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 Replies: 11 / Views: 3,808 |
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Pillar of the Community
708 Posts |
jbuck,
I was going to try one of my halves in that one vending machine I told you about, that looked like it would fit halves. Well, the machine "would" fit them, but, unfortunately, that machine is currently jammed up with what looked like, either someone shoved two quarters in at a time, side-by-side, or two halves or a half and a quarter. I tried digging the coins out of the slot with car keys, but no luck, so I'll have to wait till the vendor clears out the jamming before I can try it. It is a Coca Cola machine, by the way.
Oh, and by the way, you were right when you said they could swap out the old smaller slots and put in larger slots, large enough to accept halves, as I measured that too (there are a few toy vending machines there too which are 50 cents per play), and I really do think that, since those "quarter-sized" slots that say "50c" on them, would make much more sense to accept halves than quarters. A woman at my local Meijer, the night before said that, if the self checkout machines there don't take halves, they can not be made to take halves, which I do not believe, seeing as the coin slots are plenty big enough on those for halves, too.
I guess its all going to depend on if I can get the vending industry interested in "breaking the circle" of "People don't carry halves because vending machines don't accept them" and "Vendors won't update their machines to accept halves because people don't carry them"
I will keep you all posted.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1721 Posts |
People don't carry halves for two reasons (my opinion):
1. Too big and they aren't widely recognized.
2. Too many half dollar coin roll hunters and half dollar hoarders.
Vending machines are impulse sellers. If somebody or their child wants something from the machine you can't afford to take a coin that the average person doesn't carry with them. If your potential customer walks away from your vending machine, they aren't going to come back.
I would guess 1 in every 3 people have at least 1 or 2 quarters in their pocket or purse but how many have a half dollar? Maybe 1 in every 100 or maybe 1 in every 500? I don't like those odds if I own a vending machine. Dollar bill acceptance was a brilliant design for the vending machine.
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Pillar of the Community
 708 Posts |
Well, there could always be the option of two quarters or one half. I have seen those types of set ups where you put the coin in a flat slot, then push it in, then it comes back out empty. These slots had one half-sized circle, and two quarter-sized circles, side-by-side. And the half is not too big or heavy, if uou are going to carry two quarters anyway. And after certain machines, like self checkouts and other vending machines start spitting them out at people as needed to make proper change, they will be hoarded or hated at first, but people would eventually get used to them and spend them, same as if self checkouts spit out $2 bills as needed. From my latest past experience with a large (hundreds of dollars) batch of halves I had, there was no 90% or 40% silvers mixed in with them, so I think they are about weeded out, and the clad halves would soon circulate, once people realized that.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
17884 Posts |
Quote:
Vending machines are impulse sellers. If somebody or their child wants something from the machine you can't afford to take a coin that the average person doesn't carry with them. If your potential customer walks away from your vending machine, they aren't going to come back. I would think just the opposite. You want your machine to be able to take whatever coins the potential customer has. If your machine will take halves it will almost certainly take quarters as well (after all most machines that will take a quarter will also happily take two dimes and a nickel) so no matter what they have they can make a purchase. If you only take quarters but they only have a half they walk away and they aren't likely to come back. |
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Pillar of the Community
708 Posts |
Condor101,
A few uears ago when my family went on a vacation up north, and stopped at a rest stop, a guy had to give mt brother a half for two quarters because the soda macines would not accept halves. And yes, its true that most vending machines take, not only quarters, dimes and nickels, but small dollars as well, and how many people currently carry around dollar coins to use. So what would be the big deal of adding a tube and changing the slots for halves?
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Valued Member
United States
102 Posts |
But one half weighs the same as two quarters. It's going to take a big change in people's attitude about change to promote change.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
2589 Posts |
New Jersey Transit Train Ticket Selling Machines accept half dollars!
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Bedrock of the Community
13014 Posts |
Quote:
I would think just the opposite. You want your machine to be able to take whatever coins the potential customer has. If your machine will take halves it will almost certainly take quarters as well (after all most machines that will take a quarter will also happily take two dimes and a nickel) so no matter what they have they can make a purchase. If you only take quarters but they only have a half they walk away and they aren't likely to come back. True but theres a limited amount of space they have to work with. Maybe some could be configured to take everything, some probably cannot. They wont get ride of a nickel dime or quarter to take a half. The size of the half also means the change bin could hold less money before needing to be emptied. Id bet money you could fit a higher value of quarters in the bin than halfs |
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Pillar of the Community
708 Posts |
basebal21,
Yes, maybe the machines with coin "bins" such as arcade games may hold more quarters than halves, but other such machines, such as soda and snack food machines with coin "tubes" would need less frequent emptying with halves than if they just used a quarter tube as their main denomination, which the quarter tube would fill up twice as fast as the half tube.
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Bedrock of the Community
13014 Posts |
That could be true I dont know enough how theyre set up for that, it could be possible though that youd lose two quarter tubes for the size of one half tube.
But I would say even if the half tube was actually better space wise theres still the problem that its never used. If it starts getting used a lot I have no doubt the vending machines would adjust like they have with bills and credit cards now, I just dont see them leading the way in that.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
19943 Posts |
A machine at my work had a slot large enough to accept a half. Last year I dropped one in and it clogged the coin acceptor inside the machine. I wouldn't return it either. I wanted to see if it'd take a half and, obviously, it failed.
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Moderator
 United States
188130 Posts |
Thank you for the follow up, Fox. Quote:
A machine at my work had a slot large enough to accept a half. Last year I dropped one in and it clogged the coin acceptor inside the machine. I wouldn't return it either. I wanted to see if it'd take a half and, obviously, it failed. Keep doing it. One would hope that they would get the hint after servicing the machine a few times.  |
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Replies: 11 / Views: 3,808 |
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Posted 03/23/2013 06:32 am
