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The economics of vending machines
Japan has so many, but why? You can cite love of gadgets, etc. but I want something more general. After all, Japanese retailing has a very high ratio of small stores serving a local clientele; surely Japanese vending machines are another example -- albeit an extreme one -- of that more general trend.
First we must look to the shortage of storage space in homes. I suspect few Japanese want to buy big piles of stuff at Costco. So buy smaller "portions" and in the meantime the inventories are stored in the vending machines, where they are more or less at your disposal.
Cars of course are another means of storage and also a way to transport goods in bulk (NB: you carless people have a hard time pigging out at the public library, you poor souls). But most Tokyo residents don't use cars so again they buy goods in smaller numbers which again points us to the vending machine. Buy one disgusting sweet fizzy juice, drink it on the spot, and walk to your nearest vending machine when you need another one.
You'll notice that vending machines are especially popular for canned and bottled liquids, where the ratio of storage and carry costs to per unit value is relatively high.
This article associates vending machines with the nomadic lifestyle.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on May 20, 2008 at 08:49 AM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
The number of vending machines in Japan could perhaps be explained by the general anti-social/socially awkward behavior amongst the Japanese. Use a vending machine and you get to avoid human interaction. Prejudice? Maybe, since it does not explain why vending machines primarily hold beverages. It's probably an important explaining variable, though.
Posted by: Robert at May 20, 2008 8:48:22 AM
They sell cars door-to-door in Japan, so I doubt it has much to do with anti-social retailing techniques.
Posted by: Ted Craig at May 20, 2008 8:57:10 AM
Total stab in the dark, but could it have anything to do with the fact that it's been easier to carry coins in Japan since they're hollow in the middle?
Posted by: Ted Craig at May 20, 2008 8:59:50 AM
How are the prices in these machines? Similar mark up (compared to a shop) as in the US?
Posted by: Greatzamfir at May 20, 2008 9:03:28 AM
We have cheap labor to serve fast food and drinks from immigrants and teenagers. Japan has few immigrants and I don't think their teenagers work.
Posted by: joan at May 20, 2008 9:15:50 AM
Joan: "We have cheap labor to serve fast food and drinks from immigrants and teenagers. Japan has few immigrants and I don't think their teenagers work."
Good point. We also have relatively cheap land in the U.S.. People-friendly space of convenience stores and large fast food buildings should be cheaper for mst of the U.S.
Posted by: John Dewey at May 20, 2008 9:26:03 AM
I would also look at the storage space for humans in stores. Shops require expensive ground floor space. If you can eliminate the space the human takes up to manage the store and space shoppers use to enter and browse, you can store more compactly. It's seems a little counterintuitive to think that the storage space could be more valuable than a human occupant.
Posted by: Market Urbanism at May 20, 2008 9:34:06 AM
I've read for years that crime rates - especially vandalism - are much lower in Japan.
My brother, whose cerebral palsy liimited his occupational choices, owned a small vending machine business in the early 1970's in Louisiana. He had to give it up due to vandalism and theft losses.
Posted by: John Dewey at May 20, 2008 9:38:35 AM
Tokyo has more restaurants per capita than any city in the world. Most urban Japaneses rarely make a meal at home (I've observed that its nearly the same in Hong Kong). Could it be that there isn't enough restaurants? I think cheap labor is also an issue.
I've never actually bought anything from a vending machine in Tokyo as the average restaurant is so much better than in the states (although I confess on my last day of my last trip I ate at a mcdonalds).
"Shops require expensive ground floor space."
Never been to Tokyo have you? Shops and restaurants are frequently 3, 4, 5 stories off the ground.
Posted by: tim at May 20, 2008 9:45:00 AM
I think Robert's explanation is best. Sad to say, but if you think "socially awkward teenage male",
that is a very convenient way to remember most Japanese social interaction customs. I don't think
the door-to-door car sales thing contradicts that, it's just another thing sold in person.
Posted by: Person at May 20, 2008 9:57:16 AM
Whoa! Haven't been to Tokyo, but always wanted to.
Are the vending machines only on the ground level?
Also, here's an automat in NYC: http://www.bamnfood.com/
Posted by: Market Urbanism at May 20, 2008 10:13:17 AM
The Japanese minimum wages are still incredibly cheap, and moreover, something that struck me continually was the immense labour intensity of almost all service areas, including restaraunts and stores. Many service staff were continually idle or existed only as greeters, and the absolutely immense number of leaflet distributors and tissue distributors would hardly exist if labour costs were a huge issue. This is coupled with a large supply of young people whom, having left high school, have been unable to gain employment in the traditional graduate sense. The companies for the psat 15 years of low growth don't wish to fire staff, so they let them go via attrition and decline to hire new staff. This leaves a large surplus of cheap unskilled labour.
Just look at the prices of eating out in Japan. Considering the three main costs are ingredients, rent and labour, and we know rent is astronomical and food other than fish are also very high, the cost of labour must be low to allow us to eat out so cheaply there.
I'd have to say that vending machines exist despite the cost of labor, not because of it.
