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Newspaper Vending Norms

Business 24/7 vending machine includes a 45 degree angled slot for retrieving newspaper from Dubai above and a typical US style Wall Street Journal vending machine from Washington DC below.

Vending machines are not particularly common in the United Arab Emirates - but I’m guessing that ex-pat customers will be broadly familiar with the US style of buying vended newspapers - if not hands-on then from exposure to popular/unpopular culture. To what extent does transparency - both of what is inside the machine and how the machine works effect the purchasing experience? Standing in front of this machine - what goes through your mind?

Are any newspaper’s left? How sure am I that the paper on the inside is the same as the one on the outside? What is the perceived likelihood that the machine will simply swallow the coins and not deliver - due to some kind of mechanical or cosmic failure? What is the actual likelihood of failure? And how does this perception change through use or observing other people’s use? That little moment of panic when you’re down to your last Dirham or Euro or quarter. Does someone nearby offer a vending-free alternative way to purchase the same thing? And given all this what % of willing consumers standing in front the Business 24/7 vending machine end up walking away, coins still in pocket?

And in world that’s increasingly shifting to digital to what extent does any of this matter? Is the purpose of the machine to vend? Or to remind consumers that the content exists and to facilitate access to the that digital content?

Related: shortening the path through key-words and QR bar codes.

Writing from Tokyo | April 18, 2008 | Permalink