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CASE STUDY: Sacred Café wins with wireless charging

By Retail Technology | Wednesday December 12 2018

Since installing wireless charging, café chain Sacred Café has seen an increase in footfall leading to a rise in revenue and spend per customer

Sacred Cafe is an antipodean style cafe chain serving a range of gourmet coffee, herbal teas and great food. Founded by owner and managing director Tubbs Wanigasekera ten years ago, Sacred Cafe aims to offer its clients a unique taste of New Zealand hospitality, right in the heart of London.

The brand has grown steadily to its current four Central London locations over the last decade and has cultivated a loyal clientele base along the way. In order to do this, Sacred Cafe has had to build and maintain a reputation as one of London’s favourite cafe experiences.
A key part of this expansion has been developing strategies to stand-out from other cafe and coffee shop brands on the high street. That’s why in 2016 the company joined forces with Aircharge to install wireless charging facilities at its popular venue on The Strand in Central London. 

The Challenge

While the main challenge for Sacred Cafe was standing out in a busy market, driving footfall to the chain’s Strand location was also a key aim. 

Sacred Cafe wanted to increase customer numbers by finding better ways to signpost the cafe’s location and amenities. 

The brand wanted to find a way to increase customer dwell time in the shop, which would in turn see an increase in spend per visitor. 

The solution 

Sacred Cafe chose to partner with Aircharge; not only was the company the global leader in wireless charging solutions for public spaces, it already had a proven presence in the hospitality sector with over 5,000 charging locations globally. 
Aircharge’s bespoke solutions also complimented the aesthetic of Sacred Cafe’s Strand location and would be a discreet addition to the premises. 

In December 2016, 12 networked wireless charging points were installed throughout the venue to offer complimentary charging to all of its customers. Complete with wireless charging ORBs to charge any Micro USB, Lightning or USB Type-C device, the new surface chargers meant any visitor could benefit from safe and convenient access to power.
The venue location was added to the Aircharge Locator app to help drive additional customer traffic. 
This enabled nearby users to receive an in-app low battery notification, which would then trigger location GPS services, allowing them to choose and navigate to Sacred Cafe’s Strand location. 

An Aircharge IoT gateway was also installed and connected onto the cafe’s Wi-Fi network. This provided Sacred Cafe with access to a remote system health check and allowed it to track usage in real time. Statistics and analysis from the platform could then be used to support marketing initiatives and future layout planning.

The results 

In the first 3 months following the installation, Sacred Café recorded a total of 9,294 charges with a consistent month-on-month growth in the number of charges and average time per charge, scoring a total increase of 25% and 23% respectively. 

These figures translated into a significant increase in footfall of customers looking for charging facilities, spend per customer and additional revenue generated, resulting in a positive impact on both customer experience and business performance. 

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