Cantaloupe expands its foray into sports and entertainment with a suite ordering app – Digital Transactions

Cantaloupe Inc. has strengthened its position in the highly competitive sports and entertainment venue payments market with the launch of Suites, an order management application designed for such venues on Cantaloupe's Cheque platform.

Cantaloupe developed the new app to give guests in stadium suites the ability to make last-minute changes to orders and generally streamline the ordering process, both actions that are very manual processes, according to Jake Stone, vice president of partnerships at Cantaloupe.

The move comes about six months after Cantaloupe acquired check for $4.75 million.

Suites allows suite owners to log into a portal via a mobile device or desktop system to browse all food, beverage and merchandise items available for purchase, select the items they want, place last-minute orders, initiate payment and modify orders placed up to a set time.

In comparison, suite management applications require last-minute changes to pre-orders to be made manually or over the phone, which Cheq says can lead to ordering errors.

“There is a lot of friction in the placement [and changing] orders for suite owners. Menus are typically sent as PDFs, orders are placed via email, and changing an order is a very cumbersome, manual process,” says Stone, who joined Cantaloupe from Cheq. “Streamlining last-minute order changes is the biggest problem we've solved for our customers. We see this as a key differentiator.”

Another differentiator is that Suites can be installed as a standalone app that can be integrated into existing stadium and venue point of sale and order management systems or as part of the Cheq platform.

Providing the Suites app as a standalone app opens up opportunities for Cantaloupe to expand its reach in the highly competitive sports and entertainment market by enabling venue operators to maintain their relationships with other POS and order management technology providers.

“Venues use many technology partners and offering suites standalone means they don't have to completely replace their technology stack to install suites,” says Stone. “Instead, venue operators can choose the setup that best fits their needs while providing suite owners with exceptional customer service.”