Specialty Vending Archives

12th September 2023

Why You Should Add Vending to Your Family Entertainment Center

Why You Should Add Vending to Your Family Entertainment Center https://gadvending.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/vending-specialty-iii.png 988 675 GAD Vending GAD Vending https://gadvending.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/vending-specialty-iii.png 12th September 2023 25th July 2023

WE’VE REIMAGINGED CONVIENENCE SO YOU CAN IMAGE SUCCESS

Adding arcade games to a bowling alley or skating rink has been profitable must for several years. But flying under the radar is vending, especially in our current economic and social environment. Family Entertainment Centers of any type can increase profits and improve customer experience without a massive investment through unattended drink and snack vending machines.

Vending machines provide convenient snacks and beverages that customers can easily purchase; there’s no need to staff an entire kitchen or even keep your snack bar open the entire time the your business is open. Vending machines can replace staff time during slow times and provide quick drinks or snacks during busy times.

Here are some ways vending machines can serve you, your customers, and even employees.

Improve Customer Satisfaction During Labor Shortages

Labor shortages mean longer wait times for often irate customers and keep them from playing more games. While this doesn’t solve labor problems, vending machines can give customers snack and drink options without adding staff. In addition, as you and your team attend to other, immediate customer needs, a vending machine quietly offers customer support 24/7.

Extra Revenue Without Overhead

According to industry reports, the average vending machine earns $75 weekly. However, well-stocked machines in high-traffic areas can make over $500 monthly. So, no matter where your vending machine falls on that range, that’s extra profits.

You can devote that money to employee appreciation, office supplies, prizes, or anything else to improve your day-to-day operations. Vending machines are sources of extra income that don’t require training or time off and are always on time.

Inventory Control

Vending machines can come with automated apps to help you with stocking, money acceptance issues and sales reports. This helps you keep your machine stocked. You know what products are selling so you can keep ahead of demand. Buy products in bulk, save money, and easily track expenses with quick runs to Costco, BJ’s, or even Amazon deliveries.

Diverse Options

Modern vending machines can be configured to deliver many different options. Whether you are looking to split a machine up with candy, drinks and food options. Or be a healthy alternative vending machines.

Why not sell branded socks at your skating rink? How about driving gloves at your go kart rink?

Provide delicious hot drinks in the winter or in a cold skating rink. Invest in a coffee vending machine with hot chocolate, fresh ground coffee, and espresso drinks options.

Don’t forget the parents that are hanging around for their kids. Make sure the quick items they’re tempted to run out for are fully stocked. Like charging cables, headphones and pain relief. Stock up with convenience store items like feminine products and office products.

Your imagination is the limit to what you can sell in a vending machine. All unattended.

Consider Investing in Two Vending Machines to Start

Most vending machine buyers start by getting one for beverages and one for snacks. While many machines offer enough space for both, specialty vending machines can be paired together for maximum dispensing and earning potential.

Soft Drink Vending Machines

Drink machines have evolved over the years to offer all sorts of beverages. New technologies also provide suggestive selling, digital advertising, and touchless purchasing. Offer water, energy drinks, coffee beverages, soda, and more.

Snack Vending Machines

Snacks are great for grab-and-go locations, whether sugary treats, chips, or healthy options; snack machines are a moneymaker that allows you and your staff to focus on other parts of the customer experience.

With all the types of payment options out there, keep in mind that machines can accept: Cash, Credit Cards, NFC capable of tap and go, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and more. In addition, some vending units allow custom skins for either branding or additional signage. For example, do you want to clarify that the beverage machine carries water? Why not let us customize it with a Water sign across the top? Want to extend your brand presence throughout a facility? We can put your logo on the units with any messaging you need.

Trust GAD for Your Vending Machine Needs

If a vending machine sounds perfect for your business, GAD offers a wide range of vending machines, vending machine parts, and technical services. As a family-owned business with sales offices nationwide, we’re here to meet all your vending needs.

Our staff comes to the table with over 100 years of industry experience and will work with you to ensure you have the right product for your location and optimized for profits.

