KioskCom Europe opened its doors on Wednesday 7th November at London Olympia to reveal all aspects of the self-service industry. I can hear you thinking “but Vending is itself a self service industry” and you are right, the synergy between a vending machine and a kiosk is growing stronger by the day.
To reinforce these thoughts at this year’s show both the EVA and the AVA took a stand to highlight their services to this industry. Catherine Piana from the EVA was a guest speaker at the KioskCom Europe seminars and she explained the benefits that the Association can offer to members by having a voice in Brussels.
Whilst l found nothing new in the technology, l did see some vending companies looking to forge links with Kiosk manufacturers and l also saw some rather interesting equipment that would offer Vending operators/manufacturers the opportunity to earn extra revenues.
The vending machine has traditionally taken money from customers – what if it were to dispense money to customers instead? There would be no excuse for not having sufficient cash to purchase – that in itself would increase merchandise sales. The facility to dispense cash would increase sales plus offer a huge profit ratio to the operator: with a minimum £1.75 charge for cash withdrawals, one such machine would give a return on investment after the first month with a minimum level of vends.
Telemetry is a growing business and much in use with kiosks as vending machines; data collection will enable all to keep abreast of their business, sales, products etc.
With a new wave of kiosks coming through, offering DVD rental, ticketing, music, game downloads and films transferred to USBs, this touchy-feely interactive side of our business is colourful and eye catching with advertisement displays and our colleagues in the States are generations ahead!
The winner of the ‘Superstar Deployments Poll’ run by Selfserviceworld.com was a low budget DVD rental machine from Redbox, two runners up were Kodak and Fujifilm for their film processing centres. Another runner up was Coinstar Limited’s Coins To Cash machine which is a highly lucrative facility offering coin conversion for a commission charge, either to notes or, if the customer prefers, a loyalty card. A group of major retailers have partnership with this company to produce the loyalty cards. With commissions taken on average at 8% and the fact that 30% people don’t actually cash in their loyalty card this can be very lucrative indeed!
In a quick changing market KioskCom is definitely a show not to miss. Speaking with a leading operator who was visiting the show we both agreed the opportunity is there to diversify the business and plug the leakage we are currently seeing in the traditional vending machine market.
Over 71% of the 2007 floorspace has already been rebooked for next year’s show scheduled for 1-2 October 2008 so make a note in your diary now – this is an exhibition that should not be missed.
For further exhibitor/visitor information please contact Phil Hunter on 01252 727774 or e-mail phunter@selfservice.co.uk.
