When customers shop at the Robert Simmonds Clothing store in downtown Fredericton, New Brunswick, they need not worry about an expiring meter leading to parking tickets. That’s because Robert Simmonds is one of the 100 or so retailers in the Canadian towns of Fredericton and Saint John that are employing Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons in conjunction with an app enabling shoppers to top off payments on their parking meters if they are running late. The solution, provided by Canadian startup HotSpot Parking, consists of beacons provided by Polish BLE technology company Kontakt.io and a free app, known as HotSpot Parking, that can be downloaded on users’ BLE-enabled Android, Apple or BlackBerry smartphones. The app enables them to view notifications about their parking payment status, as well as receive promotional information from participating stores.
Phillip Curley, HotSpot Parking’s CEO, founded the company in 2013 to provide a wireless solution and app that would help drivers manage their parking payments, protect them against tickets, and thereby improve business for merchants operating within downtown areas. The impetus, Curley explains, was the need by downtown businesses to increase traffic to their stores and sales, as well as the frustration of potential customers regarding the payment of parking fines if they fail to reach their car before the payment expires. Ultimately, he says, parking meters on the street can dictate sales, or the lack thereof, within stores.
Paul Simmonds, the CEO of Robert Simmonds Inc., concurs, saying sales of high-value suits and other garments are often lost if a customer hurries out of a store before completing a sale transaction because his or her parking meter payment is due to expire.
HotSpot Parking worked with Kontakt.io to obtain the beacons that HotSpot then offered on a trial basis to businesses in the two New Brunswick cities. The company began by first contacting merchants with the highest-value products and services, and it is still reaching out to additional firms in the two cities, including law offices, clothing stores, coffee shops and restaurants. The deployments became permanent in August 2013 in Fredericton, and eight months ago in Saint John. HotSpot Parking also partnered with local parking authorities to enable users to make credit card payments on their meters via the HotSpot Parking app. To date, nearly 3,000 users have downloaded the app.
Those new to the system must first download the HotSpot Parking app from Google Play, Apple iTunes or Blackberry World. When installing the app, a user can choose how much information to provide at that time, such as his or her name, shopping interests and car license plate number. While parking at a metered parking space, instead of inserting cash or a credit card into the machine itself, a user can scan the QR code or input the four-digit ID number on a HotSpot Parking sticker applied to that machine. The app then prompts the driver to select the desired amount of parking time.
If a user pays via the traditional method—depositing money in the machine—the meter’s screen will indicate the remaining time. If the individual pays using the HotSpot Parking app, the meter will not indicate such, so parking officials instead use phones issued to them by HotSpot Parking to view whether each space is paid for.
When a HotSpot Parking user pays for parking and enters a participating store, that person’s phone receives the unique ID number transmitted by the beacon mounted near the entrance, and forwards that beacon’s ID to the HotSpot server, which thereby identifies which store the customer has entered. What happens next depends on the amount of personal information that customer had provided upon installing the app. For example, the system can prompt the phone to display a welcome to that specific store, greeting that patron by name. It can also display that individual’s personal information to the store’s sales staff, as long as their computer or other device has the app open as well, giving them the opportunity to personally greet him or her by name.
In addition, the app collects data regarding the user’s shopping history, based on which businesses that person has entered, how long he or she remained at each location, and when. It can then tailor the promotional offers sent to that shopper’s phone accordingly. The offers can reflect the time of day—such as promoting a coffee shop in the morning or a café at lunchtime.
If the parking meter payment is due to expire while the shopper is still in a store equipped with a beacon, the phone app will send that individual an alert indicating the need for additional payment, which the customer can then approve in order to avoid a parking violation fine. In this way, the merchant can be assured that the shopper will not prematurely leave the store to pay a meter.
This function alone, Simmonds says, has earned his store increased sales.
The solution also offers advantages for cities and parking authorities, however, Curley says. When an individual leaves a parking space, nothing on the meter indicates that there is still paid time remaining for that space. Thus, every person arriving at a parking space pays for the time he or she parks there, rather than using a previous driver’s remaining time.
To help entice cities to participate, HotSpot Parking also provides parking officers with smartphones—at no cost to municipalities or parking authorities—loaded with the HotSpot app. Officers in Fredericton and Saint John are currently using such phones. This enables them to type a license plate number into the app and view details signifying whether a parking fee is paid, and for how long. Curley says it could also allow officers to view all spaces with expired parking meters within a particular downtown area, though the system is not yet being used in this manner.
HotSpot is offering a free 12-week trial period for all new merchants, after which they would pay a monthly fee to continue the service. “Our pricing model is evolving,” Curley states, and could vary according to the amount of promotional offers they opt to deliver via the service.
However, Curley notes, “What we’re focused on is reducing parking tickets for potential customers” in downtown shopping areas. Curley has prepared a list of North American cities with populations fewer than 250,000 but with a high percentage of Twitter followers, indicating that they may be more technology and social-media savvy than those in other cities. The company is now in the process of contacting the mayors and councilors of those cities, to introduce them to the technology.
According to Simmonds, store customers have indicated they like the app and have stayed to complete purchases after topping off their parking meter payments via their phones. “We’re an independent retail clothing business in the city center, and parking is always an issue,” he states. With the app, he adds, “the customer gets a little bit of a break. They love the concept of no parking violations… It’s definitely led to sales.”
Simmonds’ goal is to install additional beacons as his store expands (it now has a women’s clothing department). He hopes that more businesses in the neighborhood will also join, making the system that much more desirable for consumers who park downtown.