Shop Till It Drops

Ando Japando writes "There's an article on NYTimes.com about a new vending machine in the US. Unlike the typical machine, this one is 18 ft wide and takes up 200 square ft. Of course, the convenience stores are not sure if this machine is a boon or a boo, but many people like it because it doesn't take up a lot of space. It'd be really cool to see these all over the place. Others complain about the lack of human interaction and perceive it as dehumanizing. That may be true, but at least it's not a live bait vending machine."

Comments

This may be new in the USA

[overshoot]

but something very much like it is quite common in Japan. The last time I was there, there was a beast of a machine that sold everything from fast food to condoms in the lobby.

Re:This may be new in the USA

[Lovejoy]

Yes, I have seen all this stuff in Japanese vending machines (from most common to least):
Soft drinks (of course) sometimes with 1.5 liter bottles
beer & sake
cigarettes (EVERYWHERE)
porn
gum
pantyhose
ties
umbrellas (in train stations)
rice
eggs (in a vending machine that just sold eggs)
rice-polishing (In the country - Put in your money and it polishes your brown rice into white rice)

And there's a lot more. But I have never seen a snack vending machine that just sold candy bars, chips, etc... Weird.

Also, in Japan - you can be driving in the country, with very little to see, come around the corner, and there is a vending machine, standing by itself with nothing around. It's an odd and amusing experience.

As for huge vending machines, I saw one like this in the Geneva train station. Had everything.

Re:This may be new in the USA

[macshit]

Yeah, Japan's the place for this sort of thing.

Besides the ones you often hear about (porn, etc), some wierd ones I've seen in japan include:

• A machine selling cookies & other snacks -- not the usual little packs, but huge family-sized boxes; the delivery-door was about 15" x 15"!
• A machine selling full-sized bottles of Whisky (all japanese brands though)

... and my favorite:

• A machine selling potted plants -- fairly large, leafy ones (like a foot high), complete with a big clay flowerpot. It looked like it had a fairly elaborate mechanism to deliver the plants to a little door (well actually a pretty big door) without harming them.

The wierd thing is that all of the above were not in obvious `specialty' locations (e.g., near a nursery for the plants), but just in front of fairly average train stations, or just on the street in the middle of nowhere!

I do not understand...

Re:This may be new in the USA

[shyster]

Convatec (a Bristol Meyers Squibb company) had this same sort of vending machine in their main lobby for more than 5 years now. You insert money, press the corresponding button and a mechanical hand picks out the item and gives it to you. So its not even new to the USA, its just new to slashdot.

Yeah, I've seen those here in too. Only difference is there's a little joystick to manueveur the hand and you pick out the item. I think all of the ones here are broke though, because they always drop the item before I can get it to the door.

Re:This may be new in the USA

[Dun Malg]

low crime rates, which allow for such machines to be operated with minimal concerns about theft.

Not true. Crime against vending machines is quite rare everywhere primarily because a vending machine can be built like a tank and locked up six ways from Sunday. Even in the worst neighborhoods you can still find vending machines. The reasons why Japan has so many vending machines are primarily a) lack of real estate necessary to accommodate a traditional walk-in store, and b) technological solutions are readily accepted (often they are the first considered) in Japan.

i like this...

[edrugtrader]

i buy stuff on the internet all the time. if it doesn't come or arrives broken, i am basically screwed and have to deal with RMAs and trying to get my money back.

if everything came out of a machine, if my merchandise doesn't come or arrives broken, i can kick the shit out of the machine. MUCH BETTER.

live bait slashdotting

[Ando[evilmedic]]

I'm just guessing, but that's probably the first time we've slashdotted a site pertaining to 'live bait.' That link was absolutely and totally random...

Dehumanizing?

[plurrbat]

I don't find it dehumanizing. I find it GREAT! Now I can buy the 75 pack of enemas and the forbidden magazines without that weird guy behind the counter looking at me like I'm a freak.

exp. dates

[kin_korn_karn]

what happens if products that expire, like eggs and milk, don't get "changed out" in time? What recourse do you have?

Porn vending machines

[DrXym]

I saw a program about Japan which featured a porn vending machine which was out on the street. Aside from the usual magazines and condoms, you could also buy a sex cup - a paper cup containing spongy jelly that you had intercourse with. Will the wonders of technology ever cease?

Re:Porn vending machines

[theDEFT]

speaking for the entire community, can you tell me a little more about the sex cup please.

