#CommerceMonth: Speeding things up with KaChing

Jaco Marais

We asked Jaco Marais, co-founder and managing director at KaChing, to tell us more about KaChing, how it facilitates commerce and how it, in turn, has been influenced by the e-commerce trend.

Tell us more about KaChing and the technology behind it.

KaChing is a cashless, ticketless, user-friendly parking app, which uses license plate recognition technology (LPR) to open a boom when a user arrives at a parking lot. Payment is linked to the user’s credit card or pre-paid account upon exiting. KaChing makes the parking experience hassle-free and cost-effective.

LPR captures photographic video or still images of license plates. These are processed by a series of algorithms that compare the numbers on the license plate with KaChing’s database of registered users.

What is KaChing’s biggest selling point and how has the uptake of the app been going?

From a business perspective, KaChing offers landlords an opportunity to acquire customer analytics and really understand the profiles of people entering and leaving their properties. In our data-driven economy, this is vital for a business owner looking to develop a more targeted marketing approach when it comes to their customers. For the consumer, it means no more scrounging in your wallet for cash you don’t have, forking out R50 for that lost ticket or hanging out your car window to get the boom to open.

We want our users to have a hassle free experience and we want the shopping centres to reap the benefits of this convenience. KaChing is the better way to park and as consumers are realising this, we are receiving positive feedback as well as an increased uptake of the app.

Would you say the KaChing app facilitates commerce? If it does, in what way?

KaChing is a proudly South Africa product and because of this, the KaChing parking solution can be installed at 10% to 20% of the cost of a conventional pay station system. The expense of printing parking tickets is also negated while removing physical cash from the parking solution means cash handling costs and theft falls dramatically. In addition, we are excited to be part of the mobile payment revolution.

How has e-commerce changed the payments industry and how does it affect you?

E-commerce has drastically changed the way people conduct business. The need to make physical cash payments is starting to become redundant, and there is growing consumer trust around using e-commerce methods to pay for products and services. That’s why KaChing has proved to be such a welcome tool for shoppers – they’re already used to transacting online, and now they can have the same hassle-free experience when paying for parking. There’s no more need to carry around cash or even a credit card to complete the transaction.

What is necessary for e-commerce success?

A critical aspect of e-commerce is sound and safe technology - with a product like KaChing that lives online it is important that the brand is safe and reliable for its users. It is also very important to make sure that the technology is user-friendly and encourages user adoption. We have worked hard to ensure that KaChing is strong in both these areas. There has been rigorous testing to perfect the product and ensure we have a fully functional, patented, reliable service, which has already won over the trust of thousands of KaChing users.

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Wat is the biggest challenge, for you, in dealing with e-commerce in business?

As with any startup, there will be teething problems but there have been minimal issues. Our challenge is to develop a sense of trust in our system so that our users feel comfortable not only using it themselves but also sharing it with their friends so that we can generate the uptake we need to succeed in the long term. We are pleased to say that once users have tried out KaChing, they are so delighted with the experience and, therefore, immediately develop a sense of trust in the service.

What are the biggest advantages of e-commerce?

E-commerce offers many benefits that traditional commerce just cannot fulfil, especially for a startup. The most obvious advantage of e-commerce is the cost saving aspect of not having to have a physical product. These costs can be implemented elsewhere.

For a consumer, the benefits of e-commerce come in the form of ease and speeding up of the consumer journey. For KaChing users, we are giving them the ease of not having to physically make a payment for parking, have cash on-hand or keep track of their parking tickets.

For a business, e-commerce offers you the opportunity to get insights and analytics about your customers. And without having to worry about money for parking, consumer are more likely to forgo the first free 30 – 45 minutes and spend more time in the mall... shopping.