Dial A Vending Machine

Dial A Vending Machine

According to Vending Technologies, within the next six months you will be able to order drinks and snacks from vending machines through your mobile phone and receive promotional offers.

Vending machines will display a phone number that when rung confirms the purchase and tees the machine up to provide a drink or snack. The system works with an ordinary mobile phone with the purchase appearing on the mobile phone holder's account. The company has already demonstrated vending machines that allow mobile phones to be used to buy soft drinks, but said it would take up to six months for telecommunications companies to work out how to do the billing.

Being linked to a computer allowed the machines to be monitored for stock and cash levels, making tending the machines more efficient, and also allowing the machines to signal when they are jammed, broken into or not working. Problems are signalled almost immediately, but the machines send their stock and cash information once a day.

This week, VTL signed a branding and stocking agreement with drinks manufacturer Rio focusing on Rio's e2 "sports drinks". The agreement provides for up to 4000 new vending machines, a roll-out that will take up to four years and increase the number of machines VTL has in New Zealand eightfold.

VTL's ambitious plans are partly based on a licensing scheme that is about to swing into full operation. Under the scheme, licensees buy the rights to a number of machines; VTL provides the stock and backroom assistance, and helps licensees find good locations.

Licensees would use the Internet to buy their stock through VTL with the company monitoring the sales for them. The first licensees are going through training in Auckland now. VTL plans to use the licensing system to expand into other markets. Already in Australia, the company is looking at the United States and Britain.