Dripdrop makes it rain with innovative umbrella rental kiosks

Introduction

Dripdrop is a Denmark-based ISV/VAR specializing in the unattended space with an innovative business model: they operate automated umbrella rental kiosks in busy public places such as hotel lobbies, train stations and shopping centers.

Dripdrop’s mission is to create a product that lasts longer, gets more use and has a smaller footprint. Their umbrellas are made from recycled plastic and are of the highest durability standard in order to last as long as possible.

When the company originally started in 2015 it was advertiser-driven, the umbrellas were free to borrow, and no technology powered the borrowing. As business grew, they wanted to move away from reliance on advertisers to scale more efficiently and bring their sustainable model to larger cities.

They were also facing a big issue with “long-term borrowers”
(i.e., people not returning the umbrellas). In Aarhus, Denmark alone the company was losing an average of 14,000 umbrellas per year.

The challenge

To better scale the business and reduce losses, Dripdrop began developing a sharing platform. Originally they powered it via an app, which required downloading then entering payment details to access an umbrella. But customers found the process too laborious when they quickly needed to rent an umbrella. Dripdrop also ran into issues integrating payments directly with hotels for renting via keycards because some hotels didn’t use a tab system.

To provide the best customer experience, Dripdrop wanted to create a new automated rental solution using “tap and grab” functionality. That way customers could tap a payment card on the kiosk to free an umbrella. The whole process would take a few seconds, and having the card attached to the rental would help ensure that the umbrellas would be returned — which customers could do at any Dripdrop kiosk.

Dripdrop needed a payment distributor that could support their vision, and signed on with a gateway processor in 2019. After working with them for nine months, they still hadn’t gone live due to numerous issues.

How NMI helped

Dripdrop turned to NMI for help in early 2020, and the new solution was operational in just three months. NMI, in partnership with Payter and Dripdrop, developed a bespoke Windows integration using their ChipDNA Direct API, Payter P60 terminals and a unique use of card tokens. The solution was completely new — due to the complex requirements from Dripdrop, nothing off the shelf would work.

The integration had to account for multiple use cases in order to provide a great experience. In standard usage, a customer would pay a rental fee when taking an umbrella, and would be charged an additional fee if they didn’t return it in 24 hours. But sometimes customers would get a free rental for 24 hours, in which case Dripdrop didn’t want to send an authorization charge to their card. Even though the fee would be voided upon return of the umbrella, it could be confusing for customers and potentially drive customer service calls to help lines or to partner hotels.

NMI solved this unique challenge by implementing a pre-authorization that stores a token and checks if the card is valid, but doesn’t authorize any amount on first use. If the umbrella is not returned, the token from the original tap is used to send a Card Not Present ecommerce transaction to authorize the card.