Tiny pop-up stores are a huge business at events like the Super Bowl, as retailers look to capitalize on the crowds to boost sales and increase exposure. But a pop-up store near a stadium or downtown hotel doesn’t always have access to a wired internet connection. LTE is often the most reliable way for these temporary stores to connect to broadband in order to process point-of-sale transactions.
Maingate, a 53-year-old marketing firm that creates pop-up stores to sell team-related merchandise, relies on LTE connectivity to run its business at events like the Super Bowl. The company uses Cradlepoint LTE routers designed to support multiple carriers as well as Wi-Fi connectivity.
Maingate uses LTE for credit card transactions and a virtual private network to enable its staff to access the corporate network. Before purchasing the LTE routers, the company often had to provision a wired internet connection before setting up shop in a new location.
LTE connectivity made the Super Bowl much easier for Maingate this yea. The company typically establishes pop-up stores at major hotels in the host city. In the past that meant negotiating with IT staffs at several different hotels to figure out how to get the small stores connected to the internet. This year, the pop-ups were self-sufficient thanks to their LTE connections. Maingate said this saved time and money, and provided peace of mind. In the past, if a hotel’s network was not prepared for the Super Bowl crowds, it might go down, taking the Maingate pop-up with it.
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“During an event, we only have a window of days and/or hours to sell our event-specific merchandise,” said Dan O’Reilly, IT support supervisor at MainGate. “If we have any service interruption, it could be devastating for our business.”
For Maingate another advantage of the LTE routers is SIM-based auto-carrier selection. This makes it easier for the people who man the pop-up stores to get the network up and running so they can focus on sales.
“We don’t have to pull out the SIM card and change it,” said O’Reilly. “All our team has to do is plug it in and turn the power on.”