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Vice President Joe Biden and several cabinet secretaries announced today the administration's efforts to identify and eliminate misspent tax dollars. My favorite – "the savings of $50 million annually by no longer minting unneeded and unwanted dollar coins."

by Ryan Carlson

Article in reference: What the Starbucks Card Teaches us about Future Transactions

Consumers want inclusion - they want to feel like Norm from Cheers where everybody knows their name.

by Ryan Carlson

Here is a really interesting article entitled, "Use of Mobile Tap and Pay Will Double in the Next Year, But Mainstream Adoption is Far Off"

For those that are interested in following new technology this is an interesting read - As a highly-connected early-adopter of technology I fit into the first 6% of consumers to try new ways of doing things, especially when technology is involved.

The article explains all of the bleeding-edge trials of putting Tap-To-Pay into stores, and a big focus on the "mobile wallet", this is where you turn your cellphone into your digital wallet. You wave your phone by a sensor and then tap in a security code through a special application running on your phone and it will transmit the accountinforation of your choice.

"On the Rise": The part of the article that facinates me as a cashless provider is that I think it's spot-on about where we are with adoption of a tap to pay technology and mobile wallets. We are currently in the "On the Rise" part of a technology adoption bell curve with mobile payments. This is where you have a small vocal group of early adopters trying things followed by 5-10 years of normal people slowly learning about the technology and over time adopting it. This is called a Gartner Curve, it has been spot on across industries and technology application.

What does this mean for you as a car wash operator or laundromat operator?

Our industries cater to a different type of customer and our average dollar per ticket and our "new technology budget" is not what other industries like fast-food, grocery, and petroleum have. Your customers fall into the "very average customer" - although those of you with Full Service Car Wash locations that cater to the BMW-crowd might want to start an inquire with your merchant provider about getting a tap-to-pay reader for your point-of-sale cash register, your business model caters to an entirely different starbucks crowd. Whereas laundromats and self-service car washes are still dealing with the gas-station cappicino-machine crowd (you know, the one that mixes the powder and the hot water into the styrofoam cup as you hold down the button?)

WashCard is watching this mobile payment space very closely and our Engineering Staff is learning a lot about this future technology - but the honest truth is, we plan to be part of the second-generation solutions (see Gartner Curve above). This means costs have come down for the hardware, platforms have been standardized, and we will have a better road-map of how "regular" consumers are using the technology in the real world, not just what PR companies are saying. 

Is it any surprise that this crazy discount giant could continue indefinently? Either through copy-cat services, and the growth of their primary compeditor Living Social (which is up 27%) or what retail analysts are calling 'discount fatigue' the writing is on the wall - marketing needs to be more than just couponing. The most successful marketing revolves around customer retention.

Consumers want a reason to keep going back to a business, not just a coupon to go from one blind-date to the next. Because thats exactly what these services are doing is create nomadic consumers... seems consumers really want more than just a big discount, and those that do... do you really want them as your regular customer anyways?

Visit the PCI Security Council website to view the certificate (if your looking for an extreme fun-filled thrill ride) /sarcasim.

What this means is that customers of WashCard Systems (present and future) will know that all the work we put into going through this invasive procedure will make it a lot easier for your business to pass as 'PCI Compliant'.

There is a video interview with Director of Propaganda (Marketing) Ryan Carlson to learn what all the buzz was about and wanted to hear more about our new Payment Kiosk product. The video interview is also featured on YouTube on the Planet Laundry YouTube channel.

"I'm almost tired of hearing about the next big thing in payments" says Ryan Carlson of WashCard Systems. Carlson continues, "Everybody thinks that just because a technology exists for making payment it's going to cause a massive revolution and hardware like magstripe technology is going to be obsolete - It's taken Europe over a DECADE to convert their card payment system over to a chip-based EMV style format and they still are not totally finished rolling the format out. If the EU is taking so long to roll things out, think about the massive undertaking it will be to get a new form of payment adopted here in the United States? Canada has had their deadline for going to chip-cards pushed back -twice- now due to logistical issues involved."

It's clear that according to the interview from PYMNTS.com that the EU is now looking to roll out interoperable mobile platforms to allow contactless payment. Dag-Inge Flatraaker of the European Payment Council discusses the challenges of rolling out a new standardized technology - its possible that phones will be the minority of contactless payment, with contactless cards being the majority of payments and mobile hardware catches up with the new standards that will be necessary. According to Carlson, "Think of the next wave of Mobile payment standardization and security as PCI-DSS requirements on steroids - things won't happen fast, and there will be no standardized platform for at least 5-10 years". He goes on to say, "Once we even have a standardized platform, there are major changes that need to be made at retail levels first starting with the multi-billion dollar businesses to make the investment in the new technology, but then you have the smaller retailers and vendors as secondary adopters. Carwash customers might be part of the second wave adopters among consumers but laundromat customers are FAR behind the adoption curve for new payments and will be at the tail end of any major changes in 'ways to pay'.

Dag-Inge in the interview with PYMNTS.com has interesting information to share about how all of the various competing platforms will bump heads and each will claim they have a 'better' way of doing things. This new space race in the payment space (say that three times really fast) will be fun to watch. Carlson says that operators need not worry about bleeding edge or cutting edge technology. He clarifies by saying, "What laundromat and carwash operators want to make sure of is that they are not investing in a technology that will be obsolete after they buy it 2-4 years down the road. And honestly, these business segments really have the luxury of a wait and see policy on the technology... look how long it took to adopt credit card in these businesses! Carwash is about 50% adoption and laundromats are still far below 3% or less. Here is what I tell operators worried about buying technology changes in the payment space. It takes 10+ years for a nation to make the change once standardized platforms are established and somebody has won the format war (see Blu-Ray and HD-DVD movie disks). Look to Wal-mart, McDonalds, and your local gas station - if they all adopt a new form of payment acceptance THEN you should start looking at what your options are, until then your paying a premium to be cutting-edge for customers that are predominately not-cutting-edge."

Carlson's advice does make sense for a small or medium sized business; there is no benefit for letting bleeding-edge technologies to impact your business, let alone control your infrastructure decisions. Do your homework, look to other businesses that your customers use, and look to your own wallet to see what kind of payment you need to be accepting.

Stay tuned to washcard.com/news-feed to keep up on technology news that impacts you and your business.

We were SWAMPED for three days in a row in large part due to the overwhelming interest in our new Payment Kiosk product. Operators were really excited about our solution for significantly reducing the per-machine cost to add credit card and debit card acceptance to large blocks of machines.

Be sure to check out the link above to learn more about the product that is making card acceptance much more affordable for coin laundromat operators. Call our sales department if you have additional questions!

Photo taken on Monday afternoon of the Clean Show in Las Vegas. Our booth was like this for three days.

Turns out it's talking about GERMS and how dirty paper-money is - you've got to read this if you handle cash on a regular basis. YeeeeYUK!

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