Tell me about a product that can be sold at vending machines beyond classic snacks and drinks.

Product Description

I will start by getting on the same page on a vending machine. Vending machines allow users to buy things (by card or cash) just by interting the money and digiting the number corresponding to the product, that is then spit out by the machine. A vending machine can be placed anywhere; they require little maintanance (only in case it breaks or needs to be replenished). It can provide both warm and cold products, but also more lasting products. 

Product Features / Characteristics

The ideal characteristics of the product sold in a vending machine based on these features are:

1) Not steep demand 

2) Objects that are commodities given the situation (no need of too much assortment - or not the format to shop for assortment)

3) Ideally (but not exclusively) small to medium items 

To elaborate more on each of these characteristics:

1) not steep demand: it must make economically sense for the seller to come from time to time to replenish the machine, rather than personally sell the products distributed; so the consumption and the demand must be even out, so that if he would sell these products in person he would have long breaks between one client and the other.

2) Users that buy objects through a vending machine are going through an impulse buying or a last-minute purchase. There is no time to identify the perfect product and the quality expected is not as high. 

3) For both the replenishment and the last-minute characteristic of buying online, it is easier to deal with smaller and less heavy objects

Summary

The products are then very tied to the circumstances in which they could 1) become commodities and 2) have a smooth demand; examples are headphones in an airport, or pijamas in a hospital.