I have been trying out the Tatts mobile and online facilities to understand how they operate and compare the experience to the usual in-store experience.
Regulars here will know that I think online represents a far greater risk to newsagent lottery traffic and revenue than supermarkets yet newsagent associations have focused their attention primarily on the risk of supermarkets.
My experience with the Tatts App and their website has been terrific. It saves time and offers services someone short on time would like. I approached it with the mindset of a consumer: an irregular purchaser who is short of time and can easily forget to check tickets. The App and / or website experiences address each of these needs based on what I have experienced.
Purchasing a ticket on the App takes seconds. You are notified of the win and payment is made before most shops are open. The auto generated email announcing the win is good – cheerful, brief and to the point.
While there is a limit to what I can purchase on the App, the way around that is to setup a favourite ticket on the website, like, for example, a System 10, and the Applets you select the favourite.
You can’t use the App from overseas. To make these purchases you’d need to use the website accessed through a VPN that looks to Tatts like you are in Australia.
If I was a Tatts shareholder I’d be thrilled with what Tatts is doing online as it is important for the future of the business. It reflects the way services purchases are moving.
If I was a Tatts retailer I’d be concerned at the regulations Tatts imposes that drive the cost of providing the service up. I’d prefer the costs to be falling and the only way to achieve this is with less regulation on retail space allocation, corporate image and training requirements.
I encourage newsagents to try online as I have, go and eyeball your toughest competitor.
Already had Mark,
Even checking tickets is east, scan the ticket barcode (with your smartphone) and it will give you the winning numbers and how many of those numbers you got. So easy. Plus you can setup a set & forget. Your numbers or favorites can be put on automatically every week and any winnings transferred to your nominated bank account.
You’re right about those facilities too Leon. Tatts has come a long way online and on mobile.
However we still have to pay out prizes that could be automatically paid to peoples account too when they swipe their card and find they have a prize. Lotto chooses to use our cash flow to pay prizes but allows the automatic payment on these apps? This week we had a few payment around $1000 and it would have been much more convenient to have this deposited directly to the account by Lotto. I apparently can pay prizes via Eftpos but why is this necessary.
Plus you can customise the number of games you wish to purchase and not have to be forced to sell 6/12/14/18/36/50 games.
Robert you are right. It’s a different experience. Must be working for Tatts.