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Buying a car is a hellish process. An experience that assaults the nerves in such a way that it’s only rivaled by appointments with the dentist. But what if buying a car was easier than that? What if it was as easy as, say, a vending machine?

A few years ago, a company called Carvana move the car buying experience completely online: getting approved for and selecting financing, selecting a warranty, and signing the contract.

This left customers with just one dealership interaction: choosing pickup or delivery. More often than not, Carvana customers were choosing pickup. Now, though, Carvana is adding some spice to that experience.

We knew that if [customers] chose to pick up the car we would save some money, and so we could invest that money in giving them a really, really great experience.

Ernie Garcia, Carvana CEO

The result? A five-story, fully-automatic vending machine building for cars.

“The experience itself is exactly a vending machine experience,” Garcia says. “The customer even gets a customized, oversized coin that they drop into a slot.” The coin triggers a robotic arm, which goes up and grabs the car that the customer purchased online. When the car comes down, it’s transferred to another robot that drives the car down a hallway and parks it in a bay, where the customer receives their purchase.

The best is that the overall cost will be lower in the long run. By employing fewer staff, leasing less acreage, and carrying fewer cars, Carvana drastically lowers the overhead. It also allows them to sell cars for up to $2,000 less than most dealerships.

Interesting facts about Car

• Most new cars fake engine noise through speakers. They are quite silent otherwise.
• It is a criminal offense to drive around in a dirty car in Russia.
• The new car smell is produced by over 50 volatile organic compounds. 
• It would take less than 6 months to get to the moon by car at 60mph. 
• Up to 19 girls can be crammed into a Smart car.

Other Vending Machine Applications

Curry is one of the most popular dishes in Japan. A wide variety of vegetables and meats are used to make Japanese curry. The basic vegetables are onions, carrots, and potatoes. For the meat: beef, pork, and chicken are the most popular.

To many people in Japan, summertime is synonymous with hot and spicy food. Spices are believed to cool you down by making you perspire, as well as stimulating an appetite dulled by the sweltering weather. The quintessential spicy dish in Japan is curry, which is so popular that it’s regarded, along with ramen, as one of the top two national dishes — ahead of sushi and miso soup.

In fact, it’s a home comfort that many can’t bear to be without. Before every Seattle Mariners home game, baseball great Ichiro Suzuki eats the same curry, made by his wife, for lunch (actually breakfast for him, since he ‘works’ into the night). When this was reported on NHK TV in 2009, it caused a short-lived fad for breakfast curry around Japan.

Interesting Facts about curry

• The word curry comes from a South-Asian word Kori, which is a sauce with cooked meat or fish.
• Curries are very popular in the UK and have been for a long time. The first curry restaurant opened up in 1810 in London.
• The world’s largest curry has been mentioned in the Guinness Book of World Records.  It was made in 2015 in Singapore and weighted 33,838.9 pounds.
• The hottest curry is Chicken Naga.  The dish contains lots of naga pepper seeds which measure 855,000 on the Scoville Scale.  (these seeds are 100 times hotter than jalapeno peppers.)
• Food historians believe that people have been eating curries for 4000 years.
• There is a Curried chicken salad in the UK called Coronation Chicken.  It was created for Queen Elizabeth II for her Coronation Banquet in 1953.  

Source

• Always the Holidays

Other Vending Machine Applications

The five-star Emirates Palace Hotel installed the bullion ATM in its lobby as the first permanent gold vending machine in the world.

Guarded by armored guards. It sells 24-carat gold bars weighing 1, 5, and 10 grams as well as gold coins from Canada, Australia, and South Africa. Each comes in a sweet-looking black case.

The pricing of the bars is based on a mix of London and New York spot gold markets, with a small premium built in. No sales staff are needed to operate the machine. All bars sold are 24 carat and every item comes with a money-back guarantee.

Golf bar weighing 10 grams or more will have the Emirates Palace hologram embossed on it.

Interesting Facts about Gold

• It is estimated that to date, humans have mined almost 180,000 tonnes of gold! Gold is the most malleable of all metals! One gram of gold can be formed into a square one meter square and a troy ounce of gold can be formed into a thread reaching almost five miles in length! Making it the ideal material for intricate jewellery and watches!
• Gold is edible in small quantities. In many Asian communities, gold is added to food gifts such as fruit and sweets. There are many variations of liquors throughout the world that include gold leaf. Gold can also be found as an ingredient of some medicines.
• Gold is one of the densest metals found on earth, a cubic meter of gold weights 19,300 kilograms, far heavier than lead and not far off the densest metal, Osmium.
• Geologists believe almost all of the gold on earth arrived during meteorite storms over two billion years ago. These meteorites are thought to have formed following the collision of exotic stars several billion years ago.
• Pure gold has a melting point of 1064.43°c.
• AU is the chemical symbol given to gold in the periodic table, derived from the Latin word aurum meaning ‘shining dawn’ and named from Aurora, the goddess of the dawn in Roman culture.

