wiltshire. He's a director of core payments at Moneris. Patrick, thank you for joining me today.
Patrick Wiltshire:
Thanks for having me, Al.
Al Grego:
So today we're talking about tipping. I think back to when I was working at a grocery store as a teenager, and I would help this one lady out with her groceries. She would always tip me with homemade cannolis, and that was my favorite day. I knew I was going to get a cannoli as a tip. Tipping's always an interesting topic to talk about, when do you tip, when should you tip, when shouldn't you tip? But we don't always think about what happens on the merchant side. So you're here to tell us a bit about how merchants should set up tip, and you have some "tips for us on tipping".
Patrick Wiltshire:
Yeah, I do. So we all know that tipping is a critical component to the way many businesses operate, and Moneris is definitely here to support our merchants and provide insights required to ensure businesses have the right strategy when it comes to setting up their tips. For example, if we look at restaurants, many restaurants have a dine-in service as well as a takeout service. So if we look at the dine-in service, we typically see options ranging between 18 and 25%, which makes sense as customers are being served with a smile and refreshments are coming out. Now, if we apply that same tip range to the takeout service, customers may end up being reluctant to tip at all. So it's very important to take that into consideration as you're setting up your tip strategy as a business.
Al Grego:
So you've got four tips here on setting up tipping. What's your first tip?
Patrick Wiltshire:
So the first tip is tipping can be toggled on or off from your device settings. So you don't have to worry about anything else. It's really a set it and forget it process, and the device will automatically add or remove the necessary items from the checkout flow as well as the receipt.
Al Grego:
That's great. What do you have next?
Patrick Wiltshire:
The second tip on tipping is when setting up tipping devices will allow you to present the following option. So you can tip by dollar where the customer will fill out the amount of their choice that they want to tip. You can set up tip by percentage where a customer will fill in a percentage of their choice. You can set a tip preset type where the administration gets to input three presets, either dollar amount or percentage. This is especially useful in industries where tipping might not be as commonplace and a customer might not know that there's an appropriate tipping range. So here's a fun fact for businesses, by human nature, most people actually gravitate to the middle option. So very important to keep that in mind when you're setting up your tips.
Al Grego:
I see no option here for tipping cannolis. So we need to add that.
Patrick Wiltshire:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll take that in. We'll have it evaluated and see if we can deliver that for you. I like cannolis too.
Al Grego:
Yeah, what's your next piece of advice?
Patrick Wiltshire:
Well, my next piece of advice is customers want nothing more than to experience a frictionless checkout, which is why on Go and our Go devices, we have the option of toggling on tip warnings. So this'll protect consumers from unpleasant errors such as entering a tip percentage that's larger than the purchase amount.
Al Grego:
What do you mean by that?
Patrick Wiltshire:
For example, if somebody enters in a hundred percent when they really meant to put in 10%. So situations like that, they receive a warning basically telling them, "Hey, are you sure you want to tip this amount?"
Al Grego:
Well, that's a good fail safe. And what's your final tip?
Patrick Wiltshire:
So the final tip on tipping is the clerks or the waiters or waitresses, they can use the transaction report on a device to generate a tip totals report. And that'll essentially let them know how much tips that they've collected through credit or debit payments on a device. So very useful for the end of days or the end of shift to generate those records to make sure that you capture the tips that were given to you by wonderful customers.
Al Grego:
That's some great advice. So if I'm a merchant, where would I go from more information?
Patrick Wiltshire:
So you can go to moneris.com. On moneris.com we have a support section, can simply type in the word tip and we will bring out all the information or display all of the information required to set up your device for tipping. And it's important again to recognize that tipping is set at the device level. So it's important to set all of your devices accordingly.
Al Grego:
Oh, that's interesting. So if you have three or four different devices, the setup needs to be done for each device individually.
Patrick Wiltshire:
And that is to accommodate the scenario that I spoke about before where a restaurant could have a dine-in section as well as a takeout section. You'd want to set different tip ranges in both of those sections.
Al Grego:
Excellent. Thank you so much for your time today, Patrick.
Patrick Wiltshire:
Always a pleasure, Al. Thank you.
Speaker 5:
Save The Date.
Al Grego:
I'm joined by Matt Rovet, he's the event producer at Moneris. Matt, thank you for joining me today.
Matt Rovet:
Thank you for having me, Al.
Al Grego:
So we're looking at the February calendar. What do you have for us this month?
Matt Rovet:
Yeah, so the Second Harvest Hero sweepstakes presented by Moneris is back with each ticket purchase starting at $10. You'll have a chance to win one of 20 incredible prizes collectively valued over $40,000.
Al Grego:
Wow.
Matt Rovet:
Even better, all proceeds will go directly towards Second Harvest food rescue and distribution efforts, providing nutritious meals to Canadians, facing food insecurity, and reducing the environmental impact of food waste. Everyone is a winner with the Second Harvest Hero sweepstakes.
Al Grego:
Sounds amazing. So when can we buy the tickets?
Matt Rovet:
Tickets are on sale from February 6th to March 17th, but get yours before February 17th for a chance to win an extra prize in our early bird draw.
Al Grego:
Gotcha. And then where can we learn more?
Matt Rovet:
Yeah, you can head to www.secondharvestsweeps.ca to purchase your ticket now.
Al Grego:
So as the event producer you're responsible for producing all the webinars and I hear there's a couple coming up this month.
Matt Rovet:
Yeah, we have two in February. On February 9th you can join Rob Wilkinson, vice president of B2B at Moneris and Joseph Migliacci, head of large middle market sales at Visa Canada for our webinar, Strategies For Savings Through B2B Payments, where they will discuss how to optimize your B2B payments. And on February 23rd, we have another webinar with UEAT, A Restaurateur's Peak Time Playbook, join RP, head of UEAT University, and Nicola, product manager at Moneris as they discuss trends and best practices for restaurants.
Al Grego:
We just heard from RP in this episode. Where can we register for these events?
Matt Rovet:
Yeah, so we've listed registration links in the description of this podcast, so if you're interested, make sure you check it out and register today.
Al Grego:
Excellent. Thank you so much, Matt, for your time.
Matt Rovet:
Thank you, Al.
Al Grego:
And that's all we have for this month. I hope you found this episode informative. If you haven't already, check out Moneris's other award-winning podcast, Yes, We Are Open. In that podcast, I travel the country telling the stories of small Canadian businesses, their origins, struggles, and future outlook. If you like motivational stories of perseverance and triumph over adversity, you'll love Yes, We Are Open. Here's a little taste.
I have a question for you. What do the following businesses have in common? A cannabis store, an athletic wear brand, dog biscuits, a tech startup, a travel agency, hairdressers, a kids dentists, and a manufacturer of sound booths. Of course, the answer is they all have stories of struggle and perseverance to tell and you can listen to them now on season three of the Yes, We Are Open podcast. Subscribe now wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 5:
Let's go.
Sean McCormick:
If you haven't already, you can subscribe to this podcast. Yes, We Are Open wherever you get your podcasts.
Al Grego:
And if you'd like to support this show, share this podcast with your network or review us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. And finally, if you have a payment related question you'd like to submit to one of our experts, you can email us at podcast@moneris.com.
Sean McCormick:
Join us again next month for more expert insight and data, we do love data, to help you grow your business.
Al Grego:
Thank you so much for co-hosting, Sean.
Sean McCormick:
Anytime, my friend.
Al Grego:
On behalf of Sean, myself, and the rest of Moneris, thank you for listening to Shop Talk. Talk again in March.