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Mark Jackson, vice president of immediate consumption at Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages, recently presented his insights on cashless vending at a webinar sponsored by the Smart Card Alliance. He was among six presenters who participated in the event, entitled, "Contactless payments: the retailer experience." He noted that his company partnered with USA Technologies and MasterCard to install up to 1,000 vending machines in select cities with credit and debit card readers.
From March to May, Jackson said 330 machines were equipped in three markets. He said the machines experienced a 12 percent sales improvement.
He also noted that cashless sales as a percent of total sales ranged from 3 percent to 24 percent.
Best results were in college, recreation, hospital, and white collar office locations. He said poorest performers were government and retail locations.
Jackson also said offering the cashless option resulted in additional machine placements and a good response form managed service companies. To download the webinar click here.
Editor's Insight: This was a very informative webinar on the emerging world of contactless card readers. There was a lot of research presented on the growing use of this technology. The key point is that consumers are willing to use contactless devices for small value transactions.
Younger consumers in particular are inclined to use contactless cards for everyday business transactions. 07-24-07 by Elliot Maras