UK publication employing homeless vendors taps QR code payments to increase sales

The Big Issue, a 30-year-old U.K.-based publication that employs homeless street vendors, is incorporating QR code payments to increase sales. The QR code offering is the result of a product upgrade from PayPal-owned iZettle (recently rebranded as Zettle by PayPal), which offers mobile card readers for The Big Issue vendors.

Why should we care?
Amid a surge in contactless transactions during the Covid-19 pandemic, homeless people may be feeling a pinch from a consumer base reluctant to use cash. The Big Issue, which works with homeless vendors who are independent contractors, has been offering contactless card payments through Zettle since 2019. Through a product upgrade, vendors using Zettle card readers can accept PayPal QR Code payments. The publication claims that vendors who use contactless payments are seeing a 30% increase in sales. QR codes have long been touted as a solution to enable easier payments to homeless people: In China, reports of panhandlers using QR code payments for donations emerged as early as 2017. The Big Issue sellers generate revenue from a cut of the proceeds from the sales of magazines, but there are overhead costs. The publication says vendors buy the magazines for £1.50 each ($2.12) and sell them to their customers for £3 ($4.24). The card readers cost £9 ($12.72) and there are transaction fees, but PayPal says they are "significantly lower" than its standard rate of 1.75%. More than a third of Big Issue vendors now use contactless technology to sell the magazine, according to the publication. Meanwhile, during the pandemic, the number of vendors with smartphones grew from 515 to 1,150. “The pandemic has only accelerated the need for vendors to accept cashless payments and we began a lot of this work with some vendors whilst still in lockdown,” Beth Thomas, The Big Issue head of partnerships and programs, says. “This included helping vendors to obtain identification (which was extremely tricky at times) as well as access a bank account.” Despite the appeal of new payment methods, selling magazines to passersby is still a tough way to make ends meet. Two years ago, a Birmingham, U.K.-based The Big Issue seller claimed only to have been able to sell five magazines per day, leaving him with £6.25 ($8.84) profit for nearly an entire day’s work.