USA Technologies, Inc. highlighted its customer, City Vending Co., Inc. for its effective use of USAT's ePort® and ePort Connect® service for cashless payment and telemetry to drive improved business results. Located in Fort Worth, Texas, City Vending has transitioned from zero to more than 300 cashless payment terminals in less than a year and has indicated that it has leveraged USAT's cashless payment and telemetry offerings to drive improved financial performance, customer retention and consumer satisfaction.
City Vending's chief financial officer, Tom Elich, said in a prepared statement, "We believe cashless has contributed to a 20 to 30 percent sales uplift since we first began to deploy cashless payment less than a year ago, with both credit and cash sales up. When you spread that over our cashless machines deployed to date, that equates to more than $100,000 in new annual revenue for City Vending. I have never been so pleased."
Based on a sampling of 125 machines over a nine month time period, the average credit spend on City Vending's cashless machines is approximately 48 percent higher than the average cash purchase, which exceeds the average credit "spend" derived from USAT's 2013 Cashless Knowledge Base (recently released data based on 62,000 terminals over a three month period, January to March 2013). According to City Vending, beyond the immediate benefit to the consumer of being able to purchase multiple products with one cashless transaction, City Vending has used cashless to enhance its product offerings for higher priced products. For example, sales of their energy and other premium drinks have grown by at least 50 percent.
"Cashless has not only provided City Vending with direct financial benefits, but the consumer satisfaction and customer retention benefits have been overwhelming—to the point where consumers go out of their way to thank us," continued Elich. "Our customers, from business to manufacturing complexes, recognize that and appreciate our proactive approach.""We have also utilized the strategic opportunities a cashless payment platform can provide to optimize our presence in a number of unique locations, like hotels and bars. For example, in high cash-theft areas, cashless has essentially eliminated that exposure for us. In bar locations, where cash and coin can be limited, we are now contributing more strategically as a business partner by offering more chips, salty snacks and cigarettes. It keeps consumers happy—and in the bar," said Elich.City Vending is also using VendSys, a certified VMS (vending management system) supplier that participates in USAT's DEX partner program. USAT's DEX Partner Program optimizes customers' use of cashless payment offerings by integrating USAT's wireless DEX and telemetry available through its ePort Connect® service with one of several vending management solutions available in the market today.
"City Vending's experience with USAT's cashless payment platform syncs with the data we are seeing for many of other customers," said Michael K. Lawlor, senior vice president of sales and business development for USAT. "Our recently released 2013 Cashless Knowledge Base showed a 28 percent increase in average monthly revenues and 23 percent increase in average monthly transactions for a dataset of approximately 10,000 vending terminals over a twelve month period following deployment of USAT's cashless payment offering."
"We believe our Knowledge Base results, and those of customers like City Vending, should not be overlooked in today's competitive marketplace," continued Lawlor. "Every day, customers are walking away from cash-only acceptance because they don't carry enough cash—and mobile payment will only exacerbate that trend. At the same time, 'coin/cash only' business operators have few tools in their pocket to drive new opportunities. USAT's cashless payment platform can provide that assistance. It's no longer about cash versus credit or debit card acceptance, but about cashless igniting a connection with the consumer that the self-serve, unattended market has never had before."
