Strikepay, the Irish FinTech company with a revolutionary cashless tipping and payment solution, today reported a 79% increase in the average value of tips paid to hairdressers, barbers, beauticians and nail technicians using Strikepay over the past six weeks.

Announcing its latest partnership with hair and beauty group, Sugar Culture, Strikepay is now live in all Brown Sugar, Sugar Daddy and Sugar-Coated stores in Ireland, with the popular salon chain just one of the many groups within the industry enabling the roll-out of this revolutionary cashless gratuity solution.

Designed to solve the issue of tips and payments in an increasingly cashless society, Strikepay has been supporting the service industry since its re-opening, enabling customers to thank their service professionals directly by simply tapping the Strikepay tag worn by the individual or scanning their QR code using just their phone.

Service professionals from the award-winning Dylan Bradshaw studio, Cut & Sew group, Sam's Barbers Waxperts and Nails Inc., are amongst those benefiting from this contactless tipping technology, with over 1,000 service professionals joining Strikepay across Ireland over the last six weeks.

With no app or in-store payment terminal required, the tip is instantly sent through Apple Pay, Google Pay or any saved card.

Commenting on the increase in tip values in the Irish hair and beauty industry, Strikepay co-founder Oli Cavanagh said: "We are having a meaningful impact on the service industry and salon service professionals in Ireland with our data showing a positive increase in the value of tips over the last six weeks. This is significant to people in the industry.

 

"Charles Dowd and I created this technology in response to an every-day need we were experiencing ourselves. We couldn't tip people anymore, yet we wanted to. Now that we've fixed the problem, we're also getting a lot of thanks from customers who were equally embarrassed that they had no cash to tip anymore. Everyone is a winner.

 

"For businesses, cash management is a real pain, especially when handling tips but Strikepay takes that pain away while empowering employees and increasing their income and job satisfaction – boosting morale."

 

Mark O'Keefe, owner of Sugar Culture Salon Group and a member of the Irish Hairdresser Federation went on to say: "Our industry was decimated by the pandemic, but our focus now is on recovery and the welfare of our team who have spent an extended period of time out of work. We have a wonderfully loyal and generous clientele across the business, and some of the best artists in the industry on the floor delivering 5-star service to their clients day in day out, so we're delighted to support those using Strikepay as it allows them to instantly accept cashless contact-free tips from their clients directly."

Co-founded in 2020 by Irish FinTech entrepreneurs Oli Cavanagh and Charles Dowd in response to the cash free culture accelerated by the pandemic, Strikepay has previously teamed up with popular restaurant chains Camile Thai, Base Pizza, Eddie Rockets and Europe's largest taxi-hailing company Bolt to enable contactless tipping. Service professionals working across several sectors, including transportation, hospitality, retail, and non-profit have also been trialling the technology over the past six months, with the average value of tips increasing as a result of the patent-pending cashless tipping and payment solution from Strikepay.

Commenting on the potential impact the service would have on the people working in the hair and beauty industry in Ireland, Margaret O'Rourke Doherty, CEO of the Hair and Beauty Industry Confederation said: "The Covid-19 pandemic has seen a rapid transition from cash to card as the go to payment method for customers. The embracing of this new technology, alongside other technology, will now allow salons to cater to these changing trends and provide a better service to our customers. The new technology with Strikepay will further facilitate contactless payments for salons, with the added option for customer tips. While we would like to stress that there is no obligation for customers to leave a tip, tipping culture has been a longstanding feature in the industry in acknowledgement of the standard of work carried out by hair and beauty professionals''.

Headquartered in Dublin, Strikepay has revolutionised the way we tip, pay and donate to those who serve us, meet us, greet us, carry us, sing for us, bring for us, prepare, repair, and care for us. This innovative Irish owned digital payment platform is also providing services to professionals in Europe, the UK and USA with further information available at www.Strikepay.co.