Vending machines in neon-splashed Tokyo have electronic eyes that evaluate customers’ skin and wrinkles to determine whether they are old enough to buy tobacco. In bathrooms at upscale Canadian bars, vending machines with flat irons enable women to defrizz their locks. In Abu Dhabi, the lobby of a luxury hotel has a vending machine that dispenses gold bars and coins at more than $1,000 an ounce.
A new breed of vending machine is proliferating around the world — and while the United States is coming late to the party, Dr Pepper and Mike and Ike are already feeling sidelined.
Flashy and futuristic, souped-up machines are popping up everywhere, be it the Mondrian hotel in Miami or a Macy’s store in Minneapolis. They have touch screens instead of buttons, facades that glow and pulse, and technology designed to stop vending machine rage. Sensors ensure that your credit card is not charged unless the selected item has dropped. And these machines are not for quarters: purchases are measured in dollar amounts that typically start at two figures and go up.
Changing consumer preferences about shopping and the high cost of operating brick-and-mortar stores are inspiring premium brands to rethink how they hawk their wares. As Gower Smith, whose company, ZoomSystems, has created about 1,000 automated kiosks called ZoomShops, put it, “A ZoomShop costs less than an employee.”
Full story: Futuristic Vending Machines Change the Face of Retailing – NYTimes.com