This magic box turns your useless foreign change into digital cash (or Starbucks coffee)
Like many business travelers, you've probably squirreled away a small fortune in loose foreign change, collecting dust in jars, shoeboxes, and at the bottom of your briefcase. A startup from Israel wants to turn that leftover foreign change into cold hard cash, or rather, warm liquid Starbucks — among other things.
Travelersbox allows coin-laden travellers to lighten their load by depositing those coins into one its automated machines at airports around the globe. The automated kiosks take your unneeded coins and bills, and then transfer the amount to your PayPal account or give you a selection of gift cards, including Groupon, the Gap, Best Buy, and yes, even Starbucks. Users also can choose to donate the money to charity, and there is no fee to complete the transfer.
Founded by Tomer Zussman, Idan Deshe, and Dror Blumenthal, the idea for Travelersbox came to Zussman after frequent trips between the U.S. and Israel.
“Every time I got back from a trip I found my pockets full of quarters that I always forgot to take back with me from my next trip, I started to count the coins every trip and found out that it is around $10 - $15 USD. I knew that there are 3 billion travelers a year and I realized that this is a 40-50 billion market no one touched.”
After meeting with banks and credit card companies who said there’s no money in micro payments since the cost of doing business would be so high, the trio turned their attention to PayPal and other online companies, sidestepping the banking system and its high transaction fees altogether. Since launching in 2012, Travelersbox kiosks have attracted over 500,000 users. There are more than 45 boxes located in Turkey, Manchester, Milan and Tbilisi.
The company, which recently raised $5 million in funding, has it eyes set on expansion in North America. Company representative Vicky Petel told Road Warrior Voices:
“A clear majority of our users are American travelers, with a higher deposit average (over $15) and a high rate of returning users. Most of them deposit to PayPal, Skype, Starbucks, iTunes and Google Play, accordingly. Donations are also very popular with the American traveler. That said, we are planning on expanding in the US and Canada and had recently started looking for local partners.”
Travelersbox CMO Dror Blumenthal told Road Warrior Voices:
"This idea, in a way, is an alchemy. First and foremost, is because real physical money is transferred into an online one. Second, is that small and what is considered useless money in the ‘real’ world, becomes a Beatles album on iTunes, or an eBook. A few useless coins and bills that would otherwise be kept in a jar, are now valuable again thanks to this magic box."
Isn't that better than just keeping those pretty coins from around the world as a souvenir?