Partnership with Qualcomm to increase ease of purchasing by smartphone customers.
Burger King has announced that it will soon be implementing a pilot mobile payment systems program that will use QR codes do allow smartphone users to purchase products from the restaurant chain.
The trial program will start in about four dozen BK locations and go national if it is successful.
This will be made possible through Qualcomm owned and operated Firethorn Mobile, an m-commerce enabler. It is to be called the BK Mobile Crown Card, and will find its start in some of the locations in Salt Lake City and the surrounding metropolitan areas in Utah.
The program lets iOS and Android based smartphone users to scan QR codes in drive-thrus and order counters.
When the barcodes are scanned, the user is able to pay for his or her purchase. According to the Firethorn Mobile president, Rocco Fabiano, “We are pleased to collaborate with Burger King on this new program because it frees BK restaurant customers of the burden of carrying plastic.” Fabiano also stated that “Firethorn continues to be focused on mobile commerce and the creation of solutions that enable consumers to gain greater utility from their ever-present mobile devices.”
As mobile payment systems are rapidly becoming an important element to m-commerce and as consumers begin to expect and demand that these services become available at their favorite fast food and retail locations, a growing number of companies are piloting programs to help them to determine which methods are best suited to the needs that they and their own customers have for fast and convenient transactions.
Burger King expects that its own pilot, based on QR codes, will perform very well and that it won’t be long before it expands well beyond Salt Lake City and out across the rest of the United States. The restaurant chain is far from the first to implement this type of technology, but it is working hard to keep up and remain at the very front of mobile commerce use and solutions, so that it will not have the opportunity to fall behind.
