Electronic Locking Systems and Planet Antares

Over the years, several changes have been incorporated in vending security.

With Planet Antares vending machines, electronic locks will provide the same level of security as their mechanical counterparts. Moreover, they will also have the ability to control and monitor access of every vending machine.

As the trade loss rises in the vending industry, internal suspicion is becoming more prevelant with time. Partially, this is due to the fact that while external break-ins may decline with the use of higher security locks, trade loss is still evident.

Planet Antares Inc suggests that you consider changing from a mechanical lock to an electronic locking system for greater safety of equipment and income. Evidently, it doesn’t make sense to be constantly looking at audit reports.

Since drivers and technicians carry one key only, the process is easier for them. The lock programming will allow them to accept the key. They also have an expiration date, which means that they will not function until they are reprogrammed.

You don’t want to end up feeling helpless in case of theft just because there is nothing much that can be done immediately. These situations can be effectively handled by using an electronic locking system.

Evidently, this system will result in a more efficient way to supervise vending route activity. Thanks to machine audit reports, this has now become possible. In case of shortage of time for a route driver to finish his route, you will know the reasons for such an incident and avoid it in future.

The electronic locking system can be used on a daily basis for your Planet Antares business to program keys and run audit reports in case any shortage occurs. This can be a quick way to find out why the shortages have appeared in the first place.

New Vending With Contact-Less Technology

Retailers are supposedly the biggest competitors of the vending industry. Its been hard for the vending industry to keep us with them but the latest technology might just be the key towards a better future and boom for the vending industry. But with this technology you cannot have any cash transactions.

Think about going to shop without your wallet or your credit or debit card. Yes, this is the latest contact–less vending technology. Cashless and contactless: This type of vending is a relatively new phenomenon in the vending industry. In contrast, gasoline retailers and toll road operations have been using the technology for over 10 years now.

It is actually not as complex as you might think at this point. Contactless transactions simply require a plastic card, flexible tag, mini-card, or key chain fob embedded with a microchip to pass within the proximal range of a device reader. There is no direct contact or line of sight needed. All you need to do is to place the card in close proximity to the Planet Antares vending machines for the transaction to happen.

Studies have shown that this form of payment can be authorized and executed up to 53% faster than credit card transactions and 63% faster than cash payments which results in more transaction volume for the Planet Antares vending machine operators.

In 2005, there were 13,370 domestic restaurants that accepted contactless, cashless vending. Implementation of this technology at fast food restaurants showed a reduction in purchase transaction time that was sufficient enough to impact the restaurants ability to support a higher volume of transactions.

Consumer preferences are also shifting towards contactless payment systems. This is the perfect opportunity for the vending industry to bring the business up to date with new trends. This will lead to greater revenue through flexible payment options for customers. No doubt, this will bring in more profits for your Planet Antares vending business.

Financial Management with Planet Antares Vending

With ever rising costs and new accounts still hard to locate, it becomes vital for vending operators to execute efficient financial management. Generally, small vending operators don’t think too much about financial management. They feel that they don’t need it as they are already doing well without doing it so why take the headache.

Like in other businesses, in vending business as well you may see some unexpected changes happening and if you do not have good financial plans, you might see have to face difficult t times. It is important for Planet Antares vending operators to be on top of different aspects of business and be safe at difficult times.

The right way to know exact status is by maintaining profit and loss statements of your business. The profit and loss statement shows gross sales of a definite time period, then the operating costs which include product costs. Then deduct operating costs from the gross sales which gives the net profit of the business. There is a set of industry averages available, the National Automatic Merchandising Association’s( NAMA) Operating Ratio Report. This report is conducted annually and designed to offer comprehensive, yet to the point guidelines for analyzing profitability. The key financial ratios are summarized in this report. The basic elements of financial management in any business are the financial operating ratios.

If the previous year has not been very successful, it may still not be as bad as it seems, once the financial ratios have been reviewed. At the same time, vending operators can find themselves unable to meet their payroll if they fail to pay attention to these fundamentals. To run your Planet Antares vending business successfully, you need to pay attention to these basic ratios and plan financial management.

This report evaluates a wide range of operating ratios across the industry and then compares the typical NAMA member’s figures against the industry’s best performing firms to help in finding areas that could be enhanced to increase profitability.

Planet Antares Efficient Currency Handling

All vending operators, at least once, have felt the need to eliminate ‘exact change only’ situations in their vending businesses. For long there has been no solution to it but with Planet Antares vending machines this situation can be avoided by using its new currency payment systems.

If customers can use whatever change that they are carrying at the moment, you will find that the sales of your Planet Antares vending will increase tremendously. This ability will change the way that customers purchase from your vending machine.

Overall, technology has improved the reliability and durability of bill acceptors and changers in vending machines. There are several advantages that come along with this technology such as reduction of consumer price resistance and at the same time wider variety of price points in the machine. This can be effectively used in your Planet Antares vending machines because they carry a vast variety of products.

Most bill acceptors take denominations over one dollar and most pay out coins as change. A five dollar bill acceptance is a customer convenience that will help sales in your business. Nowadays, consumers are getting used to putting five dollar bills in vending machines. Planet Antares vending machines come fitted with bill changers which make them very convenient to use when customers are looking for change.

Five dollar bill acceptance creates the need to sort 1s and 5s. This can be taken care of by using a dual pocket coin sorter. In spite of the customers getting into the habit of carrying dollar coins in their pockets, operators have nevertheless found it worth their while to offer dollar coin payouts to support higher denomination bill acceptance. This has resulted in a need for regular refilling of coin changers with dollar coins.

All this has made vending operators divided over the importance of currency handling equipment as they differ in their beliefs. What you need to consider is the ability to invest in such devices, customer service level to be attained and of course, your profitability targets.

Specialization For Vending Business Efficiency

All vending operators will benefit from the concept of operating dedicated beverage routes. Planet Antares vending operator must ensure that they do enough business to keep at least one full time route person busy. There are several benefits that come with this.

A well designed beverage truck, with outside, roll up doors on the sides can be filled by the pallet with a forklift truck. As compared to a mixed-product route vehicle, this will take much lesser time. In such circumstances, you will have to load one case at a time.

Due to space limitations on a mixed product truck, Planet Antares operators may not be able offer all the brands they could proftably sell. Although many customers will opt for an alternate brand or flavor if their first choice is not available. In fact, certain customers may even decide to walk away and lead to loss of sale. A well designed truck allows you to stock all the items that are demanded by customers of your business.

For new route drivers, it means learning how to fill one type of machine and thus, have one less type of machine to learn. This would cut down on the amount of time taken for training a new route personnel and bringing him closer to the point where he is capable of running a Planet Antares vending route on his own.

Specialization is a must for enhancing business efficiency. When an employee only handles one product, he will learn how to handle the product with very few wasted motions. The machines will be filled at a faster pace since he will be more efficient. Mixed product route will also benefit. They would have one less product to worry about, and no longer have any chances of tripping over beverage cases in the vehicle.

The driver can reach more locations to service perishable product machines once he has removed the beverage trucks from the vehicle and the beverage services from the route.

If you try to run a dedictaed beverage route for your Planet Antares vending business, using a typical step or cube van, it will probably be too much work. It’s best to go for a truck that can be loaded with a forklift.