University Mini accepts J-CASH

The University Mini-Mart, located on 3230 St. Paul St., began to accept J-CASH Monday in response to strong student demand and increased knowledge of the J-CASH/Student Advantage Program. In addition, the mini-mart expressed hopes that accepting J-CASH will provide more student interest and convenience as well as increased sales for the store.

"Kids started to ask all the time if we accepted J-CASH, which I didn't know about before," manager and owner Sam Hamideh said. "So I called up Student Advantage and joined the program."

Before the program was launched on Sept. 1, students and faculty went to individual vendors directly and asked if they wanted to join J-CASH. For the current school year, J-CASH was successful in recruiting 12 vendors into the program; the mini-mart was the last to join.

"The students [on the Homewood Student Affairs Committee] expressed interest in bringing J-CASH off-campus two years ago," Student Council President Anuj Mittal said. "Ever since then, we have been collecting data for the need of J-CASH and a list of vendors."

Formerly called Debit Dollars, J-CASH was not widely used or publicized until this school year. After the staff and faculty were allowed on the system last November, J-CASH gained popularity due to the increased accessibility to vending machines, MegaBYTES and Levering Hall.

"J-CASH was not advertised as much before because it was a student privilege," ID card Service Director Michael Kendzejeski said. "Merchants tend to be skeptical [of J-CASH] now, but that will go away once J-CASH starts being more popular to businesses off-campus."

In order for businesses to start accepting J-CASH, vendors have to straighten out financial and legal contracts, open accounts and be approved through Student Advantage. Although the multi-tiered process sounds complicated, Kendzejeski said that only a week was needed for the J-CASH program to be up and running at a business.

"The more merchants come on, the more students, businesses and school benefit," Kendzejeski said.

Although J-CASH is beneficial for students in that they can carry less cash and therefore feel more secure, both students and vendors expressed hope that the J-CASH program would continue to make improvements and better accommodations.

"There's work that still needs to be done," Mittal said. "Students have to realize that they can get discounts, and vendors have to realize that they will attract more business."

Some negatives aspects of J-CASH include the annual fees to Student Advantage by JHU as well as the 10% commission the businesses pay to Student Advantage, which caused the mini-mart's reluctance to join the program in the beginning of the year.

"The commission is a little too high," Hamideh said. "Even though we sold over $200 just on J-CASH on the first day, we only profit two percent after paying tax and commission. The other major credit card companies do not have this high commission rate."

The general opinion of J-CASH by students have been positive, but many have expressed interest in having J-CASH accepted at even more off-campus locations.

"[Student Council] told Student Advantage to look into having J-CASH accepted at Fells Point, the Inner Harbor and Charles Village, since those places are popular hangouts for college students," Mittal said. "More students have to branch out while more vendors have to come here." Mittal added that the Student Council will help publicize J-CASH as well as promoting awareness for the program.

"People have to realize that J-CASH is a viable option," Mittal explained. "The administration should also help by pushing vendors to give students better deals."

The administration further commented that they were "selective" in choosing the businesses on the J-CASH program, but explained that many merchants hesitate to join because of the starting process and profit cuts or simply because they might not be able to handle the extra business.

"I hope the mini-mart will have more business in order to make up for commission losts," Hamideh said. "[J-CASH] is a good idea for the students and our business, but I'm not going to push the JCard idea too hard onto students.