Case Studies

Sainsbury’s | Park, Shop & Pay solution - Horizon Parking

Overview

Working in partnership with APT Controls Group, Horizon Parking delivered a state of the art Veri-park ANPR car park management solution for the Sainsbury’s store in Kingston-Upon-Thames, which also services the adjacent Virgin Active Health Club.

Problem

Responses to a customer survey overwhelmingly showed that the existing Pay & Display system was unpopular and that customers wanted a simpler, more user-friendly system that simplified the payment process.

Solution

We subsequently choose a Veri-park Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR), parking system because it removes the need for customers to carry the correct coinage for the machines and their return to the vehicle to display their ticket.
There’s no charge for stays of under 60 minutes – and if the customer stays longer but spends more than £10 they can validate the discount voucher given out at the check-out for 2 hours free parking. Even if they forget to pay or validate the voucher they can do so online up to 24 hours after leaving! This combination of Veri-park system with a validation function is the first of its kind in a supermarket environment – and shoppers have recognised the benefits.

Results and benefits

This innovative solution coupled with our on-site team of customer service assistants has made parking much simpler for Sainsbury’s shoppers – the vast majority of whom (twice as many), when offered the choice, would stick with the new system rather than revert to Pay & Display.

A spokesperson for Sainsbury’s said:

“Being near Kingston town centre and servicing a large supermarket and gym means that the 406-space car park is a very busy one. We wanted to simplify the parking operation for both customers of Sainsbury’s and Virgin Active gym by removing the requirement for customers to carry coins for their parking and be restricted by the time on their pre-paid ticket. We also wanted to speed up the parking operation by removing the requirement for customers to return to their vehicle to display a ticket and it’s great to see that the park, shop and pay solution has achieved just that!”