Essential services in semi-rural 3-bay SS

[mjwalsh]

With only a small 3 bays car wash in Middle America I wouldn’t worry about an ATM machine. I’d put in the Crytopay credit card system, 3 bays should only run around $1400 if you’ve already have Dixmor LED-7 timers. The Dixmor LED-7 timers v7.36 work the best with the Crytopay credit card system

Randy,

We are transitioning into & actually using a GinSan Board which has a provision for credit card. We are also transitioning into & using the newer Dixmor LED-7s. I wonder if I have to spend anything more beside a card swipe. Any experience along that line? Maybe GinSan's Dan Kamsickas is still glancing at our posts & can possibly share.

This might be one of my dumbest statements ... but CC for some of us smacks of choosing to get an inkjet printer for free ... but paying through the nose later on for the ink costs. This last weekend, people wanted to do one thing at our car wash & that is to get the salt off during a break in the weather. CC would have given us zero additional revenue in my opinion & I would be staring at some significant gross receipt costs ... I won't call that cost a tax but bottom line it is an expense that needs to be factored in.

As far as seeing people stop at our facility who otherwise would not have stopped because of our ATM & the significant increased revenue flow because of that fact alone ... 4 years ago I would have had the same cynicism that many of you now have. Fellow laundromat owners convinced me different & I am definitely glad 23 months later that I paid attention.

mike

 

[Dan kamsickas]

Randy,

We are transitioning into & actually using a GinSan Board which has a provision for credit card. We are also transitioning into & using the newer Dixmor LED-7s. I wonder if I have to spend anything more beside a card swipe. Any experience along that line? Maybe GinSan's Dan Kamsickas is still glancing at our posts & can possibly share.

mike

Mike, the board you are using (GS612) has no build in credit card features. It is just a switching board for push button controls. To add cc you would have to have a reader and whatever controls your chosen credit card system requires.

 

[mjwalsh]

Mike, the board you are using (GS612) has no build in credit card features. It is just a switching board for push button controls. To add cc you would have to have a reader and whatever controls your chosen credit card system requires.

Thanks Dan for the unbelievably quick response,

What threw me was the specific wiring connection on the specific wiring diagram for the GS612 leading to a credit card reader. I was thinking that with the Dixmor credit card enabled timer that I was all set ... other than a compatible card reader that I could put on my separate bill acceptor box like Earl Weiss did with the Cryptopay. Obviously, wishful thinking on my part. It clearly would need to be an ethernet connection, wifi chip or near field chip receiver somewhere. The following article link kind of spooks me a bit more about too much dependency on CyberSpace. Me being a natural born "scared de cat" thinks the journalist-author's points are something to consider.

http://bismarcktribune.com/news/col...cle_303fce1a-7792-11e2-9807-001a4bcf887a.html

BTW, we are glad we bought the special crimper for the JST terminal pins to make sure the connections were done properly & in a confident manner.

mike

 

[Earl Weiss]

FWIW, I use first Data to run CC at my EE and SS bays.

I can't break out costs seperately without a lot of work and don't think cost would vary much from the SS to the EE. The CC charges (Not counting cost of internet whcih the EE shares as well) the CC Charges have been rubnning just under 5%. I don't view that as excessive.

However, my CC revenue runs about 10% of my total bay revenue, but to be fare I only have the 4 busiest bays with CC. It's only been a few months and tghere is a slight upward trend.

 

[mjwalsh]

FWIW, I use first Data to run CC at my EE and SS bays.

I can't break out costs seperately without a lot of work and don't think cost would vary much from the SS to the EE. The CC charges (Not counting cost of internet whcih the EE shares as well) the CC Charges have been rubnning just under 5%. I don't view that as excessive.

However, my CC revenue runs about 10% of my total bay revenue, but to be fare I only have the 4 busiest bays with CC. It's only been a few months and tghere is a slight upward trend.

Earl,

i am confused ... it seems like your SS transaction would have a higher cost than the EE because it is a lower revenue per transaction than the EE? Also i am thinking that the customers who put in a convenient $5 bill tend to spend more than if they were feeding in $1 bills ... & possibly more than the credit card extra amount ... in the self service bay. We had a busy weekend because of the break in the weather. Zero trouble with the coin mechs ... twice the bill acceptors ... the same as yours because i followed your suggestion way back when ... jambed a bill needing the quick unjam in 2 separate bays out our six ... from one of us intervening.

Also i am concerned about the complexities to be able to shop for the most reasonable overall credit card rate without being too dependent on the OEM of whatever added interface that Dan or Randy will hopefully describe as the next step in my case between the CC reader or near field receiver & the Dixmor. i just received my PayPal 2.7% flat rate cell phone reader for the B2B customers who like my $3 & $7 paper tokens but who do not want to pay with a company check.

mike

 

[Earl Weiss]

Earl,

i am confused ... it seems like your SS transaction would have a higher cost than the EE because it is a lower revenue per transaction than the EE?
mike

Point taken but my EE $3.50-$3.75 base and although the SS is a base of $2.00 I would think the SS average CC Purchase would be higher than the $2.00 base.

The EE average is not a lot higher than the $3.50 -$3.75 base.

So lets just say the swipe fee is .10. (The overall transaction percent does not change.

If the average SS ticket is $3.00 that part of the charge is 3.3333%. If the average EE ticket is $5.00 it's 2% or a difference of 1.3333%.

The 1.3333% difference is not enough to get excited about either way, especialy since I view it in light of what I pay for retail gasoline sales at another location as a measure of the profit margin.

So, if my overall CC charges are under 5% maybe the SS charges are closer to 6% and EE closer to 4%.