The Customer

Calvin Leung worked for several Government IT departments long before he went into the coffee business. Realizing that cafes were the highlight of his work day, he dropped his IT role and began investing his time, money and future into coffee bars. He found he had a knack for helping coffee businesses grow, which is how he moved on to Plantation Specialty Coffee.

Plantation uses freshly roasted coffee beans instead of freeze-dried grounds, creating real coffee for real people. After a year of Calvin’s influence, Plantation opened its second store, which quickly led to negotiations in creating chains of small Plantation coffee bars. The coffee company’s popularity continues to grow as more coffee bars are in demand and plans for building are underway.

The Challenge

Plantation uses Square for their merchandising needs. When Calvin was offered to expand into the Myer department stores, their kiosks were asked to use the conventional POS system that was standard concessions in Myer and integrated with the Myer 1 loyalty card. As a tech-savvy individual, Calvin had no intention of using the clunky POS system that was being offered. But, if the Myer 1 card couldn’t be used, there was no deal.

They needed a system that would enable their company to use the Myer 1 loyalty program for their customers. Socket Mobile’s barcode scanners were the answer to their problem.

“We tested many different scanners before we knew this was the one.” – Calvin

The Socket Mobile Solution

The Series 7 was chosen for scanning Myer 1 cards for several reasons: “Cordless, look attractive… and can scan both physical cards and digital barcodes on phones,” said Calvin.

Plantation implements Square’s API with custom coding to work with Socket Mobile scanners. The preparation only took two days to set up the entire system.

The Results

The Socket Mobile scanners allowed Plantation to implement Myer’s loyalty programs just as they hoped. Three new cafes have been constructed and more are on the way. Customers gain points using their Myer 1 card, which encourages customers to stay in the store, creating more business.

At the end of the day, both customers and vendors are happy. Employees have no complaints because the scanners are straightforward and easy to use.

The Socket Mobile scanners made the expansion of Plantation Specialty Coffee within Myer department stores possible.

“If we couldn’t accept Myer 1 cards, we couldn’t have done the deal.” – Calvin