Boarding at the Gold Coast’s famous Cavill Ave, once everyone is settled in and life vests securely fastened, they’re off. The driver hits the pedal to the metal and heads spectacularly into the Gold Coast Broadwater, instantly transforming his chariot from bus to boat. Hello Aquaduck and Very Good Times!
Walk on by
When Sarah Colgate took over the 24-year-old business back in 2018, she knew she was onto something special. And wanted to take it further. Straight off the bat, Sarah felt that she was missing out on prospective business, including walk-up traffic. “Chinese tourists to our business are very, very important. It’s our biggest growth market here on the Gold Coast, [and] … the biggest growth market for Aquaduck.”
To service growing numbers of walk-up visitors from China, Sarah needed the ability to accept payments from their preferred payment platform: Alipay.
She also needed EFTPOS.
Two birds, one terminal
Cue Alipay with Tyro. From the get-go Sarah understood how it could save her admin bacon. Before Tyro “it was a totally separate terminal to our normal EFTPOS machine”.
“By going to Tyro, it’s…allowed us to use one machine for both Alipay and for our normal EFTPOS. So it’s made life significantly easier”.
She continued, “Tyro’s helped Aquaduck simply by allowing us to have an international payment platform on our everyday system”.
And the walk-up customers Sarah has her sights set on are also benefiting from the system.
“Our customers have been really happy with the fact that they can use Alipay at Aquaduck because it’s not only in buying their tickets, they can use Alipay on the actual Ducks when they’re buying souvenirs and merchandise.”
“The customers have been really positive about the fact that we have a Chinese payment platform.”
Ticking along
In addition to the immediate benefits – “more walk up traffic…[and] more on-sales” – Sarah’s bigger picture plans are moving in the right direction.
To her mind, the move to Tyro’s Alipay has really paid off. “We’ve had great feedback… It’s identified to Chinese customers that we are open to having more and more Chinese customers because we have their payment platform”.
No more waiting
Where once Sarah waited close to a business week for settlements to clear, she’s got more breathing space these days. “Tyro’s settlement on Alipay is very important to us. It’s the following day.”
“This allows us to keep up to date with our payments and our paperwork, and the transactions in and out of our bank account… so Tyro’s settlement is excellent.”
With those international expansion plans on Sarah’s to-do list, let’s see where she goes from here. Looking pretty great to date, say we, Sarah!
Find out more about Tyro EFTPOS
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