Educate me on tokens

[Tpoppa]

I am probably switching to tokens later this year and have a few questions:

How concerned do I need to be with nearby competitor tokens?
Should I accept tokens and quarters?
Does anyone use $.50 tokens for pricing flexibility?
Is there a formula you use to determine how many tokens you need?
Did your business change (good or bad) after switching to tokens?
What am I forgetting?

Thanks.

 

[Waxman]

make tokens = $1

order 1000 to start

i use 1 1/8" size

accept quarters and tokens ( you make more $$, trust me ).

 

[washme1]

I include 1-$1.00 token with each $5 worth of change from my bill changer. So if someone changes a $20, they receive 4 $1 tokens and $16 in qtrs.
It will put a quick end to the people who are "banking" at your car wash on laundry day. Post a sign stating, "this changer dispenses quarters AND tokens".

I've had good success with tokens from Osborne Coinage. Formerly known as Van Brook Tokens. They will not sell the same token to anyone within 100 miles of you. They offer tokens with different levels of security. The tokens I use cost about .27 each. I've never had a foreign token make it through one of my acceptors. Mine are brass colored so they're easy to identify from quarters.

They referred me to a company who makes a stainless steel sieve (shaker) with a bunch of holes drilled in it so the tokens fall through leaving the quarters. I had a friend build me a box that serves as a base to catch the tokens. I weigh them on a coin scale.

 

[borumrm]

I include 1-$1.00 token with each $5 worth of change from my bill changer. So if someone changes a $20, they receive 4 $1 tokens and $16 in qtrs.
It will put a quick end to the people who are "banking" at your car wash on laundry day. Post a sign stating, "this changer dispenses quarters AND tokens".

I've had good success with tokens from Osborne Coinage. Formerly known as Van Brook Tokens. They will not sell the same token to anyone within 100 miles of you. They offer tokens with different levels of security. The tokens I use cost about .27 each. I've never had a foreign token make it through one of my acceptors. Mine are brass colored so they're easy to identify from quarters.

They referred me to a company who makes a stainless steel sieve (shaker) with a bunch of holes drilled in it so the tokens fall through leaving the quarters. I had a friend build me a box that serves as a base to catch the tokens. I weigh them on a coin scale.

We have used tokens for years...started with a non secure alloy token at first but soon found that we were getting tons of tokens from the batting cage next door, the chuck e cheese down the road etc. Their tokens were .25 each while ours were sold for $1. We finally had to order a secur alloy token due to the problem..they were expensive but it stopped that problem. We tried to get the batting cage guy to buy them back from us for $0.50 each ... he refused so we said fine...we donate them to the local little league and take a write off ... You can buy the separator shaker boxes to separate the quarters from the larger tokens but I made my own just using a forstner bit that was slightly larger than a quarter. You have to continue to accept quarters just because some customers will bring those with them.

 

[Randy]

We started out with an 85/15 .984 token back in 1985 valued at $1.00. After a year or we were getting tokens from every Arcade and other car washes that were valuing there tokens at.25. We switched over to a pure copper 1.125 nickel plated token. We very seldom get any other tokens. We lose about 8500 tokens a year, kind of a nice profit.

Here are some of the things we’ve learned in the past 28 years

Value your tokens at a Dollar

Don’t give away extra tokens for a $5 or a $10 or a $20. The customers don’t seem to care.

Go with a security token from the start, changing tokens after you already have tokens on the street are a nightmare.

Continue accepting Quarters, you’ll be surprised at the number of Quarters you’ll still get.

Make sure all of your equipment can accept the token that you want to accept.

Don’t be fooled that by going to Tokens is going stop any break-in attempt’s, we still get coin box and Changer break-ins.

Call Dottie at Van Brooke and get samples of tokens. She’s great to work with. Once you determine which Token you want to test. Ask her to send you 40 or 50 tokens that you can set up in your coin box to test. Go to all the car washes and arcades in the area and get there tokens to test against the token you’ve selected.

 

[Tpoppa]

Randy,
What do I need to change in my Hamilton hopper to accept tokens? A new wheel? Whole new hopper?

 

[Randy]

It all depends on which size token you go with. Most of the time all you have to do is change out the Wheel. Let me know what size token you decide to go with and I can get you headed in the right direction. You want to make sure you have a C-2000 controller in your changer, if you have the older v5.3 controller with the red circuit breaker you might have to replace the controller

 

[MEP001]

I am probably switching to tokens later this year

For what reason? To prevent theft, to offer bonus payout, to cut down on coin handling?

 

[Kevin Reilly]

We sell $1.00 tokens out of our changer 1 1/8 size 85/15 metal. We accept quarters, dollars & tokens. with 5 locations on the last empty out we received 25 Sacaguea (sp) dollar coins and the bays ran about 75% tokens to quarters. Didn't do the vacs.

For 5 locations we have 16 changers (all Hamilton's with Mars Validators). Sunday morning they broke into a front load changer with no damage (for those of you who know what I'm talking about) and they stole the hopper and he was kind enough to unplug it so he knew what he was doing, but he probably didn't read our sign that sez "Tokens" on the front of it.

We have a video and the Sheriff sez he'll have him before the week-end. In the meantime we're plastering this guy's pic in all the washes around town and that will quiet things down.

