High-Tech Vending Machines

Wed May 24, 2006 1:10PM EDT

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As the Valley goes, so goes the nation. A few months ago, I wrote a post about my virgin high-tech vending machine experience in Silicon Valley. Only in San Jose, California, could you buy an iPod from a robotic vending machine at 4 a.m. while standing in the lobby of your hotel. Or so I thought at the time.

Wrong. High-tech vending machines are springing up like summer weeds. Leading the fray, it seems, are Zoom Shops, neon-colored vending machines that spit out everything from iPods to flash memory to backup drives.

This weekend I saw a Zoom Store in the Atlanta airport, and I know there's one at San Francisco's airport as well. Today, Macy's announced Zoom Stores will find their way to 180 Macy's locations this fall. Macy's will sell iPods and accessories and test a few products from Sony and Motorola.

I still gulp at a $200 impulse buy from a vending machine, but I'm starting to warm to the idea, especially if I save money by having my purchase shoot out of a vending machine. I wonder if they'll have vending machine tech support some day!

Any Zoom Shop sightings on your radar? Any competitors? This is where we want to know about it.

 

 

 

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  • 2 Posted by reiderfhs on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:35PM EDT Report Abuse

    I think they're in most of the major airports. Pretty much all of the ones that I've been in recently had them.

  • 4 Posted by perfectpurpleprincess11 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:06PM EDT Report Abuse

    Cool, i'd go for it, but I live in a small town, and we would not have any of those here. them new-fangled thangies ain't comin round these her parts for a long long.

  • 5 Posted by perfectpurpleprincess11 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:06PM EDT Report Abuse

    Cool, i'd go for it, but I live in a small town, and we would not have any of those here. them new-fangled thangies ain't comin round these her parts for a long long.

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