Category Archives: Self-Service News

Vending Viability Through The Years

Not too long ago, I got a call from a New York Times magazine reporter. It’s not the first time the media has reached out to ask about the vending industry, but more than current trends, this reporter wanted data and the movement of the industry from…

Source: www.vendingmarketwatch.com

Micro markets have replaced vending in many large accounts. The estimates are that there are approximately 9,000 micro markets now.

The last interesting increase in the last 10 years has been the acceptance of cashless payment, or vending machines taking credit/debit cards as well as payment via smartphone. Back in 1995, only 57.6 percent of the vending machines in the U.S. accepted dollar bills (as opposed to coins). By 2000, that number was 80 percent. Cashless was added to the report in 2004, which meant that pretty much 100 percent of vending machines accepted paper money. In 2004, only 2 percent of vending machines accepted credit or debit cards (no mobile at that time). Last year, our research suggests 11 percent of vending machines now accept multiple forms of cashless payment (a number that is still far less than other retail locations).

The Future Of The Retail Customer Experience: Experts Discuss Trends And Engagement – Forbes

Do you know what robots, Abe Vigoda, and the Internet of Things have in common? They’re are all part of the future of the retail customer experience, as you’ll learn in this discussion of what’s new and/or interesting in the retail customer experience landscape. This discussion features customer experience consultants Micah Solomon (that’s me, your author) […]

Source: www.forbes.com

In-store sensing starts to give bricks and mortar a leg up on clicks and mortar.

Why vending machines could be the grocery retailing trend of the future

Made from stainless steel and hand built in northern Germany, the machines can be chilled or non-chilled. A variety of locker sizes are available, and users can set an individual price for each individual locker. There is a range of payment options – cash, debit cards, contactless cards. The machines can even give cash change if required.

Source: www.producebusinessuk.com

Drive-through stores next?

Perhaps the ultimate in retail vending styles has been proposed in Russia. Inventor Semenov Dahir Kurmanbievich has applied for a patent for a drive-through grocery supermarket. Watch his video on YouTube.


According to his patent application, the concept solves “the technical problem of improving the quality of customer service while providing maximum convenience and choice of products, reducing time to service customers, cutting the queue time and lowering the time and costs from commercial enterprises associated with the filling and layout of goods”.

He proposes a shop where consumers would drive up to an empty checkout bay, and (while remaining in their car) they reach across to a vertically rotating vending machine, operated by a button, to choose the required products.

Products would be placed on a conveyor belt and passed to the checkout operator who places them in bags. When the shopping is complete, the shopper simply drives up to the checkout, pays, takes the bags through the window and departs.

Of course, such a proposal is still very much in the planning stages – but the indications are that retail vending is definitely set to become more visible, as Dr Gaye concludes: “There are some brilliant ideas around the world. Vending is really going to come to the UK in a big way”.

Smart Safe Case Study

Smart Safe Case Study – how to protect your cash from employees.

Source: kioskindustry.org

Video case study.  The hallmark of a smart safe is the inclusion of bill validators which count and validate that the currency is in fact good. The safe will sign a date timestamp to the transaction keeping track of which employee deposited the money and when they did. Basically eliminates the opportunity for internal cash theft.

Provision Issues Letter to Shareholders

From Yahoo Finance: CHATSWORTH, Calif., Feb. 02, 2016– Provision Holding, Inc. announced today December 2015 – Provision announces installation of 200 kiosks; Further, to kick off the year, in January 2016, we announced the shipment of an additional 250 kiosks for immediate installation.

Source: finance.yahoo.com

Update letter from Curt Thornton on Provision Holding.

UPS finance chief says Amazon doesn’t worry him

United Parcel Service (UPS) reported a big earnings beat—its highest ever fourth-quarter earnings—thanks to its growth in international package delivery. Revenue, however, came in light of estimates.

Source: finance.yahoo.com

Still, one major headwind continues to be a cause for concern: Amazon (AMZN). Because of increased costs and package volume, Amazon has been transforming from UPS’s biggest consumer to its biggest competitor. In December, the Wall Street Journal reported that rising costs and package volume have sparked Amazon to develop its own delivery routes, build its own freight operation, and prepare for drone deliveries. 

Peretz denied claims of animosity between the two companies, but says he believes that UPS is the clear choice for consumers. “The Amazon relationship is mutually beneficial, and they are a valued customer to UPS,” he says. “The whole space of e-commerce is a great position for UPS because we want to become the shipper of choice. We’re adding things to the market that didn’t exist before.”

Amazon to open 100s of physical bookstores: DJ

Amazon is planning to open hundreds of physical bookstores, according to a large mall CEO who spoke to Dow Jones.