Source

• The Gold Bullion

Other Vending Machine Applications

The set up of Comic book vending machines offer multiple benefits to both consumers and businesses. Here are some key advantages:

1. Convenience: Consumers can access comic books anytime, without needing to visit a traditional bookstore or wait for online deliveries. This is especially beneficial in high-traffic areas where people might be looking for quick entertainment.
2. Exposure to New Content: Vending machines can introduce readers to new and diverse comic titles they might not have encountered otherwise, potentially expanding their interests and the market reach of lesser-known comics.
3. Cost-Effective for Businesses: For businesses, these vending machines require less staff and overhead costs compared to running a full retail store, while still reaching comic enthusiasts and casual buyers alike.
4. Flexible Placement: They can be placed in a variety of locations including shopping malls, airports, train stations, and educational institutions, making them accessible to a wide audience.
5. Promotional Tool: Comic book vending machines can also serve as an effective promotional tool for new releases, special editions, or events. They provide a unique way to generate buzz and excitement around comic book launches.
6. Supports Independent Creators: Smaller publishers and independent creators have an additional platform to distribute and sell their work, bypassing traditional barriers to entry.

These benefits highlight how comic book vending machines can enhance accessibility, support various business models, and contribute positively to the comic book industry’s ecosystem.

Other Vending Machine Applications

Many women will empathise with the scenario of struggling home in high heels that, after a night of dancing, are torture to walk in. Now, however, a new flat shoes vending machine presents an ingenious solution.

Ashley Ross, 25, and Lindsay Klimitz, 26 have bought the rights to manufacture and distribute Rollasole flats in clubs across the U.S.

Soft and squishy, the shoes come out of the vending machine rolled up in a plastic cup and they’re also recyclable to ensure no one clutters up U.S. landfills with too many disposable shoes.

The entrepreneurial pair are working on more diverse style choices, with an array of flats that feature gold studs, rhinestones, polka dots and leopard print, ensuring all outfits are catered for.

Miss Klimitz said: ‘Both of us are not really people that would walk barefoot. I know a lot of girls are into walking barefoot – when they’re in just too much pain, they can’t take it. But we would literally suffer through the pain.’

Club girl or not, high heels are synonymous with sore feet, a universal truth among women. How long a girl can go before chucking them in for a comfier option varies, but Miss Ross concedes it’s about a couple of hours.

She explained: ‘Two hours is the limit for a lot of girls. If you put a few drinks in them, probably one hour.’

Discipline, peer pressure and band aids have been the answer until now, and it appears that it’s not just girls who are happy about the introduction of the Rollasole vending machines.

Club owners approve because girls who wear them stay out an average of 40 minutes later, according to a survey Miss Ross and Miss Klimitz commissioned.

Guys like the shoes because it keeps girls out partying for the night.

So far there are three Rollasole vending machines in Las Vegas, one in the Venetian Hotel in front of Tao nightclub, one in Vanity at the Hard Rock casino, and one at the Tropicana.

Selling for $19.95 per pair, they beat having to bring a pair of flip-flops to a club, which one of the girls’ friends often does. Apparently other girls look at her with envy.

Not wearing heels in the first place for a night of dancing would seem like an obvious answer, but as Miss Ross and Miss Klimitz both declare a ‘No’ in unison at the option, Rollasoles are clearly a better one.

Other Vending Machine Applications

Video below shows a bra vending machine rolled out by Japanese lingerie maker Wacoal at its specialty shop. The vending machine is packed with the popular wireless “Fun Fun Week” bras.

The shop’s manager said, “The vending machine’s strength is that you can quickly look at the size chart and buy,” and that customers didn’t have to tell shop staff their size or even have to talk to shop staff at all!

On GirlsChannel, a site aimed at Japanese women, many thought the idea of buying a bra via a vending machine seemed rather strange.

“Purchasing one without trying it on would be somewhat impossible (for me),” wrote one commentator.

“An old man probably came up with this idea,” wrote another commentator. Others suggested that it was ideal for male customers who liked to wear women’s underwear.

If anything, this seems like a Wacoal publicity stunt, which is something the Japanese lingerie company often does. It sure is working!

Not all commentators were completely against the vending machine, and there were those who thought the novelty aspect was interesting. Wrote one commentator, “So, this is peace of mind for the days you forget to wear a bra, I guess?”

Interesting Facts About Bra

• The modern bra was invented in France.
• The word “bra” came along much later. In fact, it wasn’t until 1907 when Vogue first used the word ‘brassiere’ in print. The word was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 1911.
• Cup sizes were invented in the 1930s.
• Since the first bra was invented, these things have changed a whole lot. In fact, the padded bra didn’t exist until 1947 and the push-up bra wasn’t a thing until a year later. 
• You’ve probably heard that around 80% of women are wearing the wrong bra size.

