Smart solutions vs. traditional vending
Vending to Smart fridge conversion: +3500% sales in 90 days
David Youldon, Managing Director of Graddon Vending, has always been an early adopter of automated retail solutions long before they were a ‘thing’. But a recent vending to smart fridge conversion at a long-standing customer’s site, surpassed his greatest expectations.
If you’re new to smart fridges and have an existing estate of traditional vending machines that you operate or manage… then this article is for you. Uprooting your current portfolio can be a scary thought: Why invest in more when your current set-up ain’t broken?
Our recommendation: start with a location with an existing customer you know intimately, and who is keen to explore innovation. This will give you real life experience, data, and a great first reference for your journey ahead.
This was also David’s approach. He approached Boost inc to help bring innovation to their existing range of vending machines. After showing them the capabilities of our smart solutions, they decided to replace a traditional food carousel machine, which typically vends sandwiches and microwavable meals, with a smart fridge in an NHS setting.
A sales uplift of +3571% for the record books
Historically, the carousel generated a monthly sales average of £40.00, indicating a modest performance, given the environment typically saw a steady flow of staff, patients and visitors. Replaced with a Boost inc Smart Fridge, Graddon’s saw a huge increase in revenue, with average daily sales of £48.95, which is a whopping 3571% monthly increase!
More than just sales: investing into your customer relationship
David reflected on the pilot:
“Our customers always ask us what new innovation we can bring to a space and how we can maximise the use of machines. Replacing the food carousel machine with a smart solution was a no brainer for us and instantly saw a sales uplift”.
“The machine is beautifully designed and has the ability to run meal deals, promotions and report sales in real-time. Theft rates are incredibly low too, which was surprising to me at first, but largely due to the inbuilt vision technology, where we can retrospectively view fraudulent activity and charge the consumer”.
And it’s just the beginning…
Not only do smart solutions look great, they are incredibly easy to use and have a beautifully designed user interface which allows the consumer to seamlessly walk through the purchasing journey. With the capacity to hold up to 80 SKU’s, smart solutions are able to sell products of various shapes and sizes and the large glass front and built-in shelving means that products can be merchandised in a visually appealing way. They also have a large 24” touchscreen, which is able to display promotions and screensavers, allowing for compelling advertising opportunities to increase basket size and revenue.
Our customers are so far only utilising a handful of the features that smart solution tech has to offer and as they learn more and try more, this will only further increase sales and solidify relationships with existing customers.
Our cloud-based management back-office Vendlive takes connectivity beyond operations and provides our customers with several tools to take vending operations to the next level. Some top-level features include:
Some top-level features include:
- Customisation of the user interface of the machine
- Detailed product information and ability to upload product imagery
- Categorisation of products based on dietary requirements
- Centralisation of media playlists
- Advanced consumer insights and reporting functionality
- Machine health monitoring
- Loyalty programmes
- The ability to run promotions and meal-deals
- Open API for ERP, CRM, PIM, VMS Integrations
Are you ready for the ride?
With just over 900 smart solutions in Europe, adoption has been slow and steady, but with the resounding feedback from those that have tried them being ‘Why on earth didn’t we start using them sooner?”
For many countries in Europe, we still see quite a bit of resistance to change. This is mainly due to fear of the unknown, especially as there’s an upfront initial investment. But, there is definitely one thing that everybody agrees on: the end customer has a new demand for innovation in both product range and the retail solution itself.
Moving with the times and addressing these challenges will not only put operators at an advantage in the market, but will ultimately help them to reap the benefits for future revenue growth.