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Coinstar, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSTR) is an American company. Their original focus was the conversion of loose change into currency, donations or gift cards via self-service or Interactive kiosks. Coinstar deducts a fee for conversion of coins to currency, but not for gift cards or donations. The company has more than 60,000 locations including a variety of services in the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, Puerto Rico and Mexico.

Coinstar aims to create a presence in the front end of stores. The foremost example is their ownership of the Redbox DVD rental service. In addition, Coinstar owns and operates numerous amusements such as crane games, arcade games. The company also produces machines that provide prepaid credit cards and cellular phone cards as well as e-payment kiosks.

Coinstar has been cited as a stellar entrepreneurial growth company in a number of different references

Kiosk design and operation

The typical kiosk, painted green and the size of a large vending machine, is located at grocery stores, drug stores, larger merchants, banks or other retail locations. The coin counting service is available in the US, Puerto Rico, Canada and the UK.

To process coins, one simply pours unsorted loose change into the machine. The machine accepts all denominations of coins from one-cent coins to one-dollar coins, its only restriction being 1943 steel cents and Eisenhower Dollars. When the machine finishes counting coins it issues a scrip, called a voucher, which the user can redeem at the place of business providing the coin counting service at face value for currency. The same mode of operation and redemption is provided on those Coinstar machines situated in Great Britain, Canada, and Puerto Rico.

The coin counting processing fee, deducted from the total once coins have been counted, is 8.9% (USD) in the USA, 9.8% in Canada and 7.9% in the UK. Some machines may offer a lower rate, in this case the store hosting the machine has subsidised the rate. A newer service enables users to use their coins to buy a gift card from merchants without the usual fee ("fee-free") — including such retailers as Starbucks, Amazon.com, Borders, Eddie Bauer, Cabela's, AMC Theatres, Old Navy, iTunes, J.C. Penney, CVS and Disney Store. If the user chooses the fee-free option the machine issues a plastic gift card or, in the case of online merchants like Amazon.com, a voucher with a redemption code.

US and UK users also have the option of donating their change to a selected charity without paying a processing fee. In the US, Coinstar has raised more than $20 million for charities including the American Red Cross Disaster Relief fund, Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and Unicef's Trick or Treat program.

Coinstar has processed more than 350 billion coins in its nearly two decades of operation, with an average transaction amount of about $38. The largest single transaction was $13,000 in pennies from a man in Alabama.

Other services

Many Coinstar machines in the US also sell prepaid products such as green-dot preloaded MasterCard, prepaid wireless airtime from major carriers and long distance cards. In the UK gift cards are not available but phone cards are, including Virgin, Tesco Mobile, orange, T-mobile, Vodafone, swiftcall and United.

Coinstar has become a multi-national provider of services for the front end of retail stores. Services provided include coin counting, entertainment products such as skill cranes, bulk vending, prepaid products (gift cards), money transfer, and automated DVD rentals.

History

The company was founded in 1991 and is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington.

In February 2009, Coinstar purchased all remaining shares of DVD rental kiosk company Redbox for $175 million from McDonald's Corporation, making Coinstar the sole owner. Prior to this, Coinstar and McDonald's each owned 47% of Redbox shares with various other parties owning the remaining 6%.

Competition

In some sections of the U.S., regional banks have begun offering free and unrestricted coin-counting services in competition with Coinstar at retail stores. Refunds are often given in cash rather than in the form of a gift card. In some cases it is not even necessary for the customer to have an account at the bank; the free service is offered as a way to attract new business from individuals who are not current account holders. TD Bank's "Penny Arcade" coin counters are free and available to both customers and non-customers in many branches.

Advertising

To generate publicity, Coinstar offered to cash in over 1.3 million pennies collected over four decades by Flomaton, Alabama resident Edmond Knowles after Knowles's bank refused to cash them in. The armored truck sent by Coinstar to Knowles's home sank into the mud in his yard after being loaded with the 4.5-ton collection, and needed to be rescued by a tow truck.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Company Profile for Coinstar Inc (CSTR)" . http://www.zenobank.com/index.php?symbol=CSTR&page=quotesearch . Retrieved 2008-10-23 .  
2. ^ McGrath, R. G. & MacMillan, I. C. 2005. MarketBusters: 40 Strategic Moves that Drive Exceptional Business Growth. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
3. ^ Coin Operated . Modern Marvels . The History Channel.
4. ^ "Finance | paidContent". Finance.paidcontent.org . http://finance.paidcontent.org/paidcontent?GUID=7974685&Page=MediaViewer&Ticker=CSTR . Retrieved 2009-08-01 .  
5. ^ Donn, Jeff. "Do Pennies Still Make Sense?". In The Loop (Washington Post) . http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/06/AR2006070601423_2.html . Retrieved 2007-10-28 .  

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