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Vending Machine As A Marketing Tool

A vending machine is essentially “a coin-operated machine for selling certain kinds of merchandise and refreshments”. It is automated retail solution that, at one stroke, eliminates the need to browse through messy outlets, ensures exclusivity, extends reach, provides round-the-clock convenience and triggers impulse purchases.

Today, vending machines are operated by thousands of companies worldwide. These machines range from relatively simple to highly sophisticated ones, offering a diverse array of products, including impulse and convenience products like cigarettes, soft/cold drinks, chocolates and confectionery, newspapers and hot beverages. Other products include hosiery, cosmetics, food snacks, hot soups, paperbacks, records, T-shirts, insurance policies, fishing worms, etc.These machines are found in factories, offices, large retail stores, petrol pumps, hotels, restaurants, and many other locations. They offer customers the advantage of quick, 24-hour service and no handling by people. The convenience and ease of such non-store retail outlets make them very attractive.

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Emerging Trends in Vending in India

• Vending is a retailing format that dispenses goods – such as beverages, chocolates and snacks – and services (such as ATMs) through coin, note or card-operated machines. It does away with the need for a salesperson and enables round-the-clock sales of products.
• Machines can be placed wherever they are most convenient for consumers – inside or outside stores, in office/hotel corridors, at railway platforms/bus stations or even on high-traffic street corners.
• Vending machines are used for foods ranging from sandwiches to simple chocolates/wafers as also for hot and cold beverages. In India, local snacks like samosas, idlis, wadas, etc. have proved to be very popular.
• The greatest sales volume can be achieved in offices, school/college lunchrooms, refreshment areas, hospitals, high traffic public places and any other highly visible/popular sites.
• To improve productivity and customer relations, a lot of new innovations are being incorporated into vending machines.

Internationally, note and coin-operated vending machines have proved to be far more popular than those using cards. Innovations in technology could even see vending machines operated through mobile phones by simply sending SMS .

Automatic vending, being relatively new, still has novelty value. Thus, whenever a machine is installed at a location, customers want to use it and satisfy their curiosity. Gradually as the novelty begins to ebb, there is a small dip in usage, but people continue to use the machine for its convenience. As is typical in all countries, convenience gradually becomes a habit. Even though there is growth at this point, it is gradual. For any marketer promoting products through vending machines, the aim is always to reach the final stage as soon as possible.

Vending Machine as a marketing tool

There are several reasons to concentrate on this avenue of retailing.

Unbeatable Product Visibility The machines not only display the products but also sell them. Nowadays, customers are bombarded with a huge number of brands and options when they enter an average retail outlet. However, as far as vending machines go, brand visibility is completely exclusive. In companies across the world, the budget for purchasing vending machines is shared by the advertising department and distribution/sales.

Impulse Purchases Due to their striking visibility, automatic vending machines generate impulse purchases. The common marketing principle is at work here: the more they see, the more they buy.

Wider Distribution By placing machines at locations where its products are not normally available, manufacturers instantly create a new distribution outlet. Hygienic & Protected Storage A closed environment ensures that the product sold to a customer is always clean and undamaged.

Vehicle for Unbiased Customer Response A retailer typically promotes products that offer larger returns by influencing the customers’ buying decisions and choices. Unmanned automatic vending machines are the ideal vehicle to test the customer’s response to new products and new packaging.

Silent Salesman These machines work quietly to generate sales round the clock, 365 days a year, taking no holidays, never going on strike or leave. Eradication of Duplication & Adulteration Many leading companies face the problem of duplicates, copies and adulteration of their products. This is not only bad for their brand image; it also leads to a big loss of potential revenue. Now, for the first time customers can be absolutely sure that the product they are purchasing is genuine and not an inferior duplicate.

Enhanced Brand Image Using this sophisticated method of merchandising automatically positions the company and its brands as sophisticated and forward-minding.

Incremental Sales Vending machines have been used as an effective tool to enlarge the distribution network and increase sales.

Deeper Market Penetration This method allows companies to tap newer locations and move one step closer to the customer.

Advertising & Promotions The side panels and the top and bottom of the machine can be used for valuable point-of-sale advertising and promotions. The latest cold-drink machine designs also incorporate LCDs used in the vending machines to continuously play advertisements.

Internationally, product manufacturers use a variety of methods to install automatic vending machines:

ü  Purchase the equipment and place them in the market directly. Either the location personnel or designated operators operating for a commission on sales can replenish merchandise in the machines.

ü  Subsidize the cost of purchase for their franchisee. This involves more of a joint effort is not only finding lucrative installation sites but also conducting promotions. The franchisee receives better margins on sales as opposed to the previous arrangement.

ü  Product manufacturers offer the machines on rent to vending operators.

Factors ensuring successful vending

-identifying the vending need.

- choosing reliable equipment suppliers.

- ensuring strong service support.

-getting the strategic location of machine.

-getting the right product mix.

- ensuring strategic placement of brands in the machine.

- ensuring an efficient vending operator is required.

About the Author

how are machine language,system clock,RAM,CPUand system bus related?

Machine Language
All instructions are issued within hardware using machine language for example the binary number 0110011 could be a number, a code, a function or the result of a function.

RAM
Otherwise known as random access memory is like the workspace for your processor. Think of it like a desk, if you are sitting at a desk, the bigger it is the more pages you can put onto it, your RAM is like a desk for your processor, the more RAM you have the more stuff (applications, information) it can store there temporarily therefore, the more it can do.

CPU
The Central Processing Unit of the computer is also known as the brain or processor. This is where all the number crunching happens; depending of the architecture of your processor depends on how it computes data. The CPU knows only 2 things 1 and 0 with these 2 numbers it can process each line of programmatic code with an application, no matter what language the program is written in C++, Python, C it will be compiled into an executable format known as an executable or exe for short, this exe contains the machine language which is interpreted by the process.

System Bus
Think of the System Bus like a road to a city, the more lanes the road has the more cars that can reach the city at the one time, in this analogy the city represents the processor. The bigger the System Bus the more Machine Language instructions that can reach the processor at one time.

The System Clock
This is like the timing belt of a car; it keeps all the intricate parts working smoothly. It is important to remember that the processor can only ever perform one task at a time. EVER. The processor can use different techniques to accomplish tasks, such as the Round Robin. If the processor has 3 tasks to perform (denoted by A, B, C) it will work on A for a few nano seconds, then stop and put task A to the back of the queue then work on task B after a few seconds stop working on it and put it on the back of the process queue, and so on and so forth until everything is done. Using the System Clock it is possible for the processor to check when it has worked on a task for long enough.

Time Machine Clock

Tags: clock, design, machine clock, machine clock gauge, machine clock manufacturer, machine clock parts, machine clock speed, science, technology, time

This entry was posted on Friday, December 18th, 2009 at 7:45 am and is filed under collectibles clocks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.