Source: www.cnbc.com

Amazon is gearing up to expand the brick-and-mortar bookstore concept it launched in Seattle last year to as many as 400 locations, General Growth Properties CEO Sandeep Mathrani said Tuesday. Rivals Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million operate 640 and 255 stores, respectively. Amazon’s Seattle store sells Amazon’s Kindle and Fire devices, as well as about 5,000 print titles. CNBC(2/2), The Wall Street Journal (tiered subscription model) 

2016 Retail & E-Commerce Predictions You Haven’t Heard From Everyone Else

My industry colleague, Seth Berman, and I co-authored this post to put a different spin on the 2016 predictions we’ve enjoyed from others in the community. Please let us know your thoughts in the

Source: www.linkedin.com

  1. Brands will come closer to just-in-time manufacturing. Innovation here will happen for two primary reasons. First, retailers currently are being burned – again – by carrying excess inventory. They need to find new ways of doing business and will put more pressure on brands not to ship them merchandise until demand for it is clear. Brands, too, have been hurt by having manufactured more more units than they could sell. For their part, investors have shown strong preference for marketplace startups that carry no inventory and have healthy margins over e-commerce startups with inventory and lower margins. The companies that solve this problem can win on their own and with retailers. A good example of a company delivering made-on-demand product is Shoes of Prey. And Nordstrom’srecent investment in this company reinforces the retailer/brand dynamic we’re describing. Second, the consumer increasingly will expect endless options and the ability to get exactly what s/he wants. Redbubble, Seth’s company, is an example of a marketplace capitalizing on these trends with 15 million designs from independent artists printed as ordered on more than 40 products. Greater speed and customization will come through end-to-end creativity in the traditional supply chain, as well as in the form of 3D printing.
  2. Stores will continue to dabble with consumer-facing technology. Many retailers have introduced a “magic” mirror, photo booth or interactive screen. The story goes something like this: Retailer and vendor distribute press releases headlining the installation, we later discover the technology is in only one or a handful of a chain’s many stores and go seek it out, we see the technology isn’t working or isn’t being used, we don’t hear much about it again and, in some cases, it’s not in the store on our next visit or is never rolled out to additional locations. The underlying problem is that while the one-time press hit is nice and the curiosity-driven traffic bump may linger, these devices aren’t steadily increasing conversion to purchase. We’re excited about the prospect of in-store technology evolving to a need-to-have from just a nice-to-have and expect to see a lot of trial-and-error along the way.
  3. Facebook will challenge Google’s dominance in retail advertising. Google Shopping ads (also known as Product Listing Ads) have become the primary paid customer acquisition channel for retail advertisers in recent years. And search still dominates over social when it comes to e-commerce revenue by channel. In response, Facebook releasedDynamic Product Ads in February, 2015. Facebook Dynamic Product Ads retarget site visitors by showing products the shopper has viewed and other products from the retailer’s catalog that Facebook recommends. Facebook’s speed of innovation in this area is impressive, and 2015 saw retailers shifting budgets from web display, retargeting channels and television to Facebook. While we see plenty of room for growth in retail ad spend with both Google and Facebook, in 2016 Facebook will become a much more meaningful source of revenue for retailers.
  4. A bifurcation of mobile beacons/geolocation will emerge. Stores that are large enough and have high enough purchase frequency can sustain their own beacon programs. Target’s offering has been lauded, rightly so, and we’re optimistic about Kroger’s strategy. The key, in addition to above-average visits per customer and length of visits, is both of these apps are more about optimizing customers’ experience with the brand and in the store than they are about driving traffic to the store. More retailers in this category will invest in ways similar to what Target and Kroger have done. But for retailers who want to acquire store traffic, they’ll realize the need to seek a network effect and partner with publishers and/or beacon platforms. An strong example of this when ELLE pushed out its editorial product picks on both ShopAdvisor’s and RetailMeNot’s apps; when approaching featured stores, customers received notifications and discount offers that enticed them to visit.
  5. Pinterest Buyable Pins gain traction. Unlike social networks that were earlier to the advertising and commerce games, Pinterest users have long engaged on its platform with the intent to purchase. Separate from Promoted Pins, we think the ability of Buyable Pins to link inspiration to transaction will be embraced by Pinterest users and an increasing number of commercial pinners. Given that Buyable Pins have initially been offered at no cost to retailers, it remains to be seen whether the feature will help Pinterest increase monetization overall.
  6. Retailers and consumers will adopt messaging for shopping and service. Everlane and Zulily were the first to start using Facebook Messenger as an order status communication and customer service tool. More recently, Facebook and Uber announced that users can request an Uber inside Messenger, and these so-called chat bots seem to be getting the most attention from Facebook. With the proliferation of chat commerce in Asia, and the battle for a new mobile interaction model in the U.S., we expect more U.S. retailers and e-commerce players to move aggressively into messaging commerce in 2016.

A special thanks to Netta Kivilis at Custora for introducing Seth and me last year, and to Scott Silverman for hosting the Grow.co event where we connected in person.

Retail Automation – 5 Retail Innovation Traps To Avoid

Excelling in today’s redefined retail industry means putting equal weight on avoiding problems and finding solutions.