Re:Porn vending machines

[Anonymous Coward]

I have lived in Tokyo since 1994. Panty machines were never particularly common, and it has been at least two years since I have seen one anywhere. Granted, I don't usually frequent areas where you'd be likely to find those, but even on occassions when I have been in those areas, they weren't common. I've only seen two or three of them in my life.

Rubber machines are around, though. They aren't common, but you see them every once in a while. Oddly, they don't usually seem to be in proximity to any sex-related businesses, not even love hotels. There's one about 50 meters from one of my neighborhood convenience stores. Weird, because the convenience store also sells rubbers. There was also one on the road to the local high school, but it's gone now. I don't know if:

1) High school students don't use rubbers much;
2) The school pressured them to take it away;
3) The students stole it :-)

I haven't seen a pr0n vending machine in a long time, either. They may have been outlawed. Pr0n involving underage girls only got outlawed a couple years ago. Up until then, my neighborhood video store used to sell it.

Tokyo and Nagano were the last two prefectures to outlaw prostitution by girls under 18. Before that, they both drew the line at 16 (the age of majority in Japan is 20). Tells you what politicians here and in Nagano are up to :-p

While on that topic, and contrary to the squeaky clean media image that Japan works to hard to maintain abroad, prostitution is big business here. Whorehouses and similar operations are commonplace and operate openly, with signs describing what kind of place it is. This despite the fact that prostitution is illegal in Japan. The country's least enforced law. If it's enforced at all, it's only against foreign streetwalkers. Japanese ones are safe. Also contrary to the squeaky clean media image, there's a huge amount of xenophobia and racism here.

Prostitution is very expensive here, though. Figure on $250 or more for sex, and that's *if* they'll let you in if s you're a foreigner. Some of the workers there may be foreigners (Southeast Asian or Eastern European) but in most places only Japanese are allowed to be customers. And I don't mean only Japanese citizens. I mean only ethnic Japanese (this doesn't include Japanese-Americans or anything like that, either, unless they can pass themselves off as Japanese by speaking at a native level).

It's an odd place.

Oh, about capsule hotels. They don't cost anything like $100 a night. They're the cheapest accomodations around, try $35 - $50. This is dirt cheap in Japan. Only the gutter is less :-)

You might be a Redneck Geek if...

[Nick Driver]

...you've ever slashdotted yer live bait website ;-)

LOL!

This guy will start hollering for a human soon...

[hyacinthus]

"Whoever made this is a genius. A guy in the store can make a mistake or give you a hard time, but not the machine. I definitely prefer the machine to a person."

Just wait until this fellow puts in five dollars only to see it disappear without a trace, or until that packet of Pop-Tarts gets stuck halfway off its little rack and won't drop however much he kicks the machine. He'll start looking for someone to whine to about getting his money back.

Ah, well, I shouldn't complain. I work for a company which thinks that providing us with a couple of tables, a Coke machine and one of those automat machines which dispenses packaged Danish and five-dollar sandwiches satisfies their obligation to provide us with a cafeteria.

hyacinthus.

NYT login

[lute3]

I didn't see one posted yet, so here's the one I always use.

login: generic99
password: generic

Re:First they came for the Indians...

[DrXym]

Automats have been around for a hundred years. The fact they never caught on must demonstrate that shoppers prefer the human touch. That doesn't mean vending machines and their ilk don't have a place, but that any store that thinks it can do away with humans will soon find itself filing for bankruptcy.

Re:you always forget!

[pacc]

Or just make up your password on the fly http://www.majcher.com/nytview.html

Video renting vending machines

[Kraft]

I recently realised that in the states "video/dvd renting vending machines" aren't the big thing. I just don't understand why.

In Spain, France, Italy... most of Europe really... you find these cool little machines, about twice the size of a coke vending machine, where you can rent over 500 vhs or dvds any time of the day. Most of them don't require a membership card (which a f'ing annoying anyway), just a credit card. If you return the video within a few hours you pay much less. If you don't return it, they just charge your credit card. Simple and fair. No hazzle.

But yeah... why aren't these machines the bomb in the States, where vending machines are so normal? Any thoughts?

People dont like this ?

[RembrandtX]

This thing screams japan.

200 ft is much less than another 2500 foot store hawking t-shirts and boardwalk crap in Ocean City, MD [where i think these things would clean up!]
Rather than have 100 shops that all sell suntan oil, 70';s iron on decal t-shirts, and assorted crap, put a dozen of these babys in, free up all that space, and put more restraunts, or hell .. ANYTHING.

what i don't understand is folks complaining about how dehumanizing these are.

