3 Ways Councils are Generating Revenue with Ecommerce
Last year,
Lincolnshire County Council invoiced nearly £1.2 million by channel shifting a
proportion of their public sector services online.
Their simple,streamlined online ecommerce system encourages citizens and customers to view and buy
online, while showing all possible services and products side by side engages
the ‘impulse buy’ factor.
1. School Transport
UK councils
administer school transport for the children living in their districts. Bus
passes are assigned to certain children, depending on how far they live from
their school.
Sometimes
individual schools organise bus passes for their pupils. Sometimes parents have
to apply individually.
Either way,
it can represent a frustrating process for school administrators or for
parents, and a non-essential phone call for council staff to deal with.
Buckinghamshire
County Council channel shifted their school transport bookings to the online
portal. In the first year, over 2000 online transactions were completed, with
payment of £300,000 taken online.
These 2000
transactions would have meant at least 2000 phone calls.
As collecting payment is much
more difficult on the phone, payment may never have been collected for some of
these bus passes.
Expenses per
transaction would have been higher, revenue would have been lower, and staff
would have been tied up with avoidable contact.
2. Schools Traded Services
Schools buy
and pay for a variety of council services. IT services, library services, HR
and legal resources, school dinners, exercise books, sports coaching, ground
maintenance, training courses – all need to be sourced, selected, and paid for.
For these
traded services, the customer is the school itself.
A local
council can supply all of these services through ecommerce, with costs,
information, ratings, and terms and conditions, plus a convenient shopping
basket and simple online payment process.
With services delivered conveniently online on a self-service platform, schools are
more likely to select a full package of council-delivered services, instead of
picking and choosing from a variety of public and private sector services.
By promoting schools traded services
online on an efficient ecommerce platform, Buckinghamshire County Council handled
2200 transactions totalling £115,000 in 4 months.
Lincolnshire
County Council dealt with 1500 schools traded services in a year, invoicing over
£121,000.
All available
services are easy to see online. Schools can view the options, make assessments
on budget, and properly “shop” for their services to find packages that suit
them.
Councils can
apply costing models, respond to online requests for quotation, apply
discounts, manage repeat orders, handle multiple bookings, and deal with orders from multiple authorised users from a single school – conveniently and efficiently, with many processes automated.
3. Community History Books and Resources, and County Genealogical Records
Most county
councils hold libraries of historical resources and archive services.
Often, the
cost for buying or downloading these resources is minimal. The cost of charging
for these items can be higher than the value charged, making enforcing payments
uneconomical.
Lincolnshire
County Council market their library of books, images and archive records on a
dedicated ecommerce website – www.lincstothepast.com.
All resources are visible and available to buy and pay for online.
By promoting
these resources on a great customer-friendly platform, Lincolnshire Council
raised over £372,000 (year to date).
Previously, most were commercially
invisible, due to the cost of contact and transactions.
By providing great
customer service through online self-delivery, Lincolnshire and Buckinghamshire
County Councils have generated revenue through regular public sector services
which are traditionally difficult and time consuming to charge for.
Convenience
retail stores increase profits by encouraging impulse buys.
A central ecommerce
platform enables public sector organisations to do the same.
"ZIPI enables us to provide an alternative quick and easy way for customers to acquire goods and services as well as reducing manual administration for staff."Jacki Dann, ICT & Service Transformation, Buckinghamshire County Council.
How can ZIPPORAH help?
ZIPPORAH’s
ecommerce engine ZIPI manages the catalogue, selection, shopping basket,
invoice, payment and reporting system which drives revenue for both Buckinghamshire and
Lincolnshire County Councils.
For information
on how a ZIPPORAH ecommerce transaction platform will enable you to generate
revenue, and your citizens to choose, buy and pay for public sector services online,
please visit http://www.zipporah.co.uk,
email sales@zipporah.co.uk, or phone
02920 647048.
