Dispensing dollar coins instead of quarters

[chaz]

At this point, we heard the political side of dollar coins, wanting thoughts on dispensing them at my wash.........


My auto, s/s, and 3 of 8 vacs currently accept bills, quarters, dollar coins, and c/c (oops.... c/c not on vacs) My other vacs and vendor take bills and quarters. My changer takes 1,5,10 and 20's and dispenses quarters. Vac start is $1, s/s start is $3

Thoughts on switching changer to dispense dollar coins. I would still allow quarters on all equipment. What concerns if I do not add Multi coin to the other 5 vacs. My thoughts on the change to dollar coins, less filling the hopper for non customers needing laundry change and easier to insert 3 coins not 12 for s/s. Also I guess folks might add an extra dollar instead of a quarter or two for more s/s time

Thanks

 

[I.B. Washincars]

I have been dispensing them for 13 years and have never regretted it. Everything but the glassfront vending is priced at "round dollar" increments. I would cough up for multi-coins acceptors in those other vacs if it were me. I have yet to see any "cons" from the customer side, only "pros". You are correct that it's much easier to plunk in 3 coins compared to 12 and it happens often that many more than that (10 or more) are dropped in at one time. How often does someone insert 20, 30, or more quarters at once? Answer, never.

The hassle is having to deal with buying them, sorting out the Susan Bs (not many), and sorting them from the other coins. If you are willing to do that, go for it.

 

[chaz]

Thanks, I have a cummins coin counter/sorter so separating is no big deal. At this point by auto cashier dispenses dollar coins for change, my bank orders them as needed. They do come mixed gold and silver in same wrapper most of the time. Are you only dispensing the gold coins? Not sure if I can request gold only, though that would be nice, not sure I would need to seperate gold from silver, except maybe during the learning curve?

 

[mjwalsh]

Thanks, I have a cummins coin counter/sorter so separating is no big deal. At this point by auto cashier dispenses dollar coins for change, my bank orders them as needed. They do come mixed gold and silver in same wrapper most of the time. Are you only dispensing the gold coins? Not sure if I can request gold only, though that would be nice, not sure I would need to seperate gold from silver, except maybe during the learning curve?

Chaz,

Like me, both you guys accept cc cards, dollar coins, & paper money The key difference between us & some others is that we would also like to include dollar coins. I personally believe that this is the better agenda.

So that makes at least 3 of us with a Cummins sorter/counter. Kevin Reilly's family operation also has one. Ours is the 2000 Series with the serial port connection that makes it so we can automatically bring over what ever subtotals error free. That way we can keep running, subtotals, & final totals of the various groups of equipment in a simple straightforward relational database without the danger of typos etc. 100% accurate reports can be easily tailored weekly, monthly, quarterly ... annually ... whatever is the best fit.

We separate the gold colored from the Susan Bs so we do not give a tiny minority of customers the excuse that they confused them with quarters. We have needed to go through them anyway because of the slugs, foreign coins etc. since they discontinued the President Coins. You can still get them unmixed ... it is something to the tune of about $112 for $100 direct from the U.S. Mint. You would also be at their mercy for a variety of shipping charges. There are some imbeciles who think slugs, & foreign coins & the significant upcharges are a good idea which does not reflect a properly informed majority. It certainly does not reflect the technology easily & affordably available for the screening process. We were told by the banks themselves starting back in the 1970s that anytime there is a wrapping process for whatever coins it is more costly & for us to stop that silly practice on our end ... so why they wrap them ... Lord only knows.

Like I.B. Washin (AKA PAT H. and family) alluded to before in a previous post ... if certain high mucky mucks were acting in good faith they would ramp up the $2 bill so our more water resistant $1 coin would finally become as common & popular as quarters & from our first hand experience even more popular than quarters &/or $1 dollar paper! No politics ... just the facts ... for even more complete facts ... see one of my 10 youtube videos which have been viewed as of today 3,684 times.

mike walsh king koin north Dakota (arctic cold front is passing thru brrr!)

 

[I.B. Washincars]

Thanks, I have a cummins coin counter/sorter so separating is no big deal. At this point by auto cashier dispenses dollar coins for change, my bank orders them as needed. They do come mixed gold and silver in same wrapper most of the time. Are you only dispensing the gold coins? Not sure if I can request gold only, though that would be nice, not sure I would need to seperate gold from silver, except maybe during the learning curve?