I would favour instead the pedestrian lifestyle, which vending machines cater for, the high cost of land (which doesn't prevent the huge number of overstaffed convenience stores that are barely less common than vending machines), and the fact that maintainence is so cheap because of low vandalism rates.
You could also cite higher demonination coins compared to the US at least (if not the equally vending machine sparse Europe and Oceania), but the machines also take high denomination notes.
If I was to cite a cultural factor, it would only be the intolerance for queues.
Posted by: Richard Green at May 20, 2008 10:14:27 AM
Surprisingly, Costco seems to have found success in (suburban, though not "suburban" by U.S. standards) Seoul. The wide selection of items both within and across segments at Costco compared to vending-machine items or convenience stores means that thousands of Seoulites every day brave harrowing traffic and parking conditions to visit the local Costco or E-Mart.
Posted by: Sean at May 20, 2008 10:17:08 AM
Answer: protectionist laws. The "high ratio of small stores serving a local clientele" There’s an easy answer: protectionist regulations. The "high ratio of small stores" is a byproduct of law: super-malls and big stores like Carrefour/Walmart aren’t allowed to be built there, and small stores are protected by a minimum distance between them, so the consumer is vastly underserved and the market responds with zillion of vending machines, effectively bypassing the regulations.
This distortion created by regulation is not the only one in Japan: the highly-unionized labour market in industry (much more in the past than now), caused a very deep labour-capital substitution, and now Japan is a worldwide leader in robotics, with the highest percentage of robots per worker. And currently, the highly-unionized and unproductive service sector is causing another labour-capital substitution: those crazy robots to take care of the elderly...
Posted by: David at May 20, 2008 10:54:28 AM
Sorry about previous post...
There’s an easy answer: protectionist regulations. The "high ratio of small stores" is a byproduct of law: super-malls and big stores like Carrefour/Walmart aren’t allowed to be built there, and small stores are protected by a minimum distance between them, so the consumer is vastly underserved and the market responds with zillion of vending machines, effectively bypassing the regulations.
This distortion created by regulation is not the only one in Japan: the highly-unionized labour market in industry (much more in the past than now), caused a very deep labour-capital substitution, and now Japan is a worldwide leader in robotics, with the highest percentage of robots per worker. And currently, the highly-unionized and unproductive service sector is causing another labour-capital substitution: those crazy robots to take care of the elderly...
Posted by: David at May 20, 2008 10:58:55 AM
A 1992 New York Times article gives two reasons why Japan has more vending machines per capita than does the U.S. Acording to T. Burke McKinney, director of marketing for Coca-Cola, Japan:
"The real issue is the Japanese life style. People are demanding the convenience."
McKinney also remarked about the prospects for outside vending machines in the U.S. vs Japan:
"Can you see one of these things lasting in Dallas or Jacksonville or New York?"
Another paragraph in the article mentions the difference in crime rates:
Japanese vending machines are significantly safer from crime. "We're not worried about bandits here, as I think you are in the United States," said Takashi Kurosaki, an official of the Japan Vending Machine Manufacturers' Association. "The companies have virtually no losses due to vandals or thieves."
Posted by: John Dewey at May 20, 2008 11:18:53 AM
Stab in the dark, but an aging population needs to bring in immigrants or robots to do its labour. I've heard before that Japan is one of the few countries to take the robots option seriously.
Posted by: Matt at May 20, 2008 11:30:34 AM
Japan has more advanced vending machines than we do; they accept credit cards. And, according to the article, you will be able to pay on your cell phone bill eventually. Also, the machines are stocked with many different things, whereas in the US, they are owned by Coke or Pepsi and only carry coke or pepsi products. I think the answer is convenience. Vending machines in Japan must have better locations, accept currency in a better way, and carry products that are not easily accessible. US vending machines, in my experience are in poor locations, sometimes only accept quarters, and are frequently out of the most popular items. The Japanese must be better at running automated industries than Americans.
Posted by: brainwarped at May 20, 2008 11:30:51 AM
I have heard from expats that the painful level of politeness demanded of even small human transactions adds to the appeal of automation. this wouldn't be an issue when buying a car, but could be tedious when all you want is a coffee.
but the low crime rate must also be a contributory effect: the machines even sell beer, something no machine in London could survive with for more than two hours.
Posted by: Rory Sutherland at May 20, 2008 11:32:21 AM
you carless people have a hard time pigging out at the public library, you poor souls
With a backpack and bike, I can easily carry a dozen books to and from the library. The real limit on my pigging out tendencies is the hours - the branch library is only open two evenings a week, and not at all on Sunday.
Vending machines are, of course, always open.
Posted by: Psyche at May 20, 2008 11:42:31 AM
If the Japanese have more vending machines because of the difference in crime rates, as the New York Times article from 1992 pointed out, then we can see one more hidden cost of U.S. crime: U.S. consumers must wait in checkout lines at convenience stores rather than being able to grab and go as do the Japanese. Certainly Japanese consumers might experience brief queueing at their vending machines. But a Japanese consumer who wishes to buy a soft drink does not have to wait while the woman in line in front of him buys 4 lottery tickets using the birthdates of each one of her preschool children.
