Got Rid of Golden Dollars

[GreenTreeCarWash]

I rehabbed a 4-Bay self serve car wash and set up the Hamilton change machine to dispense Dollar Coins and Quarters.

For example:

$1Bill got 4 quarters
$5 Bill got 4 quarters and 4 Golden Dollars
$10 Bill got 4 quarters and 9 Golden Dollars
$20 Bill got 4 quarters and 19 Golden Dollars

I have concluded that the trouble is not worth the potential upside.
My original thought was that people would use a dollar coin rather than two quarters. This of course would result in a higher sale.

I ran out of the Golden Dollars and was facing having to re-buy and replace the hopper with new Dollar Coins.

I think people liked the uniqueness of the Dollar coins and took them home.

I have switched back to ALL Quarters and sales have not suffered.

Maybe people are thinking: Dang, look at all these quarters, I don't want to carry them, lets spend them.

 

[Whale of a Wash]

They say let's spend them with tokens also. My $1 tokens are a lot less hassle to put in for a $3 startup than 12 quarters.
Giving out 11 for a $10 bill gets us a lot of tens. I can't imagine dispensing anything tokens

 

[cdreed06]

I have the dollars as change back in my Standard auto cashier for the automatic wash. I have a couple guys that come and put their money in and hit refund just to get the dang dollar coins. (I know they are there just for that because they walk up to it and do it over and over) When they do that so many times it kinda gets my machine confused. But on the other hand when I had it with quarters for change back and someone put in a $20 for a $5 wash it was a hassle for the customer.

 

[chaz]

Disable the refund button. We have chosen this option as an extra precaution against jack potting.

We dispense ONLY dollar coins in our changer. Yes spend is up and yes I have to get additional coin each month from my bank. My equipment also takes quarters, bills and credit. I do end up with surplus quarters I take each month to the bank. But I'm also not running short on change from the customers that used to get laundry change from my wash.

 

[mjwalsh]

Disable the refund button. We have chosen this option as an extra precaution against jack potting.

We dispense ONLY dollar coins in our changer. Yes spend is up and yes I have to get additional coin each month from my bank. My equipment also takes quarters, bills and credit. I do end up with surplus quarters I take each month to the bank. But I'm also not running short on change from the customers that used to get laundry change from my wash.

Chaz,

Your approach is more customer friendly based on the feedback we get from our customers. Like what Whale said about his tokens ... they do appreciate the convenience of not having to physically put in four times the number of coins. Being able to put in a $5 or a $10 bill in our in bay bill acceptors is also a convenience appreciated by our customers. Almost every customer that I talk to ... much prefer to be handling the more waterproof dollar coins vs too much handling of the harder to work with & less durable one dollar bills. Our very close by strategically located self-owned EMV ready reliable ATM for bank & credit cards that we have in a dry area that gives out fives is a better fit for us & from our specific accounting standpoint. By having the card option at the ATM & not having credit card non EMV CC receptacles in the bays ... we are finding that almost everyone understands & do not find using cash as the "tip the scale" reason to go to our competitor's self service bays in our area who presently do accept credit cards in their self service bays & on other pieces of equipment.

GreenTreeCarWash finds it to be an irritating hassle of needing to get dollar coins from the bank rather than being able to just recycle the dollar coins like what tends to be with quarters being so much more dominant. He makes a very good point. In my opinion ... that is the result of the very bad choice of not phasing out the one dollar bill decision coming from Washington D.C. that as many of us as possible should pull together as much as possible to get corrected. Not just fellow car washer David DuGoff & myself.

mike walsh http://kingkoin.com/USA_Deficit_Reduction.html

 

[Jeff_L]

I use dollar coins for my automatics as change, but do take bills, credit and quarters. I see some dollar coins come back, but not many. I'm okay with it because customers don't end up with 10+ dollars worth of quarters.

 

[cdreed06]

If my auto cashier was capable of spitting out singles instead of dollar coins I would do that in a heartbeat. I myself would much rather carry 5 or 10 singles that the same amount of dollar coins. That many coins gets to pulling on my pants... Just having a bit of fun Mike, I know where you stand on the coins and the ATMs. And I respect your opinions and glad that all works great for you.

 

[GreenTreeCarWash]

Will customers empty their pockets of those quarters rather than leave with them?
My original thought was that the customer would put in 1 Dollar Coin rather than 2 quarters.
Now I ask myself "Would the customer rather lighten their load and empty their pockets of the quarters?" Time will tell.

 

[Stuart]

I have $1 tokens and the dollar coin in my changers. Not all $coins come back so I just get more at the back. Gotta go there to make my deposits anyway. I like the $coin that when the LCA beeps they put in a coin worth a buck unless they brought their own qtrs.
Having the dollar valued coins have not slowed down the amount of qtrs. brought in by customers though. my qtr count still far exceeds the amount of $coin/tokens together.
I would like to accept only the dollar value coins but I know if I do this I would lose car count and not to mention all the hollerin' that would be going on at me.

 

[U Wash]

I have dispensed the gold dollar coin since it was first minted. It is given as change in our automatic pay station. Plus we give 3 gold dollars and 8 quarters for a $5 bill in our change machine. A $10 bill gives 7 golds and 12 quarters. The gold dollar coins work everywhere, self serve bays, automatic, soda machine, large vending machine, vacuums.

In the self serve bays we use multitron coin acceptors and give a bonus for a dollar coin. We set the acceptor to give 5 pulses for the gold dollar. Customers love the bonus and it gives them an incentive to stick in a dollar coin when they add to the original purchase. Basically it is like a coupon that takes no work on our part. I get comments all the time that is the reason they come to our wash.

When we first started the program the pricing in our area was $1.75 per cycle. We increased our price to $2 per cycle and announced the dollar coin bonus.

I originally opened with a 50 cent token and found that cumbersome. Had to buy tokens, tokens from other businesses were being used in our wash, if change machine broke no way to operate. Of course now with multi coin acceptors customer can still use quarters, etc.

 

[mjwalsh]

I have dispensed the gold dollar coin since it was first minted. It is given as change in our automatic pay station. Plus we give 3 gold dollars and 8 quarters for a $5 bill in our change machine. A $10 bill gives 7 golds and 12 quarters. The gold dollar coins work everywhere, self serve bays, automatic, soda machine, large vending machine, vacuums.

In the self serve bays we use multitron coin acceptors and give a bonus for a dollar coin. We set the acceptor to give 5 pulses for the gold dollar. Customers love the bonus and it gives them an incentive to stick in a dollar coin when they add to the original purchase. Basically it is like a coupon that takes no work on our part. I get comments all the time that is the reason they come to our wash.

When we first started the program the pricing in our area was $1.75 per cycle. We increased our price to $2 per cycle and announced the dollar coin bonus.

I originally opened with a 50 cent token and found that cumbersome. Had to buy tokens, tokens from other businesses were being used in our wash, if change machine broke no way to operate. Of course now with multi coin acceptors customer can still use quarters, etc.

Joe,

We also do some bonus incentives to encourage dollar coin use. Our experience is consistent with yours ... customers do notice & I believe it certainly is better than places "who have 'quarters only signs' when it comes to coins" all over their facility. We also have the satisfaction of knowing that our action ... because of more "SEIGNIORAGE" for the US Treasury helps something greater than ourselves ... than just the "quarters only" mindset. By something greater ... simple arithmetic shows that it does help towards lessening the federal deficit.

mike walsh http://kingkoin.com/USA_Deficit_Reduction.html

 

[I.B. Washincars]

Federal deficit...that's why I started using them.