Automatic Age

14
T h e A u t o m a t ic A ge
PEEPING BEHIND TH E CURTAINS
A U T O M A T IC A G E :
W ill appreciate the names o f other automatic merchandising machine
manufacturers than these advertised in your magazine. Y ou no doubt
are soliciting advertising from them already.
H. E. Freeman, Tampa, Fla.
W e are glad to send you a list o f twenty
manufacturers o f merchandising or pack­
age vending machines. This is not a com­
plete list but it is representative enough to
furnish a wide variety o f package venders.
Y ou will find also that some o f these firms
now have package venders in process o f de­
velopment and are not yet rea'dy to market
them. Many o f the excellent candy bar
and cigarette venders can also be adapted
to vend items that may be packaged in
sizes similar to candy bars or cigarette
packs.
The nature o f your inquiry stirs the
depths o f our subconscious ambitions fo r
the vending machine industry. Every in­
dication points to the steady progress o f
automatic merchandising, and so plentiful
are these signs that we have felt all along
there should be a more general advertis­
ing o f the package venders. There are
many others, like you, who naturally turn
to the trade paper to find inform ation
about the best machines that are made, and
you also expect to find a fairly complete
list o f firms advertising in the trade papers.
It is the normal expectation o f every pro­
spective buyer, when he becomes interested
in a particular type o f machine, that he
will find practically all the leading manu­
facturers o f that type o f machine advertis­
ing regularly in the trade paper, and it
must be a disappointment not to find them.
W e have often tried to imagine how
much more rapidly the principle o f auto­
matic merchandising would gain if, say
these twenty representative firms advertised
regularly and kept their machines, with ap­
propriate messages on selling by machine,
before the trade. It is entirely reasonable
to feel that such a barrage o f advertising
and inform ation would rapidly impress the
operators with the new and big possibilities
in placing merchandising machines in fa ­
vorable locations.
Trade paper advertsing rates are so low
in comparison that one good sale will
practically pay the cost o f an entire year’s
© International Arcade Museum
advertising program. It would hardly be
possible fo r a manufacturer to advertise
good machines fo r a full year and not find
a number o f very favorable prospects fo r
merchandisng machines. F or we see from
the inquiries that come into our office and
from general acquaintance with the trade
that there are plenty more just like you,
who are looking fo r good vending machines
and expect to be put in touch with them
through advertising.
Y ou turn to your
trade paper as a kind o f reference book to
find that advertising.
W e will be glad indeed to keep in touch
with you and to have something o f your
experiences as you turn to merchandising
machines to pass on to the rest o f the fe l­
lows. The chain stores are naturally the
first to take up merchandising machines,
but their arrangements o f course are made
by the home office and the independent
operator has no chance to locate machines
with the chains. But the independent re­
tailers are on the increase and we are anx­
ious to know the experience o f operators
with these merchants,— whether very many
o f them are looking favorably toward the
coming o f machines to sell small standard
items, and if so, just what items they want
to see sold automatically.
Another field that is"Opening Op fo r the
operator is to place merchandising ma­
chines as an emergency shopping conven­
ience in apartment buildings. Candy and
cigarette machines usually go well in these
locations, there are other standard package
items that would profit by emergency sales
in these buildings also. In your southern
resort territory you would naturally have
many locations not common to the whole
country.
These two fields seem the most promis­
ing fo r the expansion o f the operator’s
business into the strictly automatic mer­
chandising business. W e wish you well in
whatever ventures you make, and hope to
have news from your occasionally.
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