5 major reasons smart vending machines are trending

Vending machines aren’t the first thing to come to mind when thinking about advancements in commerce, but they soon could be.

The rise of smart vending machines have already taken over many parts of the world (you’ll know this to be true if you’re living in or have visited blossoming metropolises such as Tokyo and Seoul), and considering the cost/benefit to merchants, that rise is set to continue.

So if you are thinking about investing in a vending machine business, here are five major reasons why smart vending machines will certainly lead to massive success for many.

1. Smart vending machines speed up BOPIS

One of the most valuable new options merchants and customers have been afforded thanks to the internet and global economic is buy online, pickup in store (BOPIS). These options gives customers the ability to the avoid the hassle of heading to a store only to find that their desired item is out of stock.  Even better than BOPIS, is BOPIT, buy online, pickup in tower. These vending towers allow people to quickly and easily order and purchase the items they need with a few pushes of a smart screen.

2. Last-mile delivery can be accelerated

Last-mile delivery is one of the many battlegrounds of commerce and e-commerce and using vending machines to accelerate that is certainly a way of the future. With vending machines, you can minimize delivery costs and accelerate last-mile delivery by encouraging your customers to pick up their items in a nearby smart vending machine.

3. It can be easier and cheaper to distribute your goods

Having a vending machine that sells your products and merchandise can be a whole lot cheaper than opening a brick-and-mortar storefront. It can also be cheaper and cause more buzz than opening a pop-up shop.

You’ve probably already seen how effective smart vending machines can be in busy places like international airports. If you need a charger, new headphones, a clean shirt, or even something more expensive like a new tablet, you can buy it in a vending machine. Maintaining these machines cost much cheaper than opening a store and hiring people to sell.

4. Pop-up potential and promotions

Speaking of pop-ups, it’s valuable to mention how much buzz a new and exciting vending machine can create. They’re futuristic looking, they’re fun, and they can attract people to shopping from them on mere excitement alone.

Many well-known brands such as LuluLemon, Uniqlo, Adidas and Asics have all used the promotional value of vending machines and they proved to be quite effective.

You could capture the same promotional advantage over your competitors by jumping into the future and utilizing the tools and benefits that vending machines have to offer.

5. Image recognition can help you better understand your customers

In this day and age, one of the prime ways to succeed in business is to know as much as you possibly can when it comes to your customers. While this is not yet the norm, some brands – such as China’s massive Alibaba – have sought to use facial recognition to learn more and help their customers.

Not only do some of their vending machines allow regular merchants to “pay by face,” image recognition can also be used to tell merchants about the age, gender and more about their customers. That can help them better stock smart vending machines in the future.