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Debit/Credit card readers on vending machines


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Hello my friends and entrepeneurs,

I need your advice on this topic. One my of best locations is the airport cargo area. I have high traffic daily, due to the airport kicks 24/7. My question is do you have any machines with the debit/credit card readers?

A client told me with a reader more sales will increase due to the acceptance of credit/debit cards. I know most everyone carries a debit or credit card. The cost of most of my snacks are .50 to $1.00. Energy drinks $2.00.

If you are a vendor who uses readers, what company due you recomend. What are the pros and cons?

Thanks for your advice!

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Hello my friends and entrepeneurs,

I need your advice on this topic. One my of best locations is the airport cargo area. I have high traffic daily, due to the airport kicks 24/7. My question is do you have any machines with the debit/credit card readers?

A client told me with a reader more sales will increase due to the acceptance of credit/debit cards. I know most everyone carries a debit or credit card. The cost of most of my snacks are .50 to $1.00. Energy drinks $2.00.

If you are a vendor who uses readers, what company due you recomend. What are the pros and cons?

Thanks for your advice!

I use USA Technologies, only have them on glassfront drink machines to keep the avg transaction over $1.00 which lowers the fees a little. The good thing about them is that you can use them to get a 10-15 cent price increase to cover the fees. In my experience with them about 25-30% of the transactions are with debit/credit so you get to keep the extra margin on cash sales which more than covers the monthly maintenance fees.

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I use USA Technologies, only have them on glassfront drink machines to keep the avg transaction over $1.00 which lowers the fees a little. The good thing about them is that you can use them to get a 10-15 cent price increase to cover the fees. In my experience with them about 25-30% of the transactions are with debit/credit so you get to keep the extra margin on cash sales which more than covers the monthly maintenance fees.

So, for you, do you actually get an increase in net income or do you simply provide the technology for the convenience of the account?

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All except for one have resulted in a net increase in monthly avg.

I have a small account that does roughly $125/week most of the year but there are times when people from out of town gather. I have considered installing a CC reader as many of them don't have cash but I have been worried that they'll complain about additional fees. Do you think an account of this size would be a good idea? I'm kind of leaning toward no... but they never said they wanted a CC reader either. I was just hoping I could get a sales increase.

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I have a small account that does roughly $125/week most of the year but there are times when people from out of town gather. I have considered installing a CC reader as many of them don't have cash but I have been worried that they'll complain about additional fees. Do you think an account of this size would be a good idea? I'm kind of leaning toward no... but they never said they wanted a CC reader either. I was just hoping I could get a sales increase.

If you are splitting the revenue between a soda and a snack machine then no I don't think it would be worth it for you. You might want to look into upgrading DBV to take 5's. That can be done with minimal cost and should get you a incremental increase in sales.

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If you are splitting the revenue between a soda and a snack machine then no I don't think it would be worth it for you. You might want to look into upgrading DBV to take 5's. That can be done with minimal cost and should get you a incremental increase in sales.

Do you have the need to add coin tubes or upgrade a coin tube to 1.00 coins to handle the increased change output after making the DBA take 5's?

Mike

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Do you have the need to add coin tubes or upgrade a coin tube to 1.00 coins to handle the increased change output after making the DBA take 5's?

Mike

At first I was a little concerned as well about the mechs running dry on me but that hasn't happened. I've got about a dozen or so machines out there that will take 5's with a old fashioned 3 tube mech in them and to date none have run dry on me. However, I will also add that nearly all the time the quarter tube is at least half empty and I have to add change to fill it( sometimes dimes as well). You will need to bring change with you as the coin box will basically be nothing but nickels and dimes because the mech is keeping all the quarters to try to refill the quarter tube.

Something else I do for one location is I bought a box of coin envelopes from Office Max and fill them with 4 1's and 4 quarters and then put it in one of the selections priced at $5. So they can now "buy" change for the $5 bill. I get about twice as many $5 bills this way as I do by just accepting $5 bills and giving them a handful of change out of the mech. I guess people like the idea of getting four $1 bills instead of a pocketful of quarters.

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I use USA Technologies, only have them on glassfront drink machines to keep the avg transaction over $1.00 which lowers the fees a little. The good thing about them is that you can use them to get a 10-15 cent price increase to cover the fees. In my experience with them about 25-30% of the transactions are with debit/credit so you get to keep the extra margin on cash sales which more than covers the monthly maintenance fees.

Good info.

