October 9, 2024 | By PayRange

Let’s talk about the coin-versus-mobile payment debate—and why you might be leaving money on the table by treating them the same.

Laundromat owners, by and large, stick with a traditional approach: charging the same amount for a load of laundry whether the customer pays with coins or mobile payment. It feels fair, right? But this simplicity comes at a cost—literally. Here’s why.

Coins might seem straightforward, but they come with hefty operational costs. Handling cash and coins is expensive, time-consuming, and prone to errors. Imagine this: every week (or more often, depending on your traffic), you’ve got to manually visit each machine—sometimes over 50 of them! You’re digging out coins from individual machine coin boxes, pouring them into buckets, then feeding those coins into a counting machine, all to track your sales in an Excel spreadsheet. Managing physical currency comes with significant overhead. That’s not just time; that’s energy and resources being drained away, time that could be spent growing your business. And if we’re being honest, after lugging around all that change, you probably hate quarters a little more than you used to.

Now, don’t even get us started on the dreaded coin jam. When your machine refuses to take coins due to a jam, it’s out of commission. That’s lost revenue for every hour it’s down—and if you’re not nearby to fix it quickly, that can mean an entire day’s worth of sales, gone. All because of a tiny piece of metal.

With PayRange mobile payments, things get infinitely easier. There’s no need for service calls to fix coin mechanisms, no bank runs to deposit cash, no risk of theft and no more excel files (unless you’re feeling nostalgic). Simply put, mobile payments are more efficient and far less costly. By incentivizing mobile payment adoption, you can reduce these operational headaches and increase your bottom line. With PayRange mobile payments, your sales data is automatically recorded and sent straight to your inbox, and every Monday, like clockwork, payments are transferred to your account. You don’t lift a finger, yet your business runs like a well-oiled machine.

As a business operator, you’re always looking for ways to improve efficiency, cut operational costs, and increase revenue. One powerful strategy that can achieve all of these goals is encouraging your customers to switch from paying with cash or coins to mobile payments. How? By adjusting your pricing model to make paying with mobile more attractive than using traditional cash or coins. Here’s why this strategy can benefit both you and your customers.

One of the most effective ways to nudge your customers toward mobile payments is by pricing cash or coin payments higher than mobile payments. For example, you could charge $2.50 for a wash when paying with coins but only $2.25 when using the PayRange mobile app. The slight price difference will give your customers an incentive to use mobile payments while saving you the cost and hassle of handling physical currency.

Switching your customers to mobile payments isn’t just about reducing costs—it’s also about driving more revenue and improving your customer’s experience. When customers pay with coins, they are limited by how much they have on hand. They may not have enough change to do an extra load or top off the dryer for another 10 minutes. Mobile payments remove that restriction. When your customers pay your machines with mobile payments, they are more likely to split their laundry into smaller, more efficient loads, like whites and darks, which leads to more wash cycles per visit. They also tend to top off the dryer more often to ensure their clothes are fully dry, something they might not do if they’re running low on coins. Simply put, your customers using mobile payments will spend more.

In addition to the pricing incentive, mobile payments offer a level of convenience that cash or coins simply can’t match. Customers no longer need to hunt for quarters or carry around heavy bags of coins. With the PayRange app, they can simply add funds and swipe to pay, and go—making their laundry experience faster, easier, and more enjoyable. Not only is paying with the PayRange app a breeze, but it also gives your customers extra perks like end-of-cycle alerts and real-time machine availability—convenience they simply can’t get with coins! This added convenience encourages customer loyalty, making them more likely to return to your machines instead of going to competitors.

By adopting a pricing strategy that encourages mobile payments over cash or coins, you’re not only increasing your revenue and lowering operational costs, but you’re also streamlining your business. With fewer coin jams, faster transactions, and automated payment processing, you’ll have more time to focus on other aspects of running and growing your business.

Implementing a smart pricing model is an easy and effective way to encourage mobile payments, reduce your reliance on cash, and boost your revenue. With PayRange’s mobile payment solution, you can seamlessly integrate this strategy into your machines and watch as your customers make the switch.

So, why wait? Start pricing your machines to favor mobile payments, and see how it helps your business run smoother, grow faster, and become more profitable.