Vending Machine Behavior is Atrocious, but we love them, try changing things to entry/invite system.

I enjoy taking my kids to the vending machine. There are a couple near us, and it is fun to take a swipe and move on. We use them as intended. Take a shot and move on if you get nothing. The problem we are having is that people are loitering. They take a shot, then congregate near the machine and either block it, or create an awkward scene for customers in the store. I think this negative can be avoided by changing the process for drops while keeping the vending machines installed as a way to distribute product to families at MSRP.

Yesterday I went in to a Safeway with my 7 and 9 year old sons to take a crack at the VM before their practice. My youngest ran to the machine and touched it. He scored. An AH ETB and a tin and a single. It was awesome, but then it wasn't. One of the lurkers jumped up and tried to take it. When I got there he backed off, but started swearing. F-word this and that. Wouldn't shut up really. It was horrible.

Other times we have gone were not as bad, but were awkward. People stay there for hours even. Tried it once before practice and then nearly 2 hours later after practice and the same person was still there. This is not the type of thing I want to expose my kids to, nor is it something any store wants.

I wouldn't want them to go away because it is so hard to get product that isn't resold by the type of people who swear at a Dad buying his 7 year old something he enjoys. I would be willing to participate in something that is more lottery based. Maybe you could let users enter into a lottery for the specific VM by touching it and putting in contact info. Then use that entry in a lottery that gives a random selection of people a ticket to buy a random drop at that machine in a time period, perhaps the next week. Week 1, enter lottery, winners get to buy in week 2 and maybe enter lottery for week 3 during week 2. You could experiment with frequencies and the number of entries allowed per week. Maybe 1 per 24 hours? Also deploy methods to limit people from entering under multiple accounts. Facial recognition is good these days. Validating an account at the other end of the email entry with an SMS capable phone number could reduce the number of duplicates users can create.