Source: www.innovativeretailtechnologies.com

  1. Adding Tech For Tech’s Sake
    Just because augmented reality, or robotics, or drones, or lasers and smoke-machines are hyped doesn’t mean they add value to your customer experience. Always ask yourself the question: What customer pain point does this solve?
  2. Failing To Get Store Associates On Board
    If the store associates don’t love it, then it will fail.
  3. Failing To Align Organizational Owners
    Easier said than done, but it’s vital that everyone on your retail innovation project team works towards a shared vision of success. It can’t just be the digital team. It’s got to be store operations, and merchandising, and IT, and more.
  4. Forgetting About The Basics, Like Infrastructure
    One example is connectivity, where everything from network configuration and firewalls to quality of Wi-Fi can make or break your solution.
  5. Limiting Investments Of Time And Focus Beyond V1
    Phew! You’ve finally launched your tech! It was tough. Securing budget, assembling a team, creating a steering committee, validating, customer-testing, piloting — it feels like you could have started an entire business in the real world. Well, remember this is the beginning. Launch is exciting but you have to treat your in-store tech like a first version.
Easier said than done, but it’s vital that everyone on your retail innovation project team works towards a shared vision of success. It can’t just be the digital team.

Are some of these super-obvious? Oh yeah. But almost all of these common points of failure tend to be forgotten when in the thick of developing a project. So, hold to your principles.

Should the US change metal coins?

According to a report this week from watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office, since 2006 the prices of metals used in coins have risen so much that the total production unit costs of the penny and nickel exceed their face value resulting in financial losses to the U.S. Mint. In fact such a change could potentially save between $8 million and $39 million per year by changing the metal composition of the nickel, dime, and quarter.

Source: www.networkworld.com

There are other issues in making such coin changes. The GAO said that associations representing selected industries that use coin acceptance machines estimated a cost impact ranging from $2.4 billion to $10 billion to modify an estimated 22-million coin machines, such as vending machines, to accommodate steel-based coins. According to these associations, these costs would be incurred because coin machines would require modifications to accept new coins while continuing to accept current coins.

The GAO also noted these estimates may be overstated for several reasons. For example, the vending industry assumed 7-million vending machines would require modification, but a 2015 industry study estimated that there are 4.5-million vending machines in the United States. Second, the cost estimates assumed steel changes to all coins, but the U.S. Mint has determined it is not viable to change the quarter. Therefore, machines that only accept quarters (such as coin laundry machines) would not require modification. However, any change in coin composition that requires changes to coin acceptance machines will result in some industry costs.

Can the American department store be saved? 10 retail experts weigh in

Retail industry news, voices and jobs. Optimized for your mobile phone.

Source: www.retaildive.com

In an effort to revitalize their stores and appeal to younger consumers who are spending more on experiences over hard goods, U.S. department stores are investing millions of dollars into luxe renovations and souped-up in-store experiences.

Macy’s just unveiled a millennials-focused basement, filled with selfie stations and popular teenage apparel brands, while Bergdorf Goodman recently opened a swanky revamp of its jewelry floor. A recent article in Business of Fashion summarized some of the motivation behind these moves: It’s a plan to “bring back the magic to businesses built on nostalgia.”

The question is, will these makeovers be enough?

RetailWire, an online retail discussion forum, asked its BrainTrust panel of retail experts the following questions:

  • How important a role should nostalgia play in reviving the department store format?
  • Is there a department store operator inside or outside the U.S. that you think has the best handle on what it will take to succeed in both the present and the future?

Here are 10 of the best comments from that discussion. Comments have been edited by Retail Dive for content and length.

Zipdrug, CityMD team on Rx delivery kiosks

Patients at CityMD urgent care locations will be able to use new Zipdrug kiosks to order delivery of their prescription.

Source: www.drugstorenews.com

With the new kiosks, patients at CityMD’s locations — beginning with the one in Manhattan’s Murray Hill — will be able to order medication delivery from any pharmacy after seeing a doctor. The medication will be picked up by a Zipdrug messenger and delivered to the patient’s preferred location. Patients can also track their delivery live in the Zipdrug app. 
 
“We are thrilled about this partnership and having the chance to work with the region’s biggest and most successful urgent care group,” Zipdrug CEO and co-founder Stu Libby — who Drug Store News interviewed in 2015 — said. “CityMD’s mission to deliver kindness in the form of a seamless healthcare experience mirrors ours at Zipdrug — we’re a great fit. Zipdrug’s service will help CityMD patients get the most out of each urgent care visit, enabling them to get back to their busy lives without having to make the potentially long stop at the pharmacy.”
 
For CityMD, the partnership is a way for them to further its mission of offering convenient care for patients. 
 
“By teaming up with Zipdrug we can now deliver even more convenient, quality care,” CityMD founder and CEO Dr. Richard Park said. “Zipdrug allows patients to spend more time in the comfort of their homes while they are sick instead of at the pharmacy. We are always looking for innovations that enable us to treat our patients better.”

AVT Goes After Crane Vending Merchant Six

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 5, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — AVT Provides Head-to-Head Comparison of the MultiShopper to the Crane Vending Merchant Six. Technology and…

Source: www.prnewswire.com

AVT PR listing out difference in vending machine automation with Crane.  Worth taking a look at the two companies as well.  AVT has struggled of late.

Retail Kiosk

Retail kiosks such as Sephora, AT&T, Sprint, Marks & Spencer, Macy’s and more. Retail kiosks strengthen customer relationship and get new customers.

Source: kioskindustry.org

Updated retail kiosk section of kioskindustry.org