Editor’s note: This article was first published in December 2012; the vending machines presented as the latest trends, such as those selling gold, caviar or lingerie, reflect the market at that time.
Vending keeps expanding. It isn’t what it used to be: the days of vending machines selling cans of soft drinks, bags of crisps, sweets and water are behind us. If we look at the latest trends in vending, we’ll see that this profitable business, which needs no shop assistants (customers serve themselves), has never stopped innovating, and now offers products that a few years ago we couldn’t have imagined being sold from a vending machine.
First of all, there is luxury vending. Some time ago, the German company TG-Gold-Super-Markt brought out the first vending machine for gold bars, offering bars in up to 6 different sizes.
A rival soon appeared on the market: the South Korean firm Hon Group, which trades in and exports jewellery and high-end costume jewellery. As well as gold bars, its machine has a touch screen where you can even enter someone’s address so that the company sends them the piece of jewellery you’ve chosen.
The gourmet food company Beverly Hills Caviar hasn’t fallen behind on innovation either: it has designed a vending machine for selling caviar in shopping centres, where you can find anything from classic caviar at 50 dollars to Beluga Imperial River caviar at 500 dollars (28 grams).
If we carry on with the tour, we’ll see how the number of vending machines supplying everyday essentials and other products for occasional emergencies has grown. We’d find everything from machines offering milk, cereal and even loaves of bread to machines selling shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes and razor blades: a whole 24-hour shop with no need for staff.
Of course, we can go even further in originality. Nobody is surprised by a condom vending machine any more; we even see them on the street next to pharmacies and in pub toilets.
We can go one better: just as condoms are available for emergencies, what if we don’t like the underwear we have on and the situation calls for us to be a bit more… sexy? There are already lingerie vending machines, with a wide range for both men and women, from the most classic lingerie to the raciest.
We keep raising the bar, because eroticism sells, so we already find the first vending machines for “erotic toys”, such as Ben Wa balls, dildos and vibrators, among other products, next to another machine with lubricants. These machines, mind you, tend to be somewhat more hidden away so as not to offend anyone’s sensibilities.
But the prize goes to the Japanese, who have found a very profitable line of vending.
As we can see, there is a huge variety of products for doing business in vending, and it wouldn’t be surprising if, at some point in the future, the first shopping centre appeared without a single shop assistant, where everything is sold through vending machines offering all kinds of products.
Featured image: User:Mattes, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
