ScaleArc

Mobile Payments and the Silver Screen: A Bigger Deal than Expected

July 14, 2016         By: Steven Anderson

Summer, traditionally, is the time when the biggest in blockbuster movies come out in theaters, and so far we’ve seen nothing that would dissuade us from this tradition carrying on.

Yet even amid the tradition, elements of the new emerge as the movie theater carries on reinventing itself in the midst of home theaters and streaming video.

A new study from ScaleArc shows just where this trend is going.

The ScaleArc study starts off with a small shock: 57 percent of Americans are buying movie tickets either online or using apps, because they have no interest in waiting in line. Moreover, 62 percent of users would be “upset” if their purchasing vector of choice went down when planning to make a purchase.

One thing was abundantly clear, however: 90 percent believed that there should be no downtime this summer for apps selling tickets.

Users also, according to the study, wanted the ability to purchase tickets for a preferred showtime in 47 percent of cases, while 38 percent wanted to go so far as to select a desired seat in advance.

Another shock came when users considered how they would react to downtime. Thirty-nine percent of respondents, and 45 percent of respondents from the technology industry, would go to a competitor immediately, and 23 percent would go so far as to never use that particular reservation site that had the downtime again.

Expecting no downtime at all might be a bridge too far—most consider the “five-nines”, or 99.999 percent, to be the gold standard—but the importance of doing everything possible to schedule that downtime for a time that isn’t customer-facing is vital to long-term corporate health.

With multiple theaters showing the same films, it’s easy for customers to be picky. Most might choose the theater the most approve of design-wise, or is using the best hardware to present the film, or just has the best concessions or even the best prices. Theaters are commodities, and thus the best in customer experience is necessary to yield the best result.

Offering measures to skip lines is therefore important, and mobile payment systems can be a huge part of this.

The movies are a big deal in people’s lives, and offering the best experience at the movies is a sure way toward getting the most return from a competitive market.