Sent from my Desire HD using Tapatalk

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At first I was a little concerned as well about the mechs running dry on me but that hasn't happened. I've got about a dozen or so machines out there that will take 5's with a old fashioned 3 tube mech in them and to date none have run dry on me. However, I will also add that nearly all the time the quarter tube is at least half empty and I have to add change to fill it( sometimes dimes as well). You will need to bring change with you as the coin box will basically be nothing but nickels and dimes because the mech is keeping all the quarters to try to refill the quarter tube.

Something else I do for one location is I bought a box of coin envelopes from Office Max and fill them with 4 1's and 4 quarters and then put it in one of the selections priced at $5. So they can now "buy" change for the $5 bill. I get about twice as many $5 bills this way as I do by just accepting $5 bills and giving them a handful of change out of the mech. I guess people like the idea of getting four $1 bills instead of a pocketful of quarters.

This is a good system and it works. Lots of vendors have started selling change this way with little or no problems. The readers do increase the sales and they really up the sales in certain locations like Hotels. Any location that has higher pricing will do well with a reader.

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Can someone fill me in on the details of a credit card reader?

Such as:

What are the transaction costs?

Do they have a sim card on them to make the connection to the credit card processing facility, or how does that work?

John

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I have 7 creditcard readers through USA Tech.

USA Tech charges:

5.95% per sale....or 5 cents (whichever is more)

PLUS

$8.99/month for the cellular service to connect the reader to the server.

In addition to the charges above, you will also have to purchase the reader which will run you another $300 (approx)

They do not have a SIM card. It's all done through their card reader controller and a cellular system.

Travis

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I have 7 creditcard readers through USA Tech.

USA Tech charges:

5.95% per sale....or 5 cents (whichever is more)

PLUS

$8.99/month for the cellular service to connect the reader to the server.

In addition to the charges above, you will also have to purchase the reader which will run you another $300 (approx)

They do not have a SIM card. It's all done through their card reader controller and a cellular system.

Travis

Thx

does the reader take bills, also?

Sent from my GT-P7310 using Tapatalk

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The readers are a stand alone unit. They will either mount in a bill validator slot, or you can surface mount them if you machine only have one validator slot. For example:

I have a National 167 that had two spots for validators....so the reader went in one and I left the validator in the other slot

I have a DN 5591 with only one validator slot, so I just surfaced mounted the reader above the validator....and that worked well.

You can get combo units from other locations such as Coinco I believe, but have never used them, and not sure how they are programmed, configured or serviced on the credit processing side.

Travis

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I have 7 creditcard readers through USA Tech.

USA Tech charges:

5.95% per sale....or 5 cents (whichever is more)

PLUS

$8.99/month for the cellular service to connect the reader to the server.

In addition to the charges above, you will also have to purchase the reader which will run you another $300 (approx)

They do not have a SIM card. It's all done through their card reader controller and a cellular system.

Travis

Travis,

Do you have to purchase software for your computer to be able to remotely access the machine, or does that come free with the card reader and service?

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What all information does their website give you access to? Does it just give you number of sales and total sales in dollars, or does it also allow you to monitor any sensors that the machine might be equipped with (such as temperature, etc.)?

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The website provides access to sales data such as time, amount and item that was vend. This is in DEX format and may or may not easily correspond to what you would expect. For example, selection A1 may be reported as item #31 and Selection may be reported as #11.

This information is generally available once a day. For example, by 7 am (Pacific time)....I have full reporting for the previous days sales.

There is also an option for full DEX reporting that would include equipment status. I believe that is available up to 4 times a day...so it's not "Exactly" real time....and that is an additional fee for this information.

Finally, I have attached a pdf as an example of the type of data that you get from a USATech account.

1st screen shot is the welcome page

2nd screen shot is the report range selection page

3rd screen shot is the actual sales report.

Hope this helps

Travis

USATech.pdf

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  • 3 weeks later...

I use USA Technologies, only have them on glassfront drink machines to keep the avg transaction over $1.00 which lowers the fees a little. The good thing about them is that you can use them to get a 10-15 cent price increase to cover the fees. In my experience with them about 25-30% of the transactions are with debit/credit so you get to keep the extra margin on cash sales which more than covers the monthly maintenance fees.

I am looking at Debit/Credit Card option along with Remote Monitoring & I thought I read in an old post that you were using InOne Technology in your machines. Just wanting to know if you are still using InOne or have you switched to USA Technologies?

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