Q Comm Partners with AIM to Electronically Distribute Prepaid Services Throughout United States

Business Wire, May 2, 2002

Business Editors

OREM, Utah--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 2, 2002

Q Comm International Inc. (OTC BB: QCCM), a business services company focusing in the electronic distribution of prepaid wireless and other services, Thursday announced that it has reached an agreement with Austin International Marketing & Investments Inc. (AIM) to electronically distribute prepaid services in retail locations throughout the United States.

Under the agreement, AIM will purchase and install Q Comm's Qxpress 200 point-of-sale terminals to enable electronic product delivery in select stores nationwide.

AIM, headquartered in Overland Park, Kan. with an operations center in Odessa, Mo., works through 30 master distributors to supply prepaid telecom services to approximately 25,000 retail locations throughout the United States. The company currently supplies mostly prepaid long distance phone cards.

However, in the middle of 2001 it began implementing electronic product delivery through point-of-sale activation (POSA) systems as a way to also sell prepaid wireless services. Today, about 15 percent of AIM's stores are set up with POSA.

"The greatest benefit Qxpress offers AIM is control," said Joseph Bodine, president and chief executive officer at AIM. "It puts us in complete control over our distribution network and customers, which allows us to better manage our growth and ultimately provide a better product to the consumer. Our company is founded on automation techniques that help us reduce overhead.

"For example, our 30 master distributors log into our switch and activate their own products. Qxpress helps us automate our business further. It eliminates the need to print, warehouse, and ship cards."

AIM's past POSA experiences have mainly revolved around using credit-card terminals. "As we've tested various POSA options, we've had some real concerns about the systems," said Bodine. "A dedicated terminal like Qxpress that can maintain virtual inventory has advantages from every standpoint. The biggest advantage is speed of product delivery.

"Our focus is high-volume stores. In these environments other POSA systems that utilize credit-card terminal systems have to call out on a phone line to retrieve product. The uncertainty of a connection and the dial up delay upset customer flow. Anytime you've got a terminal calling out and trying to activate as they go, you're going to run into delays.

"Because virtual inventory resides in the Qxpress terminal, the transaction time is greatly reduced, allowing us to go into super busy locations.

"Another challenge with credit-card terminal systems is getting approval from the provider to download our software. Because of this and other reasons, in about 80 percent of our past POSA setups, we purchased additional, refurbished credit-card terminals that's not nearly as sophisticated as the way Qxpress handles prepaid transactions.

"With Qxpress we solve numerous problems. We'll now be able to print cards instead of paper receipts, product creation is reliable and quick, and the terminal's flash advertising more than offsets any concerns about an additional piece of hardware on the counter. Qxpress also offers us greater flexibility in a dynamic marketplace.

"Another benefit to us and our retailers is increased product selection. For example, with prepaid wireless you've got to represent all of the popular carriers in an area. Typically that's five different carriers each having about five different denominations and in some cases a carrier will have two, three or up to five sections of the country that require different PINs.

"Without Qxpress, we have to buy PINs live and that equates to about $500,000 of inventory which is prohibitive for us and the stores we work with. There's also a major problem with theft. Qxpress solves all of these problems.

"I'm very excited to launch Qxpress 200 in our stores. Q Comm offers a brilliant solution. In fact, we found them because we lost one of our retail chains to someone with the Qxpress solution. That won't happen again."

"AIM is a great prepaid telecom company and innovative marketer," said Stephen C. Flaherty, president of Q Comm International Inc. "They're aggressively bent on improving and automating their business with the latest technology.

"In addition to electronically delivering prepaid wireless throughout their retail locations, they also plan to expand their product portfolio with various other prepaid services such as prepaid Master Card. We look forward to working with AIM as they begin installing Qxpress 200 terminals throughout select retail locations in their network."

About Q Comm International

Established in 1992, Q Comm International Inc. is a public, international business services company based in the United States. The company produces innovative prepaid transaction processing and information management systems.

Its objective is to offer cost-effective, flexible solutions that facilitate electronic distribution of prepaid services from suppliers or distributors to retail points of sale. Q Comm solutions are scalable which enable it and its partner carriers, distributors and retailers to quickly grow sales at relatively little additional overhead, increasing profitability among all parties.