6th July 2023

Reimagine Kiosks

Reimagine Kiosks https://gadvending.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/vending-specialty-iii.png 988 675 GAD Vending GAD Vending https://gadvending.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/vending-specialty-iii.png 6th July 2023 19th June 2023

Reimagine Self Service Ordering and Payment

If it’s easy, convenient and stream line, customers and employees have learned to take care of it themselves. Sometimes a kiosk replaces a long line for ordering. A kiosk can also be places to receive payments like utilities. A kiosk can provide an immersive experience. A kiosk can be an employee portal to buying from the company store, ordering from the cafeteria, or becoming immersed in more about the company they work for with timely messaging.

Reimagine a totally seamless ordering experience where your customers’ have the time, freedom and flexibility to explore the menu, add to cart, and check out all without waiting in line, making small talk or trying to read a menu and make up their mind at the same time. Make this fantasy a reality when you engage GAD to help you achieve your self service plan.

Capitalize on reducing staff. Helping your customer with a more immersive experience then they may get on their phone. Add flexibility and service without adding employees.

26th May 2023

Reimagine Vending Coffee

Reimagine Vending Coffee https://gadvending.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/vending-specialty-iii.png 988 675 GAD Vending GAD Vending https://gadvending.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/vending-specialty-iii.png 26th May 2023 11th May 2023

Reimage Changing Your Brand Loyalty in 6 Square Feet

It’s hard to compete with Big Coffee when they have a shop on every street corner and a box on every grocery store shelf, but it doesn’t have to
be. Instead, colonize the corner of every car dealership, bakery, gym, and daycare drop off with custom, bean grinding coffee machines. Your brew is there to earn new loyalists whenever, wherever they feel the urge for caffeine. Our COTI customizable self-service coffee machine lets you design your
experience. When your customers want a cup of coffee, you’ll be the first brand they see.

Gone are the days of instant coffee. If you think self-service can’t offer a premium selection, luxury experience and high-end taste, think again. We
build and fill per your requirements. Want to offer specialty drinks? Want to have a coffee plus other hot beverages? Want the fresh ground bean experience? Just tell us what you want.

If you’re ready to promote your brand, open new revenue streams, and keep your propriety blends top of mind and palate for everyone, talk to us.

23rd May 2023

Reimagine Vending

Reimagine Vending https://gadvending.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/vending-specialty-iii.png 988 675 GAD Vending GAD Vending https://gadvending.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/vending-specialty-iii.png 23rd May 2023 11th May 2023

Coming out of COVID there are new business facts many are struggling with – and reimagining vending can jump in to help your bottom line.

Is your business positioned to make a sale at the exact right moment, 24/7? Are your products were your customers are? Would eliminating staff help your overall business? Take a moment and brainstorm new solutions.

Sell at the Airport

What a better place to find specialty customers that are in a hurry and will spend at a premium to get what they want when they want it.

This goes for a variety of food options, drinks, and specialty items like beauty and electronics. And, GAD can help you customize your vending machine to enhance your brand vision.

If you are a manufacturer or importer, this is an excellent place to seek new end users and bring in a new revenue stream with minimal efforts.

And, with a vending machine, you limit theft, employee costs and can automate payment processing to reduce cash.

Sell at a Festival

It takes a tremendous amount of capital investment to promote a concert, festival or outdoor event. To become a long term business, it takes keeping the immediate gratification of event goers happy.

Most events only consider food trucks – which is a great idea but sometimes they have issues from not enough food to too long cook times to breaks in the music can cause very long wait times (drags down the entire vibe). If you are looking to speed up service to your event goers and increase your profits, vending can supplement your food service.

Add vending machines with snacks, healthy food options or quick meals. Vending machines can be there to dispense quick comfort items like sunscreen, breath aides, hand sanitizer and other beauty items. A vending machine can also dispense liquids. Even alcohol if you have necessary restrictions already in place.

Sell at a School

Middle and High schools are excellent locations for vending machines.

A specialty vending machine can be stocked with all types of student supplies like folders, calculators, pens and paper. And, most students have phones so they can pay without having to bring extra money to school. Vending machines can be specially outfitted to replace a school store. Consider stocking with school colors, branded t-shirts and any specialty items for game day.

