You may ask “What is the difference between merchandising and vending?” The biggest vendor manufacturing company in the U.S. calls itself “Crane Merchandising Systems” and, of course AMS (the vendor ShurVend uses), stands for Automatic Merchandising Systems. A car wash example would be the Combo Vacuums we use today are “merchandisers” when compared to the older simple vacuum only machines.
The underlined portion of the Wikipedia definition below describes why ShurVend does “merchandising” and not just vending. “In the broadest sense, merchandising is any practice which contributes to the sale of products to a retail consumer. At a retail in-store level, merchandising refers to the variety of products available for sale and the display of those products in such a way that it stimulates interest and entices customers to make a purchase." We think the goal of the vending operations at car washes should be merchandising and not just vending product.
The drop shelf vending systems that have been in use for years have a number of “merchandising” weaknesses; [1] the customer can not see the product and must rely on a decal or picture, [2] there are a limited variety of products that can be vended, [3] the reliability of dropping the product is not good, [4] the vulnerability of the vending machine to vandalism and theft, and, most importantly, [5] these vendors need a bill changer to provide coins for their operation. Some operators tried to modify and adapt “glass-front” vendors to vend car wash products in the 1980s and early 1990’s, but were only partially successful in fixing these weaknesses.
Cont'd
The underlined portion of the Wikipedia definition below describes why ShurVend does “merchandising” and not just vending. “In the broadest sense, merchandising is any practice which contributes to the sale of products to a retail consumer. At a retail in-store level, merchandising refers to the variety of products available for sale and the display of those products in such a way that it stimulates interest and entices customers to make a purchase." We think the goal of the vending operations at car washes should be merchandising and not just vending product.
The drop shelf vending systems that have been in use for years have a number of “merchandising” weaknesses; [1] the customer can not see the product and must rely on a decal or picture, [2] there are a limited variety of products that can be vended, [3] the reliability of dropping the product is not good, [4] the vulnerability of the vending machine to vandalism and theft, and, most importantly, [5] these vendors need a bill changer to provide coins for their operation. Some operators tried to modify and adapt “glass-front” vendors to vend car wash products in the 1980s and early 1990’s, but were only partially successful in fixing these weaknesses.
Cont'd
