August 13, 2018 By: Steven Anderson Most of us don’t think twice about grabbing a cold drink at a gas station cooler or the like. After all, it’s a great way to sample various beverages, and though a case at the grocery store is often the better buy, it also leaves you stuck if it turns out you don’t care for your purchase. Not surprisingly, it’s also become the focus of a new movement in mobile payments, and some retailers are already looking to bring in mobile payments systems to improve the cooler’s versatility. It’s not a surprise that this concept would emerge. After all, the interactive kiosk market is expected to grow 7.2 percent a year, every year, through 2021. Vending machines bring in around $7 billion in sales annually, and those kiosks saw $218 million in revenue back in 2016. That’s enough to get anyone interested in unattended retail, and companies like ShelfX are rushing in to fill the void with kits that effectively turn coolers into giant vending machines. Such moves can even be tied into mobile payments. For example, companies that want to roll out a new product can stock the unattended coolers with same, then notify a customer list by email or the like that the new product is available. From there, it’s a comparatively simple matter to get customers to show up at the unattended cooler containing the new product and let them take advantage of any special pricing. ShelfX is putting forth a pretty exciting idea, and one that might be able to catch on. Opening up new opportunity allows those who would already get something out of a vending machine to get even more with a wider selection available. With some proper security measures in place—mobile payments kind of acts as a security system in its own right, requiring customers to pay before they can even open the doors—this could be one of the next big things in retail. It will be exciting to see just how well this works, and everything we know about it so far suggests it will. There will likely be some bugs to work out, but vending machines of incredible variety with mobile payments access sounds pretty sharp to me.
A US company has developed a system of interactive vending machines that can be operated using mobile payments. ShelfX is offering retailers retrofitting kits for the system, which provides remote monitoring and live inventory management of stock in fridges. Customers can swipe their payment card or mobile device to gain access to products, before finalising the payment by closing the door. The interactive kiosk market is expected to grow by 7.2% a year until 2021, with the overall vending machine market already worth around $7bn per year.