How is the 'inhumanity' of this machine a factor? Does the bored teenager/non english speaker/insaine freak behind the counter at a 7-11 REALLY provide you with a pleasant and memorable transaction? [Last time I walked into a 7-11 .. i was greeted by the teenage teller pocketing all the pennies from the penny cup.]

Or what about when I walk into a gas station and can't find a single person there who can speak the native tounge of the area. (english.)

No joke, maybe im just getting old, or maybe its different in New England or something, but when I was a kid - i remember being able to stop at a gas station and ask directions.

Last week I was looking for a Dr.'s office in Towson MD. I stopped at a gas station and asked them where [X street was]. They had no idea.
[or I gathered they had no idea, as they kept shouting 'no english, IDUNNO' at me.

I gave up asking the attendants, and called the dr.'s office from the phone outside the gas station. The receptionist answered the phone, and when I told her where I was - she answered cryptically "Turn around."

I did, and she was waving at me from inside the office across the street.

Ok - bad on me for not realizing I *wasn't* lost .. but I was in a strange area that I had never been to before. I wan't to know what the excuse of the folks who WORKED on the street and still didn't know it was.

of course, these machines don't have a map module yet . but GAWSH .. imagine if you could pay it a buck and get printed directions ..

then again .. it probally would get them from map quest :(

Mad Magazine predicted this in 1957

[joechip]

In issue 33, June 1957, Mad Magazine has an article called "Vending Machines of the Future." Including are such oversize machines as the Auto-Vend, which dispensed new cars for only 10,000 half dollars and the wife-o-mat, which seems like a great deal at only 20 half dollars.
Finally, there is the vend-o-vend, which is the ultimate in future vending machines which dispenses a vending machine. This will in turn dispense a vending machine and so on. The final vending machine will dispense a dime for the first vending machine and the whole mess starts again...

This is totally cool!

[bopbopaloobop]

And I disagree with the the editor guy who said "I'm concerned about the people this is going to put out of work," Don't look at people as something that needs to be kept occupied. Think of all the more usefull things people can be freed up for when machines handle simple repetitive taskes. After all, is it a bad thing that there are soda vending machines instead of some guy spending his day standing at a vending stand selling the sodas? Is it bad that traffic lights have taken the place of a policeman standing in the intersection directing traffic? What about the poor scribes who are out of work now that we have copying machines? These people are all freed up to do something more usefull, and hopefully more interesting. This sort of progress is good.

Old News in Japan

[MDMurphy]

As touched on in the article, vending machine rule in Japan. We probably won't be getting the beer machines here, even though a machine is probably better at checking IDs.
A toy store in the Ginza area has a giant vending area outside where there's Barbies and such going up to $100. Giftwrap is also included.

Near where my Mom lived there was an egg vending machine. Best I could figure it was stocked by farmers just outside town. I thought it was a great idea. A very inexpensive storefront for the egg farmer. I wouldn't see that as dehumanizing, but rather a way for the farmer to sell his eggs direct in an affordable manner.

Re:Old News in Japan

[Mr. Sketch]

We probably won't be getting the beer machines here

Actually the previous company I worked for had a vending machine that dispensed beer (MGD and Icehouse), it was right next to the coke machine, and it didn't check id. The name of the company was Rockwell Software, but I'm not sure if they still have the machine or not, it's been a few years since I've worked there.

dehumanising?

[kevin lyda]

a vending machine is dehumanising? are they trying to imply that working in a convenience store is not dehumanising? i suggest they go try it.

Re:dehumanising?

[IIRCAFAIKIANAL]

Right on!

Speaking from experience, the most dehumanizing part of working as a cashier is the customers. And people wonder why cashiers are often snide and defensive - it's because one in four of the customers they serve is either rude or just plain evil.

My girlfriend works as a cashier and yesterday some asshole was giving her shit because she had the audacity to want to verify his credit card signature. Personally, I have been threatened a number of times - usually the worst people were the white, middle-class types. Hell, in my city, I think more cashiers died last year than cops.

She's really nice to all the customers, but she's getting more bitter and resentful and it's starting to show.

People seem to assume that if you work in a store, you must be stupid or useless. My girlfriend has a university degree. She just wasn't lucky like the rest of us when it came time to start her career. Her supervisor has a masters in mathematics (or something, can't remember).

If you hate having to deal with a bitchy cashier, maybe you should adjust *your* attitude and/or spend a day in their shoes.

