Loose Pennies Convert to Cash at Amazon.com
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Written By Reprise Media | September 14, 2005 | Share This
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Yesterday Amazon announced a deal with Coinstar Inc., the company best known for converting your loose change into cash in exchange for a small cut of the couch cushion action.
Now customers who dump their loose change into Coinstar’s machines will be given the option of having their earnings returned in the form of a gift certificate redeemable for puchases on Amazon.com. Unlike the normal coin-to-cash transaction, customers will not be charged Coinstar’s standard fee of 8.9%.
At first this seems like an unlikely business synergy and Seth Jayson of the Motley Fool agrees. Most of the individuals I see regularly patronizing Coinstar machines look like they’re trying to scrounge together enough cash to buy a fifth of Mad Dog, not save up for a cashmere turtleneck from Lands End.
Then again, I could see this being big with cash-strapped college students as well as any price-savvy consumer who’s not jazzed about coughing up Coinstar’s fee.
According to Coinstar, US households have about $10.5 billion in loose change lying around their homes. If Amazon can carve just a few pennies out of that, the program will be a success.
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