The challenge

For years, a major European beverage company, with an annual turnover of EUR 1.5 billion, had engaged in the practice of fostering the loyalty of bar and restaurant owners by offering branded furniture and financial guarantees with banks in exchange for a commitment to purchase. In recent years, however, “branded bars” have fallen out of fashion and financial guarantees were taken over by the bank's direct relationship with the client after the first year.

Merchant success equals Brewery success
In the Brewery's contained market (hospitality operators in Spain), the greatest opportunity for growth seemed to lie in revenue expansion with existing clients and retaining top performers. To achieve this, the Brewery was looking to foster a deeply loyal relationship with its client base.

Commercial lock-in
Without a barrier to exit there can be no genuine exclusivity. The Brewery was clear on the fact that it wanted to deliver meaningful value to its clients, but it also needed to ensure that exclusivity was not going to put its clients' investments at risk. Hence, the Brewery required a platform where merchants would be satisfied with a high level of service (of benefit to the merchants) while driving a high level of commitment (of benefit to the brewery).

Financial service disintermediation
The Brewery possesses significant amounts of historical data on all its clients: purchase volumes, payment histories, growth trajectories, and more. Market knowledge and client data have de-risked its clients for the purposes of lending. It wanted to own the client relationship and not pass information off to third parties.

How Toqio has helped

Revenue uplift
Simple intuitive journeys for merchants can drive 30%+ higher gross merchandise value (GMV) due to an increase in repeat transactions. One Toqio customer saw a 45% increase in approval rates in the first 12 months. In the case of the Brewery, points of sale linked to bank accounts embedded in supply chain systems are already driving higher GMV and more repeat orders. Bar employees who can place orders use associated cards (with limits) for agile and autonomous decision making.

Loyalty and retention
The Brewery has become a “one stop shop” that helps merchants succeed. Cash flow is visible across end customer payments (digital cash and PoS terminals). The company plans to offer financing to bars by offering alternate propositions (such as debt funds) that provide lending and payment term flexibility. Part of this structured success is ensuring that the onboarding process for merchants is simple and easy to comprehend, it can eliminate a lot of friction and uncertainty. One Toqio customer noticed a 50% increase in average order value when they started onboarding their merchants via the Toqio platform. Once customers are comfortable with a tool, they tend not to want to switch. Of course, that tool has to provide value, as well.

Holistic availability of data
With access to real data on consumer spending habits (at the bars), bar balance sheets (accounts, payment data), and more, the Brewery can now compare that data with non-financial information, including order history and consumption rates to create hyper-personalized financial proposals for their merchants.