This is an excellent idea for PTA’s or student organizations to raise money. It can be used as a learning tool for the business class as it can teach inventory, cost of goods, accounting and marketing.

Sell at a Swimming Pool

What’s better in the summer than a swimming pool? But that can be easily changed to a nightmare when you forget the sunscreen.

A swimming pool – neighborhood, city park or hotel pool can be a great place for a specialty vending machine stocked not just with sunscreen but googles, water wings, absorbent towels and so much more.

The best part is, this frees up staff to be invested in safety instead of selling something.

Sell at the Gym

What does everyone need a the gym? Sell it in a vending machine!

Vending goes so far beyond just selling healthy foods and drinks from a vending machines. Try loading with….

Head phones.
Chargers.
Specialty lifting gloves.
Microfiber towels.
Specialty phone armbands.
After workout muscle pain remedies.

Looking for more inspiration? Try the QR code below. Call GAD and we can help.

26th October 2021

3 Ways Vending Is Providing Safer Retail – The Social Distancing Hero

3 Ways Vending Is Providing Safer Retail – The Social Distancing Hero https://gadvending.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/TOUCHLESS-i-.png 372 254 GAD Vending GAD Vending https://gadvending.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/TOUCHLESS-i-.png 26th October 2021 26th October 2021

From our partners at CPI Crane’s Cashless Solutions Division: You might be surprised to learn that the history of the vending machine goes back to first-century Roman Egypt, where Hero of Alexandria engineered a machine that accepted a coin and dispensed holy water. In modern times we’ve seen vending machines offer everything from postcards and stamps to candy, gum and cigarettes. Their popularity as beverage dispensers came with refrigeration and heating elements – and today we see an astounding array of products sold from vending machines. Making your way to the gate at an international airport you might pick up an iPad, a SIM card for your phone, a down jacket, a warm hamburger, and an aspirin – plus a cold bottle of water to help you swallow it!

Responding to the social distancing imperative presents multiple challenges for retail environments. We’ve seen limits on the number of people allowed into supermarkets, one-way aisles, distance markers at the checkout, food bars emptied, cafés and breakrooms closed, and Plexiglass shields erected around store personnel. These and other efforts by retailers to keep customers and staff safe and limit exposure are appreciated by all. But ideally, customers could shop for their essential items without interacting with a cashier or even going into a store. And retailers can make the ideal, real, with vending machines.

How can operators use their machines—the ultimate unattended retail model—to serve to the needs of social distancing? Read below to see how 3 retailers have already adapted.

The Meat Guy Who Was Ahead of the Social Distance Curve

The owner of Applestone Meats was ready for social distancing years before the pandemic brought the concept into the mainstream. Wanting to serve customers without a retail counter-service location, Joshua Applestone remembered the coin-operated machines once used in cafeteria-style restaurants in New York and Pennsylvania. Applestone searched for and found Crane Merchandising’s refrigerated delivery system, The Shopper, which allowed his customers to pull meat packages directly from their container. And to be ready for card acceptance, he added the 4-in-1 Plus cashless reader.

Applestone customers liked the convenient delivery method well enough before, but after the pandemic? “We thought society might take a while to warm up to the machines,” says Applestone, “but for the situation we’re all in [now], they’re the perfect solution.”

From Healthy Snacks to PPE Provider

Healzzy2GO, a Netherlands-based vending company, believes that snacking should be accessible, fun, and most importantly, healthy. With the challenges of staying safe in a global pandemic, “healthy options” takes on new meaning. Healzzy2GO decided to make personal protective equipment (PPE) as accessible to their customers as healthy snacks. They worked with Crane Merchandising Systems to adapt their vending machines to dispense facemasks, hand sanitizer, gloves, and other personal equipment. Custom graphics and media were placed on the machines to educate consumers about the product offering.

The first Healzzy2GO PPE machine debuted in May, providing shoppers at the Alexandrium Shopping Center in Rotterdam and Hoog Catharijne in Utrecht the protection they need to shop safely.

