Mechanism is a supplier's sales booster

Bellatrix Systems Inc. has another mechanism for winning over circulation managers -- literally.

Customers like its Coin Wizard coin collection mechanism, whether or not they use it also to collect sales data.

Made of Lexan and polymers instead of metal, it's designed to work well in the weather extremes of both Arizona and North Dakota, where Bellatrix has customers. It features a range of price settings, and recently was enhanced to read Canadian currency, including the Great White North's $2 coin.

"I don't want people to be afraid to put their quarters in the machine," said Gordon Wiggins, single-copy manager at the Anderson (S.C.) Independent-Mail, who bought the devices in order to expand pricing options beyond just a daily or Sunday switchover. "We tested the mechanism for a year and half -- nothing fazed it," although occasionally the return-change button will jam.

While Wiggins was "sold" on the data-gathering system four years ago, his publisher is not, and there are no plans to expand into that area. Still, the half of the paper's 250 boxes using the Bellatrix mechanism have been concentrated in the central city.

"If we ever want to try it, we'd be set up to do it," Wiggins said.

At the Corpus Christi (Texas) Caller-Times, where the coin mechanism "has worked great for us," plans call for purchasing data retrieval equipment in the next year, said Sonia Merino, the paper's single-copy manager.

Her colleague, Gregory Lee, who verifies returns, reports repairs have "dropped off dramatically."

The other mechanism in use has "umpteen million moving parts," Lee said, with a repair rate three to four times greater than for Bellatrix.

-- P.W.

Also see Circulation drivers carry sales increases in just one hand

From THE COLE PAPERS, September 1997, Copyright © 1997, All Rights Reserved.