Types of Vending Machines for Your Business

5 Minute Read

Vending machines are an excellent option for your business to improve the customer experience while generating revenue simultaneously. They offer more options than you think and provide an unattended resource for customer satisfaction.

Are you considering installing vending machines in your business? Before deciding what type to get, let’s go through the different vending machines to help you choose.

Food and Drink Vending Machines

Bulk vending machines that offer various things to eat and drink provide customers with food options without investing in a kitchen. Here are a few examples of the different types available:

Soft Drink Vending Machines

When people hear the word vending machine, they think of soft drinks. However, some machines offer alternatives to soft drinks, such as bottled water. Seltzer, sparkling water, vitamin water, and flavored water are just some types of water in these machines. With consumers’ changing habits regarding sugary drinks, it’s crucial to have various options.

Snack Vending Machines

Popular snack items include candy bars, chips, and chocolates. Machines specializing in one kind of snack are also available (e.g., cookie and chip machines).

Snacks are great for grab-and-go at locations. However, if you’re looking for vending machines to deliver various snacks, you’ll need snack combo machines.

Coffee Vending Machines

Coffee and tea are as popular as ever, so having options is essential. They are becoming more popular in self-service workplaces such as offices and conference rooms and business-to-customer services such as gas stations.

Cooked and Frozen Vending Machines

These types of machines are great for event management. For example, you may host various outdoor and indoor events such as weddings, conferences, sports, or birthday parties. Offering fresh-cooked or ice-cold food and drinks is an excellent way to keep your customers happy.

Hot food vending machines such as hot dogs, burgers, and fries are popular at sports events. In contrast, for your outdoor visitor attractions, ice cream vending machines keep customers relaxed as they walk around your venue and have a great time.

Combo Vending Machines

These are a popular all-in-one solution for any work on a budget, as they allow an array of items in one machine. They’re great if you want to provide various snacks or drinks but don’t want to overspend on buying them separately.

These vending machines are great in areas with high foot traffic. They provide customers with various snack and beverage options. You won’t have to purchase different machines for different products; you can even combine combinations that serve everyone’s needs.

High-traffic locations that make great spaces include larger workplaces’ reception rooms, hallways, and canteens.

Other Types of Vending Machines

It’s worth noting that not all vending machines offer food and drinks. Here are some examples of other ideas that you may not have thought of at first:

Merchandiser

This type is most popular with hoteliers who offer toiletries to their customers. However, in some large industrial or office settings, they are also helpful in vending supplies such as medical kits. Other examples include toilet paper, tissues, pens and pencils, and even copier cartridges.

These can be found in many office settings to provide business cards, pens, pencils, and staplers. They’re good if your staff constantly runs out of or needs these supplies.

Although most industries offer their staff an unlimited supply of such items, these machines tend to be found more in communal workspaces. One example of such a space is a media hub, where freelancers work in an open-plan office space.

Outdoor Vending Machines

Outdoor vending machines offer outdoor snacks and drinks, making them a great addition to parks, gardens, or outdoor office spaces.

Not only are there outdoor versions of food and drink machines, but you can also offer outdoor items in them. They can also help with emergency supplies if you run camps, activity businesses, towels, and energy supplements at a leisure facility.

Smart Vending Machines

Contactless payment and collection are some of the most popular use cases. Not touching the machine is very useful for anyone working in environments where contamination is prevalent. Examples of these include a laboratory or food factory. Some machines even allow you to reserve and pay for goods via smartphone apps.

Customized Vending Machines

People have customized vending machines since the first vending machine was invented in Greece over 2000 years ago. Branding an existing vending machine model with your decals and graphics is the most popular method.

We can customize vending machine graphics to match branding requirements.

Speciality Vending Machines

These are great in waiting rooms or locations with many people sitting around, such as a medical practice. They’re also ideal for areas with long queues and waiting times.

A novelty vending machine is also an effective marketing strategy for a product launch. You can customize the exterior and put your new product in there, or if your launch product is too large or you’ve got a big budget, you can always vend your branded goods for free.

Vending Machine Options

Vending machine options can offer an alternative to an in-house kitchen and increase customer satisfaction or on-site time. In the future, it’s about providing better, more efficient services than anyone else to win over your team or visitors.

We hope we’ve shown you how to make the most of a vending machine in your business. Take a look today and see how we can refresh it!