Billfold

A previous payments provider that didn’t offer satisfactory technology or customer support

For all of Billfold’s success driving revenue for live entertainment clients, it spent the first six years of business hampered by a payments provider that didn’t support its ambitions and commitment to client satisfaction.

Billfold’s challenges with its previous payments provider started with that provider’s stark lack of knowledge about the company’s offerings and business model.

Stas Chijik, CEO and co-founder of Billfold, remembers calling Billfold’s previous payments provider and having difficulty getting anyone on the phone with knowledge of the payment processor Billfold used or the company’s business model, even after years of working together.

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Poor customer service is frustrating in any industry, and unacceptable in the world of live events. Billfold powers payments for events that host 100,000 people per day for multiple days in a row Even a brief outage or issue with payments at such an event could cost Billfold’s clients upwards of millions of dollars – at possibly the only event the client hosts in a given year. So, when clients call, Billfold needs answers that come fast and help address the issues. That wasn’t happening with Billfold’s past payments solution, holding back the company’s ability to grow.

Billfold’s problems with the payments provider extended to its technical capabilities.

“Our previous technology stack had a bunch of faults,” Stas said. “We couldn’t support Apple Pay or Samsung Pay – which customers at events now expect to use.”

Another issue was the previous payments provider’s inability to support offline payments, which are essential for live events.

“Offline functionality is crucial, because we’re working in environments with low internet connectivity. Event lines won’t move if we depend on WiFi that goes in and out. People aren’t going to shows to stand in line – our clients know that and we do, too.”

Choosing Elastic Path and getting a supportive, effective, ‘omnipresent’ payments solution

As Billfold considered a new payments provider, it needed a vendor that provides strong support and payments technology that delivers on customer needs. Billfold gets both with Elastic Path.

Elastic Path stands out to Stas and the Billfold team for our commitment to working fast, being responsive, and prioritizing customer needs.

“For our clients, we provide support and understand their needs. Elastic Path is the same way for us. When we need to solve something quickly, we know that Elastic Path cares, will move fast, and will get the job done,” Stas said.

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Stas said that Elastic Path is particularly strong in providing the responsiveness Billfold needs to quickly develop and implement integrations for its payments solution.

“Elastic Path guides us through the integration process. Other payment providers bounce you around to different departments, wasting weeks of development time and not getting anywhere. With Elastic Path, that’s not the case. We get answers in hours.”

In terms of payment provider features, Elastic Path Payments gives Billfold the robust functionality to deliver an exceptional product to clients.

By using Elastic Path Payments, Billfold provides a range of clients and their customers with the:

• Capacity to accept Samsung Pay and Apple Pay
• Ability to process offline transactions, so that lines at events aren’t at a standstill if WiFi goes down
• Flexibility to service a single event with both card present transactions, in which consumers use a card at the point of sale, and RFID transactions, in which they use a wristband or other contactless payment method
• Bandwidth to respond to the rise of hybrid events by processing both in-person, on-site and remote, off-site payments

Stas said that Elastic Path Payments’ ability to deliver all these capabilities makes it integral to Billfold’s offerings.

“Elastic Path is omnipresent in our solution. It’s what makes all of our payments functionalities possible,” Stas said.

Elastic Path and Billfold’s expanding commerce future

Traditionally, Billfold’s point-of-sale solutions have been used to improve food and beverage lines at live events. With Elastic Path Payments, Billfold has the ability to expand its offering to also get people moving quickly through merchandise lines.

Stas said that merchandise lines often stretch the longest at live events, and that improving merchandise lines requires different, more complex payment functionalities.

Those functionalities include the ability to pre-order and pay for merchandise before an event and then pick up on-site. Billfold is close to introducing to clients an online marketplace solution in which consumers have this capability through Billfold’s app. The payment technology required to process such transactions was not available to Billfold before switching to Elastic Path Payments.

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Overall, Billfold wants to offer clients an online marketplace solution that is a unified point-of-sale system with an associated online store. This way, clients have access to a single reporting dashboard, and can support pre-orders and pick ups, card present transactions, RFID payments – however consumers want to pay, so they spend less time in line and more time enjoying the show and buying other goods.

Stas said that increased and improved payment functionality also means that Billfold can compete for more business in different industries, and begin to think of itself as an overall commerce solution – not just a point-of-sale technology.

“Elastic Path is a payments provider that we can grow with. The features and solutions Elastic Path provides become more applicable to our business as we get bigger.”