Can you do promotions with vending machines? | Vending Expert Series Ep. 9
Smartven started a new form of informative series on vending machines titled Vending Expert Series. The series with more or less 2-minutes long will be in the format of asking questions to the vending machine expert, and hopefully can help people understand better about vending machines in a less text-book way. Previously we have learned how much it cost to start a vending machine business. This ninth episode will cover the question of “can you do promotions with vending machines?”. Let’s take a look.
An ode to consumptive behaviour
With a fast-paced lifestyle, people tend to choose to buy things as they go and they see what fits right into their pockets. Yes, we are here to talk about how promotions affect the way people make transactions. We can see that from anywhere. From offline stores like supermarkets, minimarts or any traditional vendors to online stores like marketplaces, most products look desirable when they have the word ‘promotion’ linked to them. Maybe the buy 1 get 1 promotion, maybe the flash sale, maybe the membership systems that give people more advantages during their purchases. This is also mentioned by the report from Shopify’s Future of Commerce, 52% of consumers are directly influenced by any promotions offered. But as far as ‘fast-paced lifestyle’ can get, selling with vending machines is one way to try. Then we get into thinking: is it even possible to have promotions with a vending machine?
Can you do promotions with vending machines?
Generally, in offline stores the promotion is done through the traditional way with sticking attributes such as posters, window stickers, and so on. In shopping malls these sale seasons can have longer durations, say in 3 weeks or more. It can be applied to vending machines, you can just stick some alluring stickers with the word sale on it. But what if we only want to give discounts only for a short time? Maybe sometime like during the lunch hours or happy hours, which will not exceed two hours. It may take a while to return back and forth to do the discounts in the traditional way. Seems counterproductive, doesn’t it?
In this digital era, Smartven brings an idea to the smart vending machines, features where promotion systems can be applied. With the already available Cloud Management System, the promotions can be switched on and off simultaneously only through the dashboard website. There are two types of promotion that can be chosen, one involving time-related discounts, the other involving the shelf-life of the products.
Flash sale & one time promo
Back with a short duration of discount. Flash sale can be applied in this matter. During lunch hours maybe the price of the bottled water in the vending machine can be on half price for two hours. Then after the designated time is over, the price is back to normal. No need to come to the machine. If it is decided to make only one particular product on sale, then it is where One Time Promo takes in. However, it can be related to a particular as well. Maybe something like on Sunday mornings the isotonic drinks are on sale for the weekend joggers and bikers. Both Flash Sale and One Time Promo can be accessed remotely via the mentioned dashboard website.
Shelf life system
When we sell products with short shelf-life in vending machines, it may stake the chances of customers purchasing a product that has already gone bad. Even worse, the unwanted products will go to waste, which is quite unsustainable. In order to avoid such problems, sellers usually put their almost expired products on sale, hoping the cheaper prices will appeal to customers and no products are wasted. The same idea can now be applied to vending machines by inputting the expiry dates of each product.
Namely the shelf life promotional campaign system from Smartven, this feature will not allow the customers to buy already expired products. As an example, freshly pressed juice can only last for 3-5 days. On the third day it is in the vending machine, the juice will automatically show half price. Within the fifth day, the juice can no longer be of option when a customer browses the vending machine. On the dashboard, each expiry date of the products can be managed. With this feature, we hope no more products go to waste and no more complaints from customers who bought expired products.
The weekly series will cover more interesting topics about vending machines, so make sure to check the video on Smartven’s YouTube channel, and give it a thumbs up, comment, subscribe and share the video! You can always check our website and Instagram page for more information. Stay healthy and see you in the next episode!
English translation by: Nadhiya Pradhanitasari
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