CC only Vending?

[Ulookn2]

I'm trying to decided whether or not to go with Credit Card only vending machines. This would eliminate me buying a Change machine. Has anyone done this? Thoughts?

 

[I.B. Washincars]

Vending income is like picking $h!t with the chickens. I can't imagine giving that piddly amount of income to the CC companies. How do you plan to operate without a change machine?

 

[aloha]

It depends. I suggest you use your current sales data and customer site observations to help you make the decision. What percent of your total volume is credit cards versus cash? 30%, 60%, 90% ? This will be a huge driver of your decision. The higher the percent of credit card sales to total volume, the more likely it is you will see less of an impact.

We are a high volume, 24 hour, (largely) unattended site. We are 94% credit cards. Our observations suggest the much of the 6% cash users do so, based on choice rather than necessity. When we approach a customer having difficulty feeding cash into the "car wash pay station", they almost always say, "Oh no problem, I'll just use my card".

We have gone credit card only on all vacuums, floor mat cleaners and vending. Sales continue to grow and although credit card fees are up slightly, we have zero internal/external theft and vandalism. Also, we have eliminated the time consuming cash management process.

Within (2) month, we will have installed (4) new pay stations. This will be the final transition to an all cashless environment.

Good luck!

 

[MEP001]

Vending income is like picking $h!t with the chickens. I can't imagine giving that piddly amount of income to the CC companies. How do you plan to operate without a change machine?

It would most likely be less money paid to CC companies than spent on damage caused by a break-in. I assume he's all CC now, if I thought I could operate a wash that way I'd go cashless on vending too.

 

[MidAtlanticCarwasher]

I can't imagine giving that piddly amount of income to the CC companies. ?

Post deleted...again.

 

[MEP001]

He also gave us the ability to say such things on a public forum, but that doesn't mean you should.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

He also gave us the ability to say such things on a public forum, but that doesn't mean you should.

I deleted it yesterday as well. Hopefully it will stay deleted this time.

 

[MEP001]

Hopefully it will stay deleted this time.

I see that it didn't.

 

[OurTown]

Third time's a charm?

 

[I.B. Washincars]

Third time's a charm?

Well, he got himself deleted, so we'll see.

 

[MEP001]

Well, he got himself deleted, so we'll see.

So now you get to ban his IP address?

 

[MEP001]

Per the forum rules:

You agree to not use the Service to submit or link to any Content which is defamatory, abusive, hateful, threatening, spam or spam-like, likely to offend, contains adult or objectionable content, contains personal information of others, risks copyright infringement, encourages unlawful activity, or otherwise violates any laws. You are entirely responsible for the content of, and any harm resulting from, that Content or your conduct.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

BenSavich and MidAtlanticCarwasher, your crimes are your business. Leave the rest of us out of them.

 

[Zoomwash]

I'm trying to decided whether or not to go with Credit Card only vending machines. This would eliminate me buying a Change machine. Has anyone done this? Thoughts?

you need to move away from Coin and Cash altogether. 91% of your customers have a debit card, and 84% have a credit card. If you are not set up or setting yourself up for Tap and chip and pin, you are basically telling your customers to go somewhere else where easier payment methods are accepted.

 

[Zoomwash]

It depends. I suggest you use your current sales data and customer site observations to help you make the decision. What percent of your total volume is credit cards versus cash? 30%, 60%, 90% ? This will be a huge driver of your decision. The higher the percent of credit card sales to total volume, the more likely it is you will see less of an impact.

We are a high volume, 24 hour, (largely) unattended site. We are 94% credit cards. Our observations suggest the much of the 6% cash users do so, based on choice rather than necessity. When we approach a customer having difficulty feeding cash into the "car wash pay station", they almost always say, "Oh no problem, I'll just use my card".

We have gone credit card only on all vacuums, floor mat cleaners and vending. Sales continue to grow and although credit card fees are up slightly, we have zero internal/external theft and vandalism. Also, we have eliminated the time consuming cash management process.

Within (2) month, we will have installed (4) new pay stations. This will be the final transition to an all cashless environment.

Good luck!

You are a person seeing the reality of the future. Good for you!

 

[MEP001]

you need to move away from Coin and Cash altogether. 91% of your customers have a debit card, and 84% have a credit card.

That number might be a national average, but it varies in different demographics. It's probably closer to 20% with debit cards and even lower with credit cards in my wash's area.

 

[Zoomwash]

It that really your reality, or is that what you perceive because you've potentially tailored your customer base to be used to paying in cash because that is all you accept. You have to be careful not to overlay your perception as being the reaility of your consumer base. I constantly hear carwash owners tell me that their customers are "older", or "rural"... Yet when the numbers come in, cash goes radically down when credit/debit is implemented. Your customer base isn't boomers anymore, it's millenials, and they don't carry cash, so you need to balance by perhaps keeping your coin-mech for the $4.00 wash guy, while providing count-up tap debit/credit which gives you credit/debit/NFC wallet/Applepay/Googlepay, and depending on the equipment provider, in-house fleet, giftcard, and national fleet. Lets see, 9 ways to pay vs 1 way to pay. Which do you think is more attractive to your customer base?

 

[OurTown]

We are at about 32% cash on our auto and about 62% cash in our self serve bays. There's no way that we are going all credit card anytime soon. Can you tell me all the stores that do not accept cash? I see lots of melinials that use cash at our wash when there is a choice of using a card.

 

[Zoomwash]

It's like Noah's arc... Build it and they come I'm not saying divorce yourself of cash. What I'm saying is introduce credit/debit and when you see your cash numbers drop below 10% that's when you kill it. Typically when we install Tap Debit/Credit, we see a dramatic drop in cash, but that doesn't mean you should throw the baby out with the bathwater. Keeping your coin mechs is no impediment to implementing debit/credit, in fact all your doing is enhancing your product offerring. The last site we did was TrueNorth, which is in Canada and I see you're in Texas. They run a 10 bay wand wash with one 120 foot truck wash bay, three 90' bays, and two automatic's. No cash. They gross approx. $4 million a year. That said, there is no EMV compliance in the US... Yet. I'd expect it to be another 4 years before there will be, but it is coming, and while most sites might be using 3 track swipe today in the US, that is part and parcel of the liablity shift that the US will have to implement, which is already done in Canada. What that means is if you are going to invest in credit/debit, don't waste your money on three track magstripe, invest in EMV chip and pin as that is the standard world-wide everywhere but the US... Sort of like metric vs imperial. Regardless, chip and pin is already permeating the US, and very soon it will be the standard as it's more secure than mag-stripe, as NFC phone payment is more secure than chip and pin. It is available in the US, and is the smarter long term buy from an ROI standard than mag-stripe, which is 40 year old technology now.

 

[OurTown]

Who do you work for?