Coinstar

This post will not be about anybody in particular or even about the World of Warcraft. What it is about is Coinstar, a company that manufactures and rents coin sorting kiosks that can be found in a variety of locations such as grocery stores, gas stations, malls, etc. People simply take their loose change and dump it into the machine which then counts it and prints out a receipt of the total and the customer takes the receipt to a cashier in the store and gets paid in bills. Coinstar keeps 9.8% of the total as a fee for using the machine. In 1999, shares of Coinstar were just above four dollars. Today, it closed at ten times that amount.

How did this miraculous surge in stock price happen? Quite simply, they targeted idiots with change. (They also own Redbox, the DVD rental kiosk which is doing quite well.) I say this because only idiots use Coinstar seeing as one can go to a bank and have them do the exact same thing...for free.

One may argue, "But Coinstar is very convenient." Chances are there is a bank within walking distance of every kiosk as they are located in high traffic areas, just like banks. Cashing in $30 dollars worth of coins could cost roughly three dollars using Coinstar, which is the price of one gallon of gasoline. If your car gets twenty miles per gallon, one should be willing to drive ten miles out of the way to avoid Coinstar. As most people get paid once every two weeks, the average time one would have to hold on to a full change jar would be seven days. It should not be hard to wait a single week to cash in your change when you have to go to the bank anyways.

I be the people who use Coinstar are the same people who buy bottled water.