Posted by: John Dewey at May 20, 2008 12:02:50 PM
Weird question, asking why Japan has so many. I would ask in reverse why everywhere else has so few? Because I think that's where the distortion lies. The appeal of well designed, placed, and stocked vending machines seems self-explanatory.
As repeated in this thread already, the answer seems to be crime, but there is probably more to it than just that.
Posted by: BillWallace at May 20, 2008 12:18:43 PM
Awkward social interactions and levels of politeness have nothing to do with it. (Robert, you're right that your response betrays your prejudice.) My local convenience stores have impeccable and highly efficient service - nothing awkward about it. (I can't really see how interactions *among* Japanese people are socially awkward - perhaps you're thinking of Japanese tourists trying to speak a language that they're uncomfortable with, or people in Japan dealing with foreigners who don't speak Japanese very well?)
I tend to agree with others that one of the major factors is floor space. Japanese convenience stores are the same size as or smaller than those in the US, but they seem to carry a much wider variety of merchandise. Besides having about 30 kinds of beer, they have a lot more prepared foods, dress shirts (and loads of other Muji products), sometimes even iPods. Why not move some of the higher volume merchandise to a vending machine and save some floor space? The vending machines are also more appealing generally - besides being vandalism-free and having a good selection, they offer hot coffee, tea and soup in the winter and cold coffee and tea in the summer (both in the spring and autumn). One other thought: Japanese people, especially salarymen, tend to drink a lot. Being able to buy a sports drink or other means of rehydration every fifty feet comes in very handy after a long night out.
Brainwarped, you're right about the cell phone payment - except that it's not coming, it's already here. It's not widely used yet, but newer phones have Metro Cards built in - and you can already use prepaid Metro Cards to pay at many vending machines, stores in and near bigger stations, convenience stores and taxis. If you get a newer cell phone with the card built in, you can pay at those places by just swiping your phone at the sensor.
Posted by: bcw210 at May 20, 2008 12:23:33 PM
My favorite Japanese canned liquid is "pokari sweat."
Sounds yukky and tastes a bit odd, but great on a hot day.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at May 20, 2008 12:43:33 PM
Pokari Sweat is good, but don't forget Calpis. Similar strange, but surprisingly good, taste. They had to change the name to "Calpico" on cans that are exported to the US (primarily, if not exclusively, to Japanese stores in big cities).
Posted by: bcw210 at May 20, 2008 12:51:04 PM
Some points to consider, offered by a resident of Japan for 24 years:
1. Most vending machines in Japan are owned outright by the commercial establishment where they're located. That means they are an extension of the business enterprise itself. That includes Shinto shrines and medical clinics.
2. Beware of the trap of thinking that Tokyo=Japan. Most people in Japan don't live in Tokyo and they DO use (and depend on) their cars. Toyota didn't get where it is today by selling all its product overseas.
3. Beware of the trap of thinking that American dietary habits=the global gold standard. Most refrigerators sold in Japan today are larger than the ones I grew up with in the United States. Yet very few Japanese will buy immense bottles of soft drink or buckets of ice cream and stick them in the refrigerator/freezer. They tend to eat smaller quantities at one sitting.
My Japanese wife was initially impressed by her first visit to an American supermarket, but wound up close to appalled before she walked out the door. It is difficult for Americans to realize how gluttonous it all seems to someone not used to that lifestyle.
Of course, Japanese men will buy cases of beer--in larger bottles--but instead of putting them into the refrigerator all at once, or taking up space in the house, place the bottles on the porch or outside the kitchen door, secure in the knowledge that the beer is unlikely to be stolen.
And while I'm at it...
"Use a vending machine and you get to avoid human interaction. Prejudice?"
No, just completely unaware of daily social interaction in Japan.
"They sell cars door-to-door in Japan..."
That's not how most people buy them, however.
"...could it have anything to do with the fact that it's been easier to carry coins in Japan since they're hollow in the middle?"
Only two coins have holes in the middle, the holes don't make them easier to carry, and they are not the coins most likely to be used in vending machines.
"Most urban Japaneses rarely make a meal at home..."
I would love to see the statistics on that one. Particularly for families.
"The "high ratio of small stores" is a byproduct of law: super-malls and big stores like Carrefour/Walmart aren’t allowed to be built there..."
Twenty years out of date.
"Vending machines in Japan must...carry products that are not easily accessible."
The overwhelming majority of Japanese vending machines sell either beverages, cigarettes, or less frequently, ice cream.
"I have heard from expats that the painful level of politeness demanded of even small human transactions adds to the appeal of automation."
Bum steer. If an expat told you that, I can almost guarantee that their degree of language fluency is negligible.
"Vending machines are, of course, always open."
Not for beer or ciggies after 11:00 p.m. where I live.
"Japan has few immigrants and I don't think their teenagers work."
The jobs that high school students in the US do are performed by college students in Japan. I teach two college classes at a national university, and 95% of my students have part-time jobs working in shops and restaurants.
I don't mean to hurt anyone's feelings, but you know what Keynes said about truth-telling.
Still, the lack of accurate information about Japan--in the information age, no less--