October 15th, 2019
By Jeff Adair, Editor

Given the fact that much of the equipment used in convenience services is connected to the Internet, convenience service operators have many opportunities to utilize the Internet for marketing. John Hickey, co-founder of Tech 2 Success , a provider of cloud hosting, IT consulting and micro market wireless solutions, believes operators have numerous tools available to market to both existing and potential customers. This is important since e-commerce is rapidly becoming a preferred marketing tool.

Hickey, whose company is an OptConnect reseller and a provider of e-commerce ordering software for convenience services, gave an overview on “Leveraging the Internet to improve on ROI” during this year’s National Automatic Merchandising Association (NAMA) show in Las Vegas.

Most convenience service operators today are already using vending machines that use the Internet to process credit card payments and enable remote machine monitoring, Hickey noted. 

Betson Enterprises has agreed to distribute Vagabond’s software , including its “vīv” platform to support Fixturelite’s kioskless micro markets.

The initiative comes on the heels of Fixturelite’s exclusive production of small form-factor fixtures powered by vīv. Vagabond’s vīv mobile POS platform adds to Betson’s offerings a streamlined kioskless market solution targeting the hundreds of thousands of workplace accounts with 40 to 250 employees in the U.S. Vagabond’s telemetry and VMS solutions, as well as Vagabond’s broader vīv commerce platform, will also be available through Betson’s national distribution network.

By removing the need for a kiosk, the vīv Fixturelite Market reduces operating expenses to $10 per month compared to a traditional micro market. The vīv platform provides a smartphone payment solution that is more secure than cash, swipe or EMV technology.

Crane Media Network , which includes 40,000 digital screens, has been named a finalist for digital out-of-home advertising for its role in driving a 30 percent increase in General Mills’ Nature Valley products and delivering more than 3.1 million brand impressions. The 12-week nationwide advertising campaign consisted of daily spots running a continuous loop, refreshing creative content every two weeks.

Crane Media Network has been named as a finalist for MediaPost’s “Digital Ooh Awards” for the third consecutive year.
 
The campaign drove a more than 30 percent increase in the distribution of Nature Valley products in target segments and delivered more than 3.1 million brand impressions.

InOne Technology LLC has released three new replacement kits to its OneBoard product line for the Automatic Products Studio SL Series, Automatic Products Studio ST Series, and an expanded lineup of USI Snackmart 3 and 6 machines.

The new boards eliminate factory board lock up issues that operators have struggled with while enabling telemetry, credit card acceptance and many more modern features.

“Operators have been requesting boards for these older, workhorse machines and we are glad to be able to provide a solution for them,” said Gene Ostendorf, founder of InOne.

Enabling DEX and MDB in vending machines is an important step in fleet modernization. DEX allows product auditing, cash accountability and pre-kitting, while MDB is the means in which various transactional devices operate and communicate with the brains of the vending machine.

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