The Healthy Machine Serving Frontline Workers

Farmer’s Fridge, a New York-based vending startup, gained popularity by providing vend patrons with healthy options like salads in plastic jars and fresh wraps, instead of the usual candy and soda. When offices closed due to COVID-19, many Farmer’s fridge locations saw a precipitous drop in usage. But, as they say, when a door closes a window opens, and in this case, it was true. Farmer’s Fridge saw a surge in usage in hospital settings – where cafeterias were shut down to limit spread of the virus. To meet the demand, Farmer’s Fridge added over 18 machines to locations that included Northwestern Memorial Hospital, New York Presbyterian and the Javits Center field hospital. Farmer’s Fridge also supported the efforts of front-line workers by adding more than 60 mini fridges that served complimentary meals in hospital break rooms.

Vending machines are typically a last resort for healthcare workers, but due to their value proposition of removing the roadblocks to eating wholesome, delicious food, Farmer’s Fridge is now serving fresh meals to over 30,000 workers per week at hospitals across the U.S. One surgeon at UChicago tweeted: “Thank you @FarmersFridge for keeping the trauma/ICU team fed during #COVID19.”

Vending Moving Forward

How does an industry so firmly rooted in serving sweet treats and soft drinks recreate its persona as the hero of a pandemic? “The Convenience Services Industry is uniquely equipped to assist the nation in this time of crisis,” writes Carla Balakgie, president and CEO of the National Automatic Merchandising Association, in a letter to the White House and U.S. Congress. Balakgie cited the unique distribution system of unattended retail as “the greatest source of ‘contactless’ nourishment” for healthcare workers. In other words, the machine invented by a man called Hero can now live up to that name.

Are you ready to adapt your machine to serve the needs for health and safety in these times of crisis? Ask a member of our GAD Vending team how you can make seamless and safe payment a part of your post pandemic vending strategy.

18th July 2020

Introducing The U-Select-It Sani-Center PPE Merchandiser

Introducing The U-Select-It Sani-Center PPE Merchandiser https://gadvending.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/cleaning-vending-ii-scaled.jpeg 2560 1707 GAD Vending GAD Vending https://gadvending.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/cleaning-vending-ii-scaled.jpeg 18th July 2020 2nd July 2020

Getting expensive to provide PPE to customers and staff? Want to give people a quick and easy way to get their own PPE? The Sani-Center PPE Vending Machine provides easy access to personal protective equipment (PPE) and safety supplies via a contactless payment experience.

U-Select-It is pleased to introduce the Sani-Center PPE Merchandiser. The Sani-Center PPE Merchandiser is specially designed to provide personal protective equipment (PPE), medical supplies, and disinfecting supplies safely and easily to consumers.

With social distancing being the new norm, consumers are encouraged to reduce the amount of face-to-face interaction. In addition, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), contaminated surfaces and objects including dollar bills and coins present a potential transmission risk for some infectious diseases.

The Sani-Center PPE Merchandiser allows consumers to access the essential PPE and safety products they need through a contactless payment experience and without having to wait in a checkout line or interact with a cashier.

The Sani-Center PPE Merchandiser allows consumers to pay for products with credit cards, debit cards or a mobile wallet such as Apple Pay and Google Pay that utilize near-field communication (NFC). With NFC, consumers simply tap their phone to a compatible device and the transaction is complete. The SaniCenter PPE Merchandiser is also equipped with PayRange, a mobile payment platform. Utilizing Bluetooth via a mobile phone, PayRange offers consumers yet another contactless payment option.

“The Sani-Center is designed to suit the practical needs of operators’ clients and is just another example of USI’s mission to deliver valuable merchandising solutions,” said James Chico, USI Vice President of Global Sales.

Available in two sizes, the Sani-Center PPE Merchandiser features up to 25 selections in a small footprint, ideal for space-restricted locations. While the larger Sani-Center Plus PPE Merchandiser features up to 36 selections, and provides maximum product versatility and capacity. Both models feature configurable flex trays, allowing products of various shapes and sizes to be purchased including small disinfectant spray bottles, travel sized hand sanitizers, medical face masks, sanitizing wipes latex gloves, kleenex, band aids, and other PPE supplies

Learn more about Sani-Center PPE Merchandiser from U-Select-It, contact GAD Vending for more information. (402) 553-2812