News

Who's who: Joe Barboza

Joe Barboza has worked in the high-tech and retail fields for 30 years. Now that combination of experience is paying off. His company, Cypermint Inc., has a large and ever-growing kiosk deployment in 7-Eleven stores, and the company is adding applications and retail partners on a rapid basis.

June 25, 2003

Joe Barboza, a former member of the 82nd Airborne, considers the experiences of managing a high-tech retail project to be very similar to those of parachuting. In both cases, you just have to figure out when to jump.

Barboza has worked in the high-tech and retail fields for 30 years. Now that combination of experience is paying off.

Barboza's company, Cyphermint Inc., has a large and ever-growing kiosk deployment in 7-Eleven stores, and the company is adding applications and retail partners on a rapid basis. Barboza has been president and chief executive officer of Cypermint since January. He joined the company two years ago as chief financial officer.

Today Cypermint has 900 kiosks installed in7-Elevens across the country. It will reach 2,000 units by the end of this year, Barboza predicted. I had to pull him out of a meeting to conduct this interview. Barboza was thorough and congenial in answering my questions, but he was anxious to get back to his meeting. He's busy working on a national ad campaign to increase consumer awareness of the 7-Eleven deal. See related story, "7-Eleven adds bill payment to Vcom kiosks."

Oh, thank Heaven

Using Cypermint's eCommerce suite in Vcom (Virtual Commerce) units, 7-Eleven customers can shop online at their convenience. The Vcom is a financial-services kiosk equipped with Cypermint's Pay Cash System that merges ATM capabilities with Internet-based shopping apps.

Customers can purchase CDs, send flowers, buy best-selling books or concert tickets, and get payday loans from the kiosks. Payment options include credit cards and cash, as well as check cashing, money orders and wire transfers from Western Union. Best Buy and eBags, online provider of bags and accessories, have signed on lately as retailers selling products on the Vcom kiosk network.

The technology is complicated, Barboza explained. "Banks are quite picky about putting financial information on the Internet," he said. As a result, Cyphermint has developed proprietary encryption.

Shopping success

In some 7-Eleven stores, customer transactions have increased tenfold -- with most of the credit given to Vcom. Barboza said 7-Eleven stores typically handling 2,000 transactions per month now manage 3,500 transactions per month with Vcom in place, all without adding labor.

Barboza's focus, he said, is to use kiosks to market goods and services to the unbanked population. Vcom allows consumers without credit cards or bank accounts to shop and purchase goods from the Internet. "Forty percent of 7-Eleven customers don't have credit cards," he said.

Last month at Retail Systems 2003, Barboza was all personality, cracking jokes with the audience and commandeering the microphone while waiting for his executive panel to start. Barboza spoke in the Kiosk and Self-Service Pavilion theater on the advantages of self-service. See related story, "Panel points out customer advantages of kiosks."

While other panelists talked in generalities about the industry, Barboza spoke unabashedly about Vcom. He is passionate about his company and his products. And he has high hopes for the kiosk industry.

"Kiosks allow companies to have a retail presence at a low cost," he said. "The industry is constantly changing for the good." He noted in particular advances in touchscreen technology, and better accessibility for handicapped consumers.

Barboza is responsible for defining and meeting the worldwide business goals of Cyphermint. He has served as president, CEO, CFO and executive vice president with EKCO, Hebert Candies, AD TECH, Natural Microsystems, Massachusetts Computer Corp., EASI and Cyborg Corporation.