Card Payments For Vending A Hit With Consumers
Feb 03 2005 : In 2004, about 37.5 million US consumers opted to use credit or debit cards for purchases below USD 5, according to Ipsos-Reid, while over 354 billion cash transactions of less than USD 5 were initiated. Cash payments at the physical POS in 2004 totaled USD 1.32 trillion in aggregate revenue, Ipsos-Reid found, with the vending market taking a USD 18 billion share, parking USD 10 billion, coin-operated machines USD 6 billion and quick-serve restaurants, USD 110 billion. These totals suggest that card payments can be used to gain a share of total cash usage in the US, to the benefit of businesses in multiple sectors.
Regal Cinemas in Philadelphia for instance has increased vending sales at its premises by one-third after card payment-enabling its machines. Moviegoers used cards to pay for almost one in three vending purchases, and bought an average of two to three products with each card swipe. Before adding card payments to its vending machines, Regal Cinemas had used cash-only machines to reduce snack lines, but the machines often ran out of change. Within 12 months of card-enabling its vending machines however, Regal found card transactions to account for over 30 per cent of all transactions at the machines.
Yahoo! News