Many businesses – retailers in particular – often rely on passing trade to boost their sales and develop their premises to maximise appeal to passers-by. Getting people through the door is usually the hard part and there isn’t a shortage of products and services claiming to be the ultimate solution to beat the competition…
A cash machine can increase footfall
A cash machine is a viable option when it comes to increasing footfall (that’s been proven many a time!) so how does it match up against the alternatives? As ever, it’s not a simple answer so we’ve broken down the points into bitesize chunks.
Competition
Let’s start with a fact. The latest ACS Local Shop Report revealed that 54% of convenience stores now offer a cash machine service as part of their offering to their communities. It’s not a stretch to say that more and more convenience shops are incorporating an ATM to diversify and stay ahead of the competition… and it’s clearly working, as more now have one on-site than don’t. It seems that in the convenience industry, the more on offer the better!
Cash Machine Benefits
Flexibility
An ATM is also a remarkably flexible addition to your business. Adding other services may mean adhering to rigid policies and other pieces of red tape… on the flip side, an ATM gives you much more freedom. There are many different models of ATM for starters, but it doesn’t end there. You can choose either an internal, space-efficient ATM or – if you have the space – a full-on, ‘through the wall’ machine.
There’s more flexibility when it comes to deciding where the cash comes from too (just to be clear, we’re not saying that we can manufacture money on the moon). You can choose to fill the ATM yourself – potentially saving you £1,000’s in banking fees every year – or have the convenience of having a cash management company visit your store to refill the machine… now how’s that for options!
Store impact
Once you’ve cherry-picked the set up that would suit your business the best, you can also help determine where the ATM is placed. This is more relevant when you’ve selected an internal ATM, when you can place it in the majority of locations in your business. This means that your store layout is not impacted and is left exactly how you planned, with the addition of a cash machine to draw people through the aisles… not a bad idea!
Savings
We briefly mentioned it above, but it’s worth expanding on… savings. There aren’t many footfall-increasing add-ons that your business can make, that SAVE you money (and time) in the process. Again this requires a certain combination of the options above – a self-fill, internal ATM – as this allows you to recirculate your daily takings inside your store. By following this proposition, you make fewer trips to the bank for cash deposits, saving both time AND money on deposit fees!!
Does it work everywhere?
There are (unsurprisingly) locations where an ATM wouldn’t work. If you run a very small stall which serves customers through a hatch for instance, customers wouldn’t be able to access the machine behind the counter, so there are limits to where a cash machine can be beneficial. Businesses that lack heavy cash usage and ones that have premises near other well-used ATMs are also in the same boat. Really though, it isn’t often a public-facing business is deemed unsuitable, as ATMs are designed to meet the needs of any business environment.
Verdict
If you’re trying to keep up or even get ahead of the competition, would like a flexible solution that you can control how it impacts your store AND would like to see the cost savings (who wouldn’t?!) then an ATM is probably the way to go. What we haven’t yet mentioned, is that YourCash provide the whole lot for free, so it won’t cost you a penny… we’re serious!
If you are considering having a cash machine in your business, give us a call for a no obligation chat about your options. If you have a better idea of what type of proposition you’d like, you can use our eligibility calculator here or give us a call on 0800 032 0707!