Best credit card approach of all?!

[mjwalsh]

It seems that a happy medium cost wise & very little inconvenience for the customer & the owner would be a new approach to the activation of the washers & dryers along with the option of using coins. How about if there were one or two credit card main stations where the customer would have the option of sending activation to the equipment that they have their clothes in & door shut or shut after the swipe. In other words, they swipe the card & press W5, W6, W7, W8 etc & those machines would then start. Dryers would be D!,D2, D3 etc when they are ready to start them. The dryers that the customer just needed another quarter on to finish then they would most likely just use a quarter coin etc. The point would be to give the customer the option to use a credit card. It seems that it would be easier to buy & maintain 2 credit card swipes for those customers who prefer credit cards than to have to maintain the otherwise needed 50 to 100 card swipes. I personally feel that it would work out & not that difficult to do.

[pete f]

Set-o-matic has this type of thing now. I am considering it for a few stores. Just mount a swipe on whatever machines you want and now you take credit/debit card. You can even charge differnent amount for coin/charge. The set up was not to bad, the reader like card reader cost.
www.setomatic.com

Tell them you saw their link on Coinwash.com

[Anonymous]

I looked into that system and it appears that you only process the CC after they have gotten their laundry done. Evidently you have an infared from the reader to a hand-held which then uploads to your PC. The PC then processes the CC transaction. Nice theory, but can you say "please steal from me". It would seam anyone to run any old closed or stolen credit card through the reader and get wash and dry for free.

If you don't collect it, you can't spend it.

[srhaz]

I believe mjwalsh is suggesting a 'gadget' where you only swipe the card once, and then assign all the machines you want to start running.
I think the setomatics are all individual charges on each machine and the installation is somewhat expensive to implement (quantity needed).

This seems to be a pretty cool idea, if it were possible.

[Buddy_Amoroso]

I looked into that system and it appears that you only process the CC after they have gotten their laundry done. Evidently you have an infared from the reader to a hand-held which then uploads to your PC. The PC then processes the CC transaction. Nice theory, but can you say "please steal from me". It would seam anyone to run any old closed or stolen credit card through the reader and get wash and dry for free.

If you don't collect it, you can't spend it.

I looked at Set-o-matic at Clean Show and I had two big problems with the system.

1. High set up cost. Around 3g's. Long pay back period.

2. Not on line -chance for credit card fraud. Apparently you can program credit card not to be accepted after the fact.

buddy amoroso
baton rouge, la

[David]

1. High set up cost. Around 3g's. As opposed to 30-40K for a fully intergrated system to BE online. I might could swing the $3K.

chance for credit card fraud.

I talked to them about this. Their logic is, if someone steals a CC, they are heading for the electronics store, not to your store to start a $4.00 washing machine. Makes sense, but YES, there is still the risk.

Every system has some drawback.

This system seems to be the most viable for me.

I have numerous middle income ladies who drive up in the SUV's to wash their comforters. They would like the CC slot very much. But I don't think the toploads would fair so well. That's what's appealing to me. I can be selective in what I upgrade without disrupting the current customer base.

I'm wondering about how this would work with Quickbooks? Could you pull the CC info into QB and have it process the transaction?

[mjwalsh]

What I suggested was a few strategically located card stations wired in parallel & when they touch the corresponding button that washer would start either before or after closing the door. A tiny relay that would receive a current for the proper duration from the card station numbered button would be pretty simple to mount. The low voltage wiring requirements would tend to be one larger gauge shared negative & switching positives for each individual relay for each machine.

The relay would start the timer long enough so it would bypass the start mechanism regardless of type or age of machine.

It just seems that it would be the lowest cost, lowest risk way for laundry & even car wash operators with bays & vacuums to proceed. It would serve the purpose of accommodating those people who prefer credit cards & wouldn't be any farther to walk than to our changers or to an ATM & then to bill to bill changer & then to bill changer to coin.

Remember grocery stores, retailers, & other businesses take bill, coins, checks, credit cards to make sure they don't lose their existing clientel.

My bet is that we could have real time processing but most likely the people with fewer loads would steer away from using it. The software within the system could hold their credit card number for an hour to avoid real time processing before they have done all their washing & drying. When & if the credit card would be rejected it could immediately signal the owner or manager to investigate. With a camera system you could recognize any significant fraud person.

I am talking somewhat from experience because our Internet Kiosk Software Netstop Pro that we use has the ability to accumulate & retain credit card, coins, & bill account info & respond to keyboard input doing whatever. By whatever, I am talking about basic computer logic based on the condition of the swipe & machines assigned. That software hardware combo would work with an event driven database engine agent that could handle users using the system simultaneously.

This would be a more feasable way especially for smaller stores & it would let us & our customers have the other transaction options. We wouldn't need to push any option more than another. With the new President Dollar Coins coming out we may decide that coins are not so bad after all. It seems like an opportunity for some company to put this together. It seems that it would be in the range of many companies but the first to do it would have an advantage & be on the ground floor so to speak with thousands of us operators.

[pete f]

there have been companies that built controler you mention. Swipe the card, press #6 to start machines #6. this seems logical in a smaller laundry room area, an apartment or dorm type? In a bigger mat it made no sense to me.

[mjwalsh]

Pete F.

You don't happen to remember who they are or were? It seems that there used to be articles in the trade mags that described where the students could check to see how many & what washers were going etc. Ordinary vending machines with the individual coils where you press the number coordinate of the display is almost what I am describing. Especially, if there are any food or other product vending machines that take credit cards. It would be just a matter of tweaking the logic.

The idea of the post was to present a potential lower cost low key alternative for those customers who need or insist on using a credit card. By lower cost I am referring to us operators. We would be less vulnerable to compared to going completely over to just cards etc. The additional cost per washer or dryer it seems would be just the tiny relay. On the dryers the relay would have to act as a momentary switch similar to what the electronics are expecting now from the coin drop. The panel or touch screen would allow the customer to easily enter the equivalent of whatever number of relay triggers the same as the coin drop would provide after you put in the coins.

The card argument that coin collection & info management diminishes when you have your coin counter or scale automatically feed the dollar amount over to the computer like we have been doing for almost 3 years now. It does it after you run each batch (category) at high speed. It is a Cummins 2000. Those that use the weigh counters that also have computer connectivity such as a usb or serial port can do the same. In eliminates typos to the ongoing store receipt database. It was not that difficult to set up & added very little to the cost of the counter.

The likely future increased use of the President Gold Dollar Coins will diminish the argument of too many coins that the card only users are using.

What percentage of people who will use this type of system we don't really care that much because we probably won't have to spend that much in the first place & it won't take up that much space. It seem that a dedicated no nonsense rock solid computer with touch screen & data acquistion boards such as from Measurement Computing or National Instruments would even be enough. The loose end for me would be the actual sending & receiving to the Merchant Processing Account over DSL. The software could be written so it could batch later to the Credit Card Bank Processor in the rare event that the DSL was down.

[Anonymous]

What if you had a vending machine in a small mat that accepted credit cards and one of the choices was a $10.00 roll of quarters you could buy?

Wouldn't that solve the problem?

[NYJETS1313]

I think it is not legal to dispense cash using a credit card or the change machine companies would have doen it long ago. I haven't checked resently, but that is what Hamilton about 2 years ago.

[DaveLevenson]

What if you had a vending machine in a small mat that accepted credit cards and one of the choices was a $10.00 roll of quarters you could buy?

Wouldn't that solve the problem?

You would probably be violating the terms of your merchant card agreement, if you dispense cash for a credit card. You can dispense tokens, or cards valid in your store. You can also dispense cash on a debit card.