Contents of Automatic Merchandiser - APR 2012

Automatic Merchandiser serves the business management, marketing, technology and product information needs of its readers including vending operators, coffee service operators, product brokers, and product and equipment distributors in print.

Page 31 of 47

C O VE R ST O R Y :
S M A R T VE N D I N G A new defi nition By Paresh Patel, Contributing Editor F 30
Smart vending: a progressive operator explains what it means and what operators must do to make it happen
or the past 20 years, much of the development in the vend- ing industry has been focused
on improving back-end effi cien- cies such as vending management software (VMS), DEX, telemetry, pre-kitting, pick-to-light, and dynamic scheduling. Over the next 10 years, the industry will focus on increasing sales through creating rich, engag- ing user experiences, and allowing various payment options. It will be less about the back-of-house opera- tions as it will be about what the consumer faces — the front side. This will be a very big shift
in the way operators think about their companies. But for this to happen, vending operators need to change the way they think about technology. There is a lot of tech- nology investment taking place today. This is good, but most of it focuses on operations as opposed to improving sales.
My purpose in writing this article is to make the case for using technology primarily for the purpose of improving sales. I don't think anyone would argue with me
that improving sales is important for the fi nancial health of our trade. The key to improving sales lies in improving consumers' experiences.
Consider the consumer's experience Consumers have become far too experienced with technology over the past 10 years to continue accepting user interfaces that require them to insert a dollar bill, have it rejected three times, straighten it up, reinsert a couple more times, and when fi nally accepted, try to remember which selec- tion was
Cashless
needed, then press A-1 on the keypad. Oh,
and if their chips get stuck, the consumer has to shake or kick the machine, or go without. Consumers have gotten
much more sophisticated over the past 20 years and have become accustomed to new experiences. It is not about the technology itself, but rather how the technology improves our experience.
Automatic Merchandiser VendingMarketWatch.com April 2012 Nutrition Display SMART VENDING