With the rapid advancement in technology, there have been various developments in the vending machine market. One of the main alterations is the shift in demand towards smarter, more efficient and technologically upgraded micro markets over traditional vending machines. While there are several reasons for this change, the most popular one can be the modification in food preferences. As per a report by Forbes, out of the 30,000 consumers polled online, 88% were willing to pay more for healthy food.
A report by Automatic Merchandiser also goes on to suggest that replacing traditional vending machines with modern micro markets can increase average sales upto 80%. Moreover, this results in an 18% increase in daily visits and a 4% addition to revenue growth. These trends showcase the positive mindset for micro markets and strengthen the fact that these are slowly taking up more market share from vending machines.
While there might be abundant causes leading up to this sea change, some have been discussed below.
1). Healthier Food Products – As discussed earlier, there has been a global augmentation in overall demand for healthy and nutritional food that promotes weight loss and well-being. This can be cited back to changing lifestyles and increased awareness.
Traditional vending machines usually provide packaged products and sugary soft drinks that can cause much harm. On the other hand, micro markets provide healthier options such as hot meals, cereals, salads, fruit juices and more.Hence, these are more preferred by the current, health conscious generation.
2). More Variety – As per an article by WikiVisually, a single Micro Market can easily stock between 150-400 products while a traditional vending machine can hold 40 products. Therefore, these provide more options to consumers. Additionally, the products offered by micro markets can also be customised to include specific preferences such as gluten-free, vegan and so on.
Micro markets provide a variety of storage options ranging from refrigerators, dispensers, barrels and more. This makes it easy to provide a diverse selection of products that cannot be made available through traditional vending machines.
3). Payment Options – Traditional vending machines have a coin or money slot as a payment solution to access the food items. These coin slots get stuck, leading to loss of cash.
Modern micro markets, however, can be connected with various cashless payment providers or can give access to credit card payment and net banking.This makes buying more convenient without having to care about money being stuck and ultimately lost.
4).Reduced Costs and Overheads – Micro markets have fewer defects than traditional vending machines. The non existence of coin slots helps in saving up on the maintenance costs. Besides, these come accompanied with an internet access and adequate storage space, thus minimizing additional overheads.
Furthermore, micro markets provide grab and go services, making the entire process from selection to purchase completely manless. This helps save up on labor costs.
5). Easy Inventory Control and Re-stocking – Loaded with artificial intelligence and the latest technologies, micro markets make stocking up easier. Through their smart product tracking and real-time sales analytics features, micro markets send out warnings when the inventories are running low and alert the operators . Consequently, the products are restocked on time and there is no unavailability of fast-selling items like in traditional vending machines.
6). More Transparency – As opposed to traditional vending machines, modern micro markets have products that are not stored behind a glass door. These are in fact more accessible. One can touch and feel the products while being able to check the expiry date and nutritional value. This minimises the possibility of low quality produce and helps ensure fresher items.
In traditional vending machine, since the products can be held only post payment, there are more possibilities of expired and unhealthy products owing to less transparency.
7). Interactive – Modern micro markets can track consumer preferences and suggest products. Besides, these are more spacious and make it possible to touch and feel the product while browsing through them as you walk around. All this combined makes micro markets a more interactive experience and thereby more preferable to customers. Traditional vending machines do not have the same features and hence lag behind..
All the above points are enough to substantiate the reality that modern micro markets are in fact a better choice for vending in today’s world. These are the future of vending business and will replace traditional machines in no time.
If you wish to take your business to new heights or provide your employees, students and so on something more in their break time, Ausbox provides micro markets in Australia. Our smart machines are the ultimate choice for any business.
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