My idea is for a gasoline company to establish an exclusive arrangement with a company like Coinstar to develop an integrated payment system for paying for gas that allows for customers to fund part of their gas bill with coins. The system would work as follows: a customer pulls up to the pump, swipes their card and starts pumping gas. As the tank is being filled, the customer can throw coins into a Coinstar-like machine attached to the pump. The idea here is that the customer may have some change in their pocket that they can get rid of, or change in the car that they can quickly grab and contribute to their gas bill. Once the customer was done pumping gas, they would receive a receipt that showed how much change went toward the gas bill (minus a significant fee - perhaps 10% to 15%) and how much was charged to their credit card. Assuming the gas station and Coinstar split the fee revenue this machine would be valuable to Coinstar because of the sheer volume of transactions that would take place (even if the average transaction was smaller than in the their grocery store units). The gas station would make money from the fees and would be able to differentiate their station from others. This would appear important given that stations are often in close proximity to one another. Perhaps the popularity of this technology would even allow a gas station to increase their prices by a few cents a gallon over competitors.

What do you think of this idea or comment?
(You can change your vote at any time)

I agree

No opinion

I disagree