We all love the ease of use that’s associated with the smartphones that we use today. It was only a few years ago that all you could do was make calls and send texts. Then along came Apple with a user-friendly touchscreen and app capability. The rest is history.
It got us thinking: why can’t we use our software development expertise to bring all of those benefits to a vending machine? So we did.
We started by developing a highly flexible touchscreen solution that enables any customer to have different machines with different touchscreen sizes, but sharing a common software platform. Your tabletop can work in exactly the same way as your floor stander. This means less development, training, and software time and cost.
Then we thought about what customers might want. The “internet of things” (IOT) is often talked about. But what does it mean and what could it do for the vending machine business?
Well, it can do a lot of things right now and potentially a lot more in the future, including many ideas that haven’t even been thought about.
So what can we offer right now?
As mentioned above, a touchscreen solution with sizes from 7” through to 40”, all sharing a common software platform for ease of use and lower costs of development. Remote reporting and telemetry for efficient inventory management; machine controllers to handle both analogue and digital worlds enabling upgrades to current machines; digital advertising; near field communication and video playback to grow new segments and sales; complete payment management including contactless and Apple pay; simple remote back office updating by your sales team, rather than your expensive software team or worse still, the supplier (often at great expense).
We also offer remote on/off, just in case your customer can’t pay. Because data is so real and updated constantly, new categories of product are possible via a vending machine—fresh food for example.
We are excited by these developments and hope you are too.
If you are interested in a demonstration of our touchscreen capabilities, please contact us at 1-877-206-5001 (US) or +44-208-133-6307 (UK).