Back when I started dispensing them, my SS bay price was $1.50. Dispensing only the gold dollars didn't work as well as I had anticipated. Many people wanted some quarters or expected the bay meter to give them some change. Shortly thereafter, I converted my Hamilton DRS changers to dispense 4 quarters regardless of what bill was inserted. This dispelled all of the issues with the people that only wanted a $1.50 cycle. I have since gone to $2, but have never seemed to get around to switching the machine to give all dollars, or more likely, give a $1 token instead of the 4 quarters. I'm gonna do that some day.

I also dispense $1 tokens from another changer, right beside the dollar/quarter one. For those that say to dispense $1 tokens instead of dollar coins, it's no contest, dollar coins are preferred many times over.

Regarding Susan Bs - If it's only a few I just send them back to the bank in the deposits. Years ago, we got tons of them and were forced to use them. I made sure that any SBAs went in the Auto-Cashiers. That way, they were not mixed with quarters, the customer had a few minutes while washing to figure out they were dollars, and usually they left the property instead of being used at the wash.

 

[MudMoney]

My ss bays are $ 3. startup ,I went to dollar coins last year and never regretted .One changer has quarters and the other is dollar coins,my vacs and vending also accepts dollars,I've labeled the changers as such too.I've just up graded to Idx ma800-12 to accept the newer canadian $1 and $ 2 coin due to their mint changing the metal content as of 2012.BTW canada is thinking about switching their $5 paper to $ 5 coin and phase out paper.What I have noticed about the dollar coin in hoppers is more trips to the bank to get a new supply as my customers love them.I see a larger percentage of $ coins in bays as customers deposit a dollar instead of a quarter for more time and 3 dollar coins goes in faster than 12 quarters.Yes the only draw back is sorting out SBA's from the bank,I dont get charged for shipping on dollar coins either. In closing I don't worship at the altar of credit card in ss bays as this is an attended wash I might get one inquiry a week about CC and I direct them to an ATM.

 

[chaz]

Thanks. Dollar wheel for my changer and additional slugbuster III's to be ordered to convert my vacs and vending. My only small reservation, is I have just one changer, therefore I will not dispense any quarters beyond those offered as change from my vendor. I assume a bit of learning curve, but mostly from my changer only "customers" on the way to do laundry.

 

[Randy]

Chav, Before ordering a Dollar coin wheel you want to make sure you have the correct controller in your bill changer so you can dispense Dollar Coins. I have a customer in Arizona who wanted to dispense Dollar coins from his Hamilton Bill changer only to find out he also needed to replace his older v5.3 controller. You need to use a C-2000 controller.

 

[cantbreak80]

My experience echos I.B.’s pretty closely.

I no longer fret about SBAs mixed in with the golden coins. After 13 years of $1 coins only, I guess the customers get it. Interestingly, quarters brought to the car wash still account for over 22% of my cash sales.

I’ve put almost 90K $1 coins into general circulation in the past 2 years. The restaurants and retailers in my market area are quite $1 coin friendly…probably due to the combination of the Light Rail station ticket machines and my car wash?

 

[jimbeaux]

I've dispensed dollar coins ever since the golden dollar came out. The only complaint I've received came from the laundrymat people that needs quarters to wash their clothes. It sure is nice to hear my big timers beeping four times as they insert five or more dollar coins to start their wash. I can't imagine they would stuff that many quarters into the coin acceptor!
Can anyone explain the logic of not installing/maintaining change machines in the laundmat for their customers???

 

[Earl Weiss]

Can anyone explain the logic of not installing/maintaining change machines in the laundmat for their customers???

I think they should just go to Dollar coin pricing. Much simpler and cheaper. You are providing the chang emachines.

 

[MEP001]

Can anyone explain the logic of not installing/maintaining change machines in the laundmat for their customers???

The good ones do provide changers. The crummy ones are too worried about theft/vandalism or crooked employees. There's a small apartment complex near us that has several laundry rooms with coin-op washers and dryers, and of course no changers. They abuse our changer when they want to do laundry at night.