Digital Signage Influences Point of Sale at Vending Machines
Digital Signage Influences Point of Sale at Vending Machines
A long held retail truism that the consumer makes a final decision to purchase (or not to purchase) at the point of sale or point of purchase. Because of this, retailers from all industries have used everything from coupon campaigns, promotional campaigns, tagging, branding, and other sales efforts, and have enjoyed some level of success with them. It has thus far been vague as to whether or not this type of purchase activity is true for vending machines. Does the consumer decide once they are at the machine whether or not they will buy something, or how much they will buy? Vending manufacturers have been taking no chances and assuming that the consumer can still be prompted or influenced by marketing messages while at the machine. They believe that this holds true even after their money has been deposited but before a selection has been made. Manufacturers are developing digital displays to hang externally on the machine and become part of the point-of-sale designed to impact basket size and sales volumes. Digital signage content trends have been shown to create a sort of perceived personal space for the consumer which can be used by vending operators to educate them about product offerings and in turn, stimulate sales activity. Digital signage dramatically enhances the vending environment and can be coordinated with other digital signage displays in the area. With the popularity of LCD displays in both home use, and use in commercial digital signage applications, their price has dropped dramatically. There is no need to house bulky picture tubes in the machine, when a simple LCD display that is no more than a few inches thick can be installed in the tightest areas. Now that digital signage is becoming more popular, there are content networks popping up everywhere. Digital display content has become available in a plethora of formats and can be stored on site on a hard drive, or it can be either pushed out to the vending machine or pulled in to it, from external digital signage networks. If the latter digital signage content acquisition channel is chosen, the operator of the vending machine can usually manage the advertising and content from a remote location. This further strengthens the case for digital signage in vending machines.
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