My son uses the same token and I'm sure he's got as many of mine as I do of his so it doesn't bother either of us, we just recycle them back to the changers!

We worked with GinSan when they brought out the Multi-tron, and also had the MA-800 and finallized with Slugbuster III and they have been the easiest and most trouble free acceptors we have ever used. Unless someone sticks a screwdriver in the slot!

Good luck on your tokens. I would suggest you use the dollar token. You will have to work in dollar increments with your timers but you adjust the increase/decrease with the amount of time it will buy.

Randy, I've got a bunch of wheels for the larger token and the quarter token.

 

[MudMoney]

I have used tokens since 1992,I don't vend them at all.Direct sales to commercial accounts has been my marketing strategy and my tokens are priced at $ 3.00 each which is my start up price,vacuums accept them too.I sell in lots of 25 wrapped in $ coin wrappers and give no discount.

 

[Reds]

I use Mars coupons for my bill acceptors, both SS and IBA and Vacs. I print my wash name and location on them and number each one.

 

[Earl Weiss]

Since I have coinco Bill acceptors I use their coupons. Bought a custom rubber stamp to print my Info in the appropriate spot.

Have not rec'd ny foreign coupons.

 

[mjwalsh]

I use Mars coupons for my bill acceptors, both SS and IBA and Vacs. I print my wash name and location on them and number each one.

Reds,

We use a laser printer for our Coinco Vantage Paper Tokens because we think there is less chance of smudging like with an inked rubber stamp or an inkjet printer. The name of our facility is on them ... just like the name is printed on every paper inquiry or otherwise from our ATM. I think the ability to put our name on them on both of these items has advertising value. Like you ... we also number them & set up a database so we have a better handle on the $3 & $7 that are circulating.

I checked into the Mars but it seems like they required such a large quantity to buy & possibly were more expensive than the 14 cents a piece Coinco's.

We get a large percentage of dollar coins because we make the effort to give enough of them out in our changers. When the USA deficit maker people stop getting their foolish way & Congress finally does the right thing ... dollar coin acceptors will see the majority of their coins ... not quarters but dollar coins.

mike walsh responsible & concerned youtube deficit slueth

 

[MEP001]

... just like the name is printed on every paper inquiry or otherwise from our ATM.

We get a large percentage of dollar coins because we make the effort to give enough of them out in our changers. When the USA deficit maker people stop getting their foolish way & Congress finally does the right thing ... dollar coin acceptors will see the majority of their coins ... not quarters but dollar coins.

And once again you steer a thread toward the promotion of your own agenda...

 

[Earl Weiss]

I bought a sequential number stamp for coupons but now order most already numbered. The reason was that I had an issue with counterfeit coupons. I know wat legit numbers are out there.

For those who keepm track, ... to what end?

While it's easy to track large scale initial distributions #s 1000 thr #1100 etc. it seems overly complicated when you re use tem since the #s would rarely be sequential.

 

[mjwalsh]

I bought a sequential number stamp for coupons but now order most already numbered. The reason was that I had an issue with counterfeit coupons. I know wat legit numbers are out there.

For those who keepm track, ... to what end?

While it's easy to track large scale initial distributions #s 1000 thr #1100 etc. it seems overly complicated when you re use tem since the #s would rarely be sequential.

Earl,

Does Etowah charge extra or minimum quantity for ordering the pre done numbers &/or if you have your company name & address on them too?

mike

 

[Earl Weiss]

Earl,

Does Etowah charge extra or minimum quantity for ordering the pre done numbers &/or if you have your company name & address on them too?

mike

Soory for the misunderstanding. The Coinco vantage coupons are orderd direct from Coinco. No numebering because you can't just photocopy them although I do have a sequential number stamp I could use. I use a custom rubber stamp with my info on the Coinco Coupons just to see if I got any foreign redemptions. Te custom sequential coupons I order were for when I sell washes in Bulk or make Charity donations.

 

[Reds]

Earl Weiss; "For those who keepm track, ... to what end? "

I print my wash name and town and sequential numbers on my Mars coupons. Both IBA & SS coupons. I deliver 100 coupons at a time to the state police along with a tracking sheet that has the # in the left column, a date column, and a signature column. They track that and know which ones have been redeemed - so do I. Then I bill them monthly for the redeemed coupons. SS I do the same thing with the gas and pipeline companies but each coupon is worth $5. For charity and giveaways I use a code card, which is the size of a biz card with wash name, wash package, my phone #, and a 6 digit code good for 1 wash. Occasionally I will put 5 washes on a card. The gas companies have code cards with 20 washes on them. I pull fleet reports from my WS2 and I have a tracking spreadsheet that I paste the report into and it tells me how many washes they used. Then I bill them monthly for IBA & SS washes and refresh the code cards as needed. It takes some administrative time but works out well for me and I have never had a dispute with any account holders. I do the same thing with a couple of car dealers. I also have a spreadsheet that generates random codes and tracks old codes and tells me if they have been used before so I can change the number. I recorded a macro that copies the code #'s to a code card printing sheet, flags the codes as used, and then prints the cards on business card stock. It will also print a small area map on the back of the card flagging my wash for anyone who has not been there before.