Imagine the situation. You are at the airport having a layover from London. You don’t even remember what time you left USA. Your legs are numb, but your body is crying out for rock. Tand you go to an iPod vending machine and take out AirPods and an iPod Shuffle. Yes, you just spent 250 dollars, a fortune; But that’s what credit cards are for, which you’ll have to worry about later. It was so real that at some airports in the United States, machines had to be restocked several times a day.
Airports in Atlanta, Dallas and others hosted this experiment, this formula developed by Zoom Shop and other companies which held the exclusive license to operate. Machines that cost a fortune but pay for themselves sooner than expected. In fact, there have also been cases of iPhone or iPad vending machines around the world. room private business buildings. But this is another story.
An iPod in a vending machine
“On a recent trip to Las Vegas, Nevada, I was captivated by this Zoom Shop vending machine that sells Apple iPods. Located at the Las Vegas Hilton, home of Star Trek Experience and Barry Manilow, this robotic retail system distributes a variety of iPods and iPod accessories. Developed and operated by California-based Zoom Systems, you’ll find similar units at San Francisco International Airport, the San Francisco Argent Hotel and Hartsfield Atlanta Airport.
This is how journalist Bill Detwiler summarized the discovery he had made for CNET. A relic. Businessmen around the world looked at the relics behind the glass, debating whether to choose the 80 GB iPod model or the 160 GB model.
The year is 2005. A few months later, during the summer, the vice-president of the company declared to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the formula was a success: “We did about $55,000 in gross sales in a month with just one machine. This becomes the future for certain high-end products in places like airports where space is limited.
No supermarkets: hotel lobbies, conference rooms or even the most prestigious corridors of the most expensive banking companies in the country. This is where Zoom Shop has installed its behemoths, like two-door refrigerators, filled with the fanciest Apple products of the 2000s. To me, the iPod still seems like something prodigious that I use all the time. time.
Some of these products cost more than 500 dollars – remember that only the iPod Nano cost 199 dollars. Zoom Systems has expanded to 100 locations and 165 premium vending machines in just over a year and gone from selling chips to selling laptop chargers, Bose headphones or the entire iPod catalog. They aspired to establish themselves in more than 1,000 points of sale in the United States and another 1,500 in Europe. However, the expansionist desire soon came up against a demographic ceiling.
Over the years, ZoomSystems has partnered with companies such as Best buy, Macy’s -which held the record for the largest store in the world for decades until the arrival of Galeries Lafayette Haussmann in Paris- or Procter & Gamble —a care product company such as bath soaps—and Maximum well-being. Their “robotic kiosk” is certainly not what it used to be: it suffered a terrible bankruptcy in 2015 which led to its near dissolution until Swyft bought the company.
In Japan, gashapon are such a widespread tradition that It’s easy to find a smartphone for a little over 10 dollars in exchange. To remember these images of gigantic machines which are only a memory in many other countries.
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