Accepting credit card machine

[rebelwithoutaclue]

I own 5 soda COMBO SNACK  machines . they have options for credit card acceptance.    From your experiences is it worth it.   I accept credit cards at my store I know it costs about 10 cents per transaction and there is a monthly fee and cpi compliance feees which are each about 10-20 bucks a month a piece. These machines take in altogether roughly 1200 dollrs a month.   my credit card company told me it costs 10 bucks per machine to activate also. My question is how much odes this increase business. The sodas are 1 dollar and the sancks are 75 cents to 1 dollar. If it increases business by approx. 200-300 dollars a month and its costing me approx. 75 bucks a month for processing then almost half for the supplies and 15 percent commission then I am just about breaking even.

[AZVendor]

If you're only breaking even then it's not worth it.  You really need to be in high volume locations for credit cards to make sense and $60 bucks per week is not high volume.  Combo machines don't lend themselves to high volume locations so right off the bat credit cards are overkill on them.  I get the feeling that these are imported machines and to add an additional investment to them would be silly.  But really, the sales aren't there to support it.

[rebelwithoutaclue]

thanks for the reply . The I bought the machines from told me that the credit cards brought customers who would spend 5-10 dollars plus and increased sales by about 40 percent. I took his 40 percent and figured he is exaggerating it by half.  The one thing about soda/snack machines is whatever I thought would take me a hour to do ends up taking me 1.5 hours. . things ranging from putting the key in the doors and going back to the car on multiple trips to carry product. heading out to cosco to pick up product   to giving away free sodas n snacks to all the supers and folks who work in the building.     its a time pit

[lacanteen]

The incremental sales bump from the card readers will be from 15 to 25% depending upon the location and whether or not you allow multiple vends with one swipe. If you utilize 2-tier pricing by charging 10 cents extra on credit sales the dime will cover the 5.8% transaction fee. So you only have left the $10 to $15 per month data fees.

[Southeast Treats]

I like to see a machine doing at least $100 per week before putting a credit card reader on it.  And as you are seeing, a small capacity machine will also drive up your workload quite a bit.  If you look at your better location(s) and upgrade to larger machines first, then look at cc readers if the sales improve with capacity and selection.  And be sure your margins are high enough! 

[TKK]

Do u guys know if the g9s take pay range? A company asked me. Also ive had a few ppl complaint that they were charged on their cc and they didnt receive an item

[AZVendor]

PayRange is it's own device so you need to check with them to see if they are compatible with the G9.  But no, the G9 itself doesn't accept PayRange.

 

On the complaints, you need to test your units.  The card reader should preauthorize an amount equal to the highest price in the machine. When the vend is completed, whether a product drops or not, the transaction is completed sending a charge for the item to the customer's card.  This is sent in the nightly batch to the card provider which then has to settle the transaction within 3 days.  That means that a customer can see a preauthorization for the maximum vend price on the day of the transaction and then the settled actual amount charged will replace the preauthorization a day or two later.

 

What you should do first is ensure that your machine is working properly - that every selection vends correctly, that any drop sensors are functioning correctly, that any retry limits are described fully to the customers, that it's obvious to the customer how the machine is supposed to be used and how it works.  Operator error is the usual culprit but this is no different than refunds from cash transactions, except that there might be a faint electronic trail that you could follow.  You may never know if the complaints are real or if they are gaming the system.