Rowe International Corp. of Grand Rapids, which makes jukeboxes, has introduced one that accepts credit card payments and uses software from Peppercoin Inc. of Waltham, Mass., to aggregate the transactions.
Merchants, especially online retailers, have long complained that card fees are too steep for low-value purchases. Peppercoin’s software combines several small card purchases into a large transaction that incurs a single fee.
John Margold, a senior vice president at Rowe, said Wednesday in a press release that Peppercoin’s technology is “the most cost-effective and forward-thinking” micropayment service currently available. The jukeboxes also accept cash.
Though card companies and merchant acquirers have been unwilling to adjust their price structures to make micropayments more affordable for merchants, PayPal Inc. has not. On Aug. 31 the payment subsidiary of the online auction giant eBay Inc. of San Jose introduced lower fees for online transactions under $2.
But Dan Schatt, a senior analyst for the Boston market research firm Celent Communications LLC, said PayPal’s new pricing does not threatean Peppercoin, because it is moving beyond Internet payments.
“Some of the early entrants in the micropayments space see the opportunity now in the physical realm, in the form of parking meters and vending machines,” he said.
Peppercoin announced another real-world deal last month. It is aggregating payments for Oklahoma City and Las Vegas parking meters made by Reino Parking Systems Inc. of Alameda, Calif. This month it expects to start doing the same for Reino meters in Yonkers, N.Y.