It's funny how much more respect I get now wearing a suit - I haven't changed one bit, but when I was a cashier I received all kinds of shit.

Re:First they came for the Indians...

[david duncan scott]

Look at grocery checkout lines - I'm sure you've all seen the image recognition lines that photograph and weigh your items and let you check them out yourselves.

Not in my town, unless bar-code scanners count as "image recognition". I imagine that camera over the touchscreen (I'm thinking of the A&P setup) is for security to glance over and see if you've tucked a steak into your pants.

Me, I like those things, but then again, I remember seeing a list of "Real Geek" qualities once, and I think number 3 was "Knowing that you could scan items faster than the clerk if only you had the chance". Well, now I have the chance.

My favourite game is to anticipate each step, so that I swipe my card through just as the machine starts its "Press 'Credit' on the card reader...", so that each sentence gets truncated to just the first syllable. It's a rich and full life I lead. :)

Here's a picture of it

[Lumpish Scholar]

The NYT article didn't include a picture, but this page on the Shop 2000 web site does.

Re:Here's a picture of it

[moosesocks]

Yes it does, it's on the right side of the page.

Won't last

[Diabolical]

We had a similar thing almost 10 years ago in the Netherlands. No-one bought anything from the machine. Within 6 months the damn thing was gone. There were all kinds of issues with it, vandalism, malfunctioning equipment, products passed vending date etc.

I can see the convenience of such a machine but i can't say i like them. Aside from no human interaction there are more things about it that doesn't appeal to me. First of all is that the product range is limited, for some reason alot of products are more expensive then normal store offered ones. And you can't easily get a refund if some product isn't good or past it's vending date.

But what happens when it breaks?

[Jippy_]

It's a machine. It's bound to break. It's bound to get jammed.

"Honey, will you run to the store and pick up some eggs?"

"I can't, the 7-11's broken again"

Capsule hotels...

[wumingzi]

The capsule hotels are for real. It exists to fill a market niche.

Subways in Japan are (reasonably) cheap. Taxis by contrast cost a nut. The subway closes down at midnight. If you get caught out after the last subway leaves, and you're living in the 'burbs, you're looking at dropping a Benjamin or two in order to get back home.

So what's a party guy to do other than sleep it off in the gutter?

Answer: the capsule hotel.

bad puns.

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

a woman walks into a bar. she asks the bartender for a sexual innuendo.

so the bartender gives it to her.

Re:Hey, I worked at a Sheetz...

[Bob McCown]

Most people actually love the machines, especially if they have kids.

Machines can have kids now? AIEEEEEEEEE!

Re:First they came for the Indians...

[maggard]

If you're going to quote from Pastor Niemöller at least get it right:

First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I said nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social Democrat, so I did nothing. Then came the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did little. Then when they came for me, there was no one left to stand up for me.

Wal-Mart Nation

[David Wong]

Going a step further, the truth is in the end we as a society get what we want. I see a parallel here to the Wal-Mart phenomenon, people screaming and crying because we lost "Main Street America" and all the quaint little shops ran by friendly old people, now run out of business by the huge, cold, evil product-dispensing Wal-Mart juggernaut.

Why did it happen? With evil corporate tricks? Smoke and mirrors? No; it was because people like it better this way. We like getting everything we need in one place, getting it quick, getting it cheap. Those little mom and pop shopkeepers screwed me over far more often than Wal-Mart ever could. You think Old Man Funkle from down the street had Wal-Mart's "return anything for any reason for a refund" policy? Hell no. He smiled at us as we came into his little shop, place smelling like cigar smoke, and he gouged the hell out of us. His selection sucked, it took forever to get checked out...

We have moved on. We need toothpaste, diapers, aspirin. We don't see getting those necessities as some wonderful opportunity to make new friends. If we could snap our fingers and make that stuff magically appear in our cabinets, we'd do it.

With the machine, we've taken the next step. There is no line (or at least less of one), there is none of that annoyance we get with humanity. When I want a conversation I'll talk to a friend. When I want a box of kleenex, I'll go to the Kleenex machine. If something has been lost, it is solely because we chose to lose it.

"meet me halfway" online shopping?

[happyclam]

How about allowing this gizmo to offer pre-ordering via the web? Go to the machine's web site, see the machine's inventory. Purchase your products on a credit card. The products get set aside into a separate compartment for you. You go to the machine, insert your credit card (same one you used to purchase), the products are released to you, and you are charged for them.

If you need to order something that's not in stock, the machine operator could offer some service level for an additional charge to stock it in the next stocking run.

