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Plus, cashless has fewer service calls, says Kever, which is a relief for small operators who wear many hats in their organization. In the future he will continue adding cashless with Parlevel and USAT. "It's hard to say what the growth will be for operators but the easier you make it for custom- ers to pay, the better," he said. "For us, implementation wasn't difficult. In fact, even after implementation, chal- lenges that come with cashless aren't different from daily operational ones. I've never had a card reader fail." The reliability of the equip- ment and ease of instal- lation made cashless a hassle-free investment for Kever. A guide if you're mid-size Medium-sized operations — which make up 26.6 percent of the indus- try with a revenue range between $1 million and $4.9 million — face similar benefits of cashless. Gary Arwin, president of Orlando, FL- based Gator Vending, Inc., began beta-testing a cashless option for a company in 2012, but when the tech company went out of business, Arwin turned to PayRange, beginning with 30 PayRange devices. Today Arwin uses both PayRange and USAT and 35 percent of his sales are cashless, which has reduced cash loss risk and increased sales. "We have more than 200 machines with cashless," said Arwin. "And with two-tier pricing, cashless is a worthwhile investment." Vending operators, no matter the size, have the option of buying, renting or leasing card readers, but as Arwin notes, that decision is up to each operator. "We do all three because we didn't know right away which one would make more sense for our company," he said. Ryan Harrington, president of Portland, OR-based Royal Vending went 100 percent cashless in 2015 in a partnership between Parlevel and USAT. He pays a monthly service fee but says the fee isn't a negative factor in offering cashless. Rather, integrat- ing cashless allowed the company to consolidate and become more effi- cient, eliminating some labor costs. "Now that I've done this, it keeps us competitive," said Harrington. As a mid-size operator, Harrington wor- ried that getting into cashless might be an expensive endeavor, however, the ROI was immediate. The setup and implementation was simple, too, Harrington notes. "We deal with the cashless pro- vider very little." Harrington warns operators that an additional invest- ment may be needed if the signal at a location is weak, in which case an antenna may be necessary to ensure transactions go through. Scott Halloran, co-owner of Richmond, VA-based Trolley House Refreshments, agrees. "Cellular cov- erage is an issue at some locations," he noted. "Some buildings simply do not have the signal we need to run the cashless units." To remedy the chal- lenge, Trolley House Refreshments — which has grown to 85 percent cashless with NAYAX — works with its clients to find solutions such as cel- lular repeaters, internet connection, or exterior antennas on the building. "This is another layer of cost for the operator," Halloran continued. One of the biggest challenges Trol- ley House Refreshments faces as a medium-size operator growing into the 'large' category is manpower to focus on the deployment of cashless. "We have to fit deployment in around our normal operations which slows the process," he said. Additionally, there are challenges with managing data once an opera- tion begins adding technology. "Data management is a struggle for an opera- tion of any size," said Halloran. "As operators we are all using three to six different platforms, many of which do not communicate with each other. Deploying cash- less is another database to manage and we have to be careful when units are swapped from one machine/location to another to keep the data accurate in the backend system. This can get messy. Our part- ner has listened to our issue and is working on a solution that will auto populate data using the VMS infor- mation." Despite the challenges, customer acceptance of cashless is high for Trolley House Refreshments. In fact, usage can be as high as 50 percent at some locations. In 2017 the company's goal is to merchandise its machines differently with higher price point items that did not sell prior to credit card acceptance. When growth continues For large and extra-large operations — categorized as those companies with a revenue of more than $5 mil- lion per year — adding cashless is no easy feat. Those operations must consider hardware costs, transaction costs and service charges, according to Mike Coffey, senior vice president of strategic initiatives for Canteen Vending which currently has more than 100,000 vending machines with cashless capabilities through Crane, USAT and Cantaloupe. When get- ting into cashless, Coffey warns VENDING operators, no matter the size, have the option of buying, renting or leasing card readers. February/March 2017 VendingMarketWatch.com Automatic Merchandiser 19 T E C H N O L O G Y T R E N D S