A vending machine is an automated vendor. The automated operations performed by these machines make them convenient and time-saving at public and commercial places. A consumer needs to deposit the required money and the product he or she wants is provided by these equipments.
There are different versions of vending machines that have been launched since the first historical reference. The vending machine manufacturers have always tried to improve the usefulness and safety of these self operated equipments so that people can make best out of them.
Foods and Drinks
An automated vendor tool that provides food items or drinks to the consumers can be easily found at a commercial place. The tools vending healthy foods are installed at schools and offices to promote good health among students and employees. Fast food vending functions can be found at theaters, malls and other places that are visited by thousands of people on regular basis.
Snacks and ice-creams are other popular items that are sold through vending machines. Besides, there are automated vending tools that vend candies, chewing gums, sweets and other such small items.
One can find automatic vendors that provide soft drink cans at bus and railway stations, airports, recreational venues and other such places. In some countries, beverages and alcohol cans too are vended through these machines.
Automated Ticket Vending Equipments
A popular use of such tools is to sell tickets at various places. You can easily find them at bus and railways stations and metro stations as well. These tools make ticket selling a time saving process as there is no need to stand in a row to buy the tickets. These automated ticket vendors are quite useful to save customers valuable time and also reduces the operating cost being spend on ticket vendors who does the same task manually.
Other Uses
A vending machine may also be used to sell hygiene products. For instance, one can find vending machines that sell tampons and menstruation pads to women at women’s rooms at different public and commercial places. There are vending machines in the men’s rooms that vend condoms.
Machines that vend medicines are also common at public venues like transit stations and shopping malls. A popular use of these machines is to sell newspapers. The machines selling newspapers are different from conventional designs. These machines have a door that opens as the consumer deposits the money and the consumer can select the newspaper he or she wants. In other machine designs, the item purchased is dispensed into a slot.
Other uses of vending machines include the sale of cigarettes, small toys, fruits and other items. One of the latest uses of these machines is to sell music CDs and DVDs. The manufacturers are using different technologies like biometric recognition to make these machines highly safe and practical. The equipments are popularizing the concept of vending without human intervention.