Reduces delivery/distribution costs for the vendors while providing additional convenience for the consumers.

(And why couldn't fast-food places operate like this? Certainly robots can do an equally good job of microwaving and assembling a Big Mac, depositing it into the queue, and then charging your credit card.)

Re:This reminds me of a book....

[bluGill]

It comes down to cost. 8 years ago when I worked at McDonalds we considered a robotic fry vat. The one we had wasn't working well anymore, so a new one was required. However the cost got in the way. Something like 5 times the price just to get the robotic version. We could not make the payments.

McDonalds really wants to replace all their fry vats and grills with robotic versions. The oil is somewhere between 300 and 450 degrees (f), and burns are common. However the cost couldn't be justified. Build a robot that is reliable and cheep and they will make you rich. (remember though that the enviorment isn't the easiest to work with, it all has to pass FDA inspection, and greese tends to clog things)

Re:Theft?

[bluGill]

Read Design of Everyday things by Donald Norman.

Vandals break windows, spray paint wood, and use a gun on convience store workers. (Obviously the latter is a different class of crime). In the book he accounts for a case of heavy glass that was broken several times within days of being put up. They finialy just put up plywood, and it was never broken, but it was painted all the time. The plywood was actually much easier to break than the glass it replaced, but nobody breaks plywood, they paint it. (or burn it, but it is hard to burn large parts of a panel)

A convenience store worker's head does not afford the ability to throw a cinder block though it. You can do so, often killing the worker, but you don't think of that.

Re:First they came for the Indians...

[Zeinfeld]

Not all shoppers prefer the human touch

Too damn right, I mean do you really want the cashier to know you are buying that packet of condoms, butt plug, Ann Coulter book, anal lube etc?

Can't say I mind...

[Mulletproof]

Hey, how can anyone say this is a truly bad thing? Those same people don't bitch about soda vending machine and those take the human element out of my soda transaction. Some things you just don't care about recieveing a warm smile and personalized attention over. And retail automation isn't the end of the world. It may actually become a pain in the ass when these things break and all you have is an automated line to whine to, but things will equal out as there will still be a demand for human interaction for some services. The more automation, the more people will pay for the premium of that warm smile and sypathetic ear in certain cases. I'll be personally happy when I don't have to wrestle with the language barrier because some dumbass put an employee who can't speak the language in a position where he interacts with people regularly. "I'd like fries with that." "What? No understand..." "FRIES. I WANT FRIES." "Habla no English fries. What you want?" "ARRRAAAHHHRRRG!!!" It's not rasism, just hiring the right person qualified for the job, not because you have a racial quota to fill (which is another story entirely...)

Re:First they came for the Indians...

[jafuser]

At nearly all of the places I shop, even the little debit terminals are slow as ass.

I don't get them. First I have to slide my card. The terminal even tells me "Welcome to Publix, Please Slide Your Card". I slide it, and the screen goes blank (as though it's "blocking" for a response from the "server").

Then the cashier finally scans the first item, which apparently begins the transaction. Of course, this resets the debit terminal so now it asks me to slide my card again. I slide it again, and after about 5-10 agonizingly long seconds, it finally asks me if I want Debit or Credit.

I always mash the debit button hard, becuase somewhere in my primitive ape-mind I get the idea that the harder I push, the sooner it'll finally ask me for my friggin' PIN number. After another 10-15 seconds, it finally asks me for my pin number, which I can type in faster than it can pick up, so I often have to clear it and type it in more slowly (and with more force, of course).

Next, I wait for the cashier to finish scanning (unless it was just two or three items, which even the slowest cashier can finish scanning by the time the terminal has finished parsing my four-digit pin number and prompts me to "Please Wait for Cashier".

Then without fail, every time, the cashier asks me "Is that Debit or Credit"? Why can't hir cash register tell hir? I just tell hir before they even get to that step, even though sometimes they do it again out of habit. I wonder what happens if you tell them debit but you entered credit on the terminal?

Finally, the total comes up on the terminal and I need to press the green enter key. As my hand goes down to press it, the cashier manages to pull off one of the fastest hand motions you'll ever see from hir and hits it for me. What's the purpose of having me press the button to authorize the charge if the cashier is just going to do it for me? Can't I decide at the last moment that I really didn't want to spend that much money and back out of the whole deal? What if I did just out of principle? I'm sure I'd be asked not to shop there again...

I'll take a mega-vending-machine anyday, so long as it runs on something faster than a Z80 processor and a 50 baud terminal connection.