Source

• Parfait

Other Vending Machine Applications

Invented by entrepreneur Claudio Torghele, Let’s Pizza machines were initially designed and manufactured in Northern Italy.

Customers can choose between up to four kinds of pies, and watch through windows as the machine adds water to flour, kneads the dough, layers on the sauce, assembles the toppings, and bakes the pizza in an infrared oven in just 2.5 minutes. There are fun windows so customers can watch their pies being made. It can produce 90 to 100 pizzas before it needs to be refilled.

Interesting Facts about Pizza

• Americans eat approximately 100 acres of pizza each day, or 350 slices per second.
• 36% of all pizza orders want their pizza topped with pepperoni.
• 94% of Americans eat pizza regularly.
• Over 5 billion pizzas are sold worldwide each year.
• More pizza is consumed during the week of The Big Game than any other time of the year.
• October has been celebrated as National Pizza month since 1987.
• 58% of Americans order pizza on the Sunday of The Big Game, the highest selling day for pizza.
• Thin crust pizza is the most popular form of crust worldwide.
• Women are more likely to order vegetarian options as opposed to men.
• Saturday is the most popular night for eating pizza.
• Breakfast Pizza, 36% of Americans believe that pizza is a breakfast meal.
• There’s a annual Pizza expo in Las Vegas.
• There is a mathematical theorem named after pizza.
• In India, the most preferred pizza topping is tofu.
• One of the first documented Internet purchases was a pizza: Pepperoni with mushrooms and extra cheese. This was one of the first recorded   purchases made online around 1994.
• The Hawaiian pizza was invented in Canada. In 1962 by Sam Panopoulos, a native of Greece who was running a pizzeria in Ontario Canada. Bored with only having three toppings available mushroom, bacon, or pepperoni he took down a can of pineapples from the top shelf and decided to throw it on pizza. The rest is history.
• Luis XIII in Salerno, Italy has the world’s most expensive pizza with a price tag of $12,000! This is no ordinary pizza, first the dough is aged perfectly before the chief arrives at your home. Yes, they will create this masterpiece in your home kitchen. Some of the ingredients include, three types of caviar, lobster from Norway, Cilento, bufala mozzarella cheese and grains of pink Australian sea-salt from the Murray River.
• In 2001, the Russian Space Agency was paid more than a million bucks to deliver a six-inch pizza to the International Space Station. Russian cosmonaut,Yuri Usachov had the honor of being the first person to receive a pizza delivery while in orbit.
• Before World War II pizza was mostly enjoyed by Italian immigrants in their home communities. During the occupation of Italy, Allied troops began eating local foods to supplement sometimes dwindling rations. The local bakers could hardly keep up with the US soldiers demand for pizza, and when they came home after the war they brought their love for pizza back with them.

Source

• Picklemans
• Deniro’s Pizza

Other Vending Machine Applications

It’s a cliché but it’s true – the French love their bread, whether it’s hot from the oven or hot from a vending machine.

A prize-winning baguette dispenser invented by French baker Jean-Louis Hecht not only offers hungry customers hot loaves at any time of the day or night but is bringing in the dough for fellow bakers who have invested in the machine.

Hecht, who won the latest edition of the French Concours Lepine, an annual competition for unique inventions, said the idea of the “Pani Vending” machine came from his desire to spend the evenings with his family instead of being disturbed by eager customers asking for fresh bread at odd hours of the day, sometimes even when the bakery was closed.

The process is simple: you pay and the machine then bakes a pre-cooked loaf and dispenses a hot baguette 30 seconds later.

Hecht has already installed 20 machines in France and 4 in Russia. He said he hopes to sell thousands of machines throughout the world in the coming years.

Vouching for the quality of the dispenser-made bread, Trix Ninot, a flight attendant from the Netherlands said the machine had made her life much easier than before.

“In the beginning when we saw the machine it was a little bit strange because we were not used to seeing a machine. We want to go into the bakery to buy the bread. But the bread is very very good so when the bakery is closed, we take bread in the machine,” she said.

Salam Azouni, a local construction worker, said the dispenser meant avoiding the queues outside the bakery.

“In the evenings, we have no choice. And sometimes it’s quicker, we park, we put a coin, we take the baguette, it’s hot, it has the same taste, it’s the same thing,” he said.

Fun facts about Baguette

• The French have been making long sticks of bread since at least the mid-eighteenth century, but the baguette didn’t become an iconic symbol of French cuisine until the twentieth century. A law passed in 1920 banned workers from beginning their shift before 4am, which made it difficult for French bakers to have fresh bread ready for their customers in the morning. They turned to the fast-baking baguette for a solution, and soon it became a part of daily life.
• According to a legend, it was Napoleon who asked for the baguette to have a long shape. This made it easier for his soldiers to carry their bread around down their pants while in the battlefield.

Source

• Mobile-Cuisine.com

Other Vending Machine Applications