Cashless Options

[jacobwall]

Hello,

We have two vending machines, one currently with a Royal Vendors G III with a Mag50B and another Royal Vendors Merlin III with a BA30B. We are looking at adding the ability to do cashless as we already are selling ~$130 per week per machine and on the items we sell we can accept a ~6% loss on credit card transactions and easily recover the monthly fee while amortizing the cost of the device.

What we require:

• No more than $30 per month in total recurring fees
  
• No more than 5.9% in credit card fees
  
• Ability to print magnetic striped cards, using coupons is not feasible as we would like to track down to the individual consumer rather than a lot of coupons. How is this normally accomplished?
  

We are looking at two options at this point:

• Keep our Mag50B and BA30B in our machines and then add an an ePort EDGE or G8. We are leaning towards the G8 because it is my understanding that the EDGE does not have the ability to have stock control. Also, correct me if I am wrong but both models will be able to count the amount of cash, coins, and then obviously credit card transactions as an easier way for accounting on our side.
  
• Replace the Mag50B and BA30B with a BillPro-CRX utilizing USA Technologies
  
• Replace the Mag50B and BA30B with either a MEI Combo, but I believe the device does not out of the box offer a means of remote web access of stock and sales off hand, correct me if I am wrong.
  

In your opinion, which is our best route? The cheapest route is going with ePort, however this adds an additional distractor to the machine in my eyes whereas an all-in-one cash and card reader seems the most aesthetically pleasing. Is there a reason why most individuals go with the ePorts on this forum from what I have seen over going with MEI or CoinCo?

Thanks for all y'alls help!

[Sparta_Automation]

The eport reader is not as distracting as you would think....however. The USA Tech device does count all transactions and reports them every day, so it is fairly easy to track sales, see where you are on stock levels etc. From a cost perspective, adding the edge device and keeping your current DBV would be cheaper then replacing it with an all-in-one.

[jacobwall]

The eport reader is not as distracting as you would think....however. The USA Tech device does count all transactions and reports them every day, so it is fairly easy to track sales, see where you are on stock levels etc. From a cost perspective, adding the edge device and keeping your current DBV would be cheaper then replacing it with an all-in-one.

Hello,

Thanks for your input, are you using the ePort EDGE or the ePort G8? I was under the impression the G8 was the only one which could provide cash and cashless collection rates through their web interface. There's incentive for us to upgrade to an all-in-one unit because the units have been intermittently working so we could justify an all-in-one if it was not drastically more expensive in the end.

Regards,

Jacob Wall

[AZVendor]

Jacob,

Call USA Technologies and have them explain the advantages of Edge and G8 models. I think you are correct that you can't get product level reporting with the Edge, but USAT can explain it all. As Sparta said, don't worry about another distraction on the machine, these card readers are attractive and you do want people to see them and use them. It's an additional selling tool so take advantage of it. The G8 even has bright blue LEDs that flash to attract customers. Many of my customers have card readers and they work well at giving customers another form of payment. Some locations I have seen are 90% card use because of the young customer base.

As far as what your validator options are, both Coincos you have now can be rebuilt for 20-25% of the cost of a new validator. Then a card reader can be added to the door. If you want more currency options and an all-in-one device, the new Coinco would be a great choice as would the Mars VN with the Easitrax option installed. With either Coinco or Mars you have to arrange your own backoffice supplier such as USAT, Apriva, Cantaloupe, etc. Mars also offers their own telemetry software for remote monitoring or street polling of your accounts. This is separate from the backoffice accounting you need for the card services.

I can't help you with printing magnetic stripes on cards as I've not heard of that in vending - or retail for that matter.

[jacobwall]

I spoke to USAT and they explained that doing a solution like what I want to do would require either an extensive amount of work or partnering with a bank which is how student IDs are for college campuses and their ability to process cards as well as authenticate doors for example. I ended up purchasing two edges with that in mind, too bad that USAT is very slow at processing paperwork despite it being faxed yesterday early afternoon; their sales team lacked to explain that on the phone when I went through the process to get setup.