Planet Vending presents the latest blog post from N&W MD Dave Ward
PICTURED: Dave and colleagues talk tactics at Avex 2013
We’re now beginning the age of ‘automatic retailing’, of ‘smart vending’: the traditional image of a vending machine as a dumb tin box that sits in a corner is no longer accurate. In fact, to refer to a vending machine as ‘a dumb tin box’ is rather like describing a smart phone as a device to makes and receives phone calls… The technological innovation in vending that has done more than any other to ‘up the ante’ in recent years is the emergence of touch screen machines.
Touch screens are becoming a real game-changer. Machines are becoming more intuitive, more appealing and easier to use. There’s much less chance of a customer pushing the wrong button and inadvertently ending up with the wrong product. As consumers, we’re using similar technologies every day and the adoption of a modern interface in a vending machine not only makes selection and purchase simpler by making it more familiar, it also raises consumer expectations when it comes to quality – particularly in drinks machines.
However, it’s not just the look and feel of machines that has changed recently. As an industry, we’ve been concentrating on creating machines that are much more energy efficient. Some of the advances are obvious, such as LED lighting that uses far less energy than its predecessor; but the development of highly efficient chillers has also been a major step forward in our mission to create the ultimate efficient vending machine. In addition, many of our machines are equipped with a common interface designed to make life easier both for customers and operators.
It’s a sign of our Italian heritage that there’s been no compromise in our mission to deliver a quality espresso at the touch of a button!
The quality bar has been raised, too; most noticeably in the drinks a modern vending machine is capable of delivering. Our new generation of machines are equipped with brewers that can create high-quality, Italian style espresso at the touch of a button; and as espresso is the base upon which the consumer’s favourites, such as Cappuccino, Café Latte and Americano are created, they can expect a vended drink with all the characteristics of the expensive, shop-bought products that have changed the face of the High Street in recent years. It’s a sign of our Italian heritage that there’s been no compromise in our mission to deliver a quality espresso at the touch of a button! The advance of technology has been particularly evident in HoReCa machines. Indeed, we’ve introduced a range of Office Coffee Systems (OCS) and Out Of Home (OOH) table-top machines that has opened up new markets for us.
Advancing technology has improved the capabilities of vending to such an extent that a modern machine is as far removed from its forebears as man is from the apes. Even so, its impact on the industry has not been instant. ‘The process of implementing innovations is a complex one and it’s also expensive. The marketplace, particularly for free-standing vending machines, has been squeezed; and the apparent willingness of the marketplace to ‘make do and mend’, by opting to refurbishing older, less capable machines rather than invest in the latest technology, has hampered the introduction to consumers of the modern vending experience and the consequent repositioning of vending as a dynamic, efficient and desirable retail channel.
Be that as it may: I’m on the record when it comes to refurbs!
At last, though, modern machines are beginning to see the light of day and with them new opportunities emerge. Vending machines, even in the busiest locations, are only in use as product dispensers for a few hours every day. However, between vends, they are no longer that ‘dumb metal box’ in the corner, waiting for something to happen. Instead, the high quality, high definition screens incumbent in today’s generation of vending machines can be used to run video. From corporate messages and product promotions, right up to full-scale media channels capable of delivering more ‘views’ that your average TV channel, these screens are – quite literally – changing the face of vending.
I’m on the record when it comes to refurbs!
Advertising on vending machines gives brand owners a unique opportunity to address and influence consumers at point of sale. The use of vending machines screens as a selling medium is growing exponentially and it is already delivering an entirely new source of income for vending operators.
The pace of change shows no sign of slowing up going forward. Vending machines are capable of collecting important sales data, and their connectivity, their addition to the ‘Internet Of Things’, is opening up innumerable opportunities, for instance in payment methods. Already, there are machines out there that can accept payment by multiple means. Many can take bank notes, ‘Wave and Pay’; cashless payments of all kinds, in fact: consumers can now avail themselves of the payment options they’ve enjoyed for so long elsewhere in the retail sector. The days of scrabbling around in your pocket or your purse for the right change will soon be a thing of the past, and that can only be good for sales as one of the last great purchasing barriers is removed.
‘The machines that will revolutionise vending, and take the industry to the next level, are with us now
‘The machines that will revolutionise vending, and take the industry to the next level, are with us now. They need only be purchased and installed, so that they can be enjoyed by consumers and subsequently herald a new era, in which automatic retailing, via vending machines, becomes the nation’s sales channel of choice.
