It was just announced that there will be a new 12 sided coin from UK
and will be in new circulation and this have not changed for 30 years. It been made because there were a lot of counterfeit coins in circulation and hopefully this will curb the copycats.
It will be a gradual change about 6 months to 1 year before the new coin will be replacing the old coin according the news. The 12 sided coin has many new elements and it will be very hard to copy.
The problem that will bear the grunt will be the small business self-employed vendors
from, 2 to 100 vending machines. As i was discussing that hopefully that there will be more of the debit credit card readers because if all the machines are hooked up to Debit Credit Readers imagine there will be virtually no more thieves on trying to steal the money inside the vending machine.
The disadvantage to this is the other percentage of the population who is relying on paychecks from the government, they do not have good credit standing and most of them don’t have a credit card or debit card and just bring the government checks to banks to en cash it on a monthly basis.
There are about 462,700 vending machines in UK
and the problem is that the coin mechanism manufacturer will have to re design the coin chute and the sensor in able to detect the new 12 sided coin and also the old coins which are in circulation. This is will a complete re design of the coin mechanism since i never heard of any coin which is not ROUND used in the vending machines.
Its good that this is not happening here in Canada or United States or else it will a domino effect when the coin structure is changed. I remember that there are new Loonie and Toonies that was upgraded not long ago by the royal mint of Canada and at that time i have around 30 machines which was about 2 years ago, during that time i was not earning so much and the take home is minimal.
I have to buy an upgraded coin mechanism and have to swap it out every month when the coin mechanism is upgraded, most of the coin mech which i had been made by coinco and i have to have them shipped to Calgary since coinco service center was there and the lead time it will take would be a waiting period of 3 months i recall since there were just thousands of coin mech’s in Vancouver and all over the lower mainland that are being processed and que in line for reprogramming.
Every time there is a change in the government’s currency physical structure and new notes, it is always a loosing proposition to vending machine operators, but this is a part of running this business.
The cost of re programming
the coin mech 2 years ago was around $55 and it involves the time to remove the coin mech and you need a new coin mech for swapping out old coin mechs for re programming. You would have at least 2 to 4 new coin mechs and do a lot of swapping out and shipping out for about 3 months on all of your machines and sometimes you get a DOA ( Defective On Arrival ) which make it a nightmare for you since everything is scheduled.
The cost, expense and maintenance of running a vending business is never ending. Recently there is also the upgrade of the USA Tech G8 to G9 since they are changing wireless carriers in Canada and this also involves some costs for swapping out with the upgraded G9.
The G9 will have more features and instead of only accepting credit cards currently on G8, the G9’s will be accepting debit cards and credit cards by December 2017, of course this will result into higher sales with more options.
Conclusion :
In order to succeed in the vending machine business, you must be kept abreast on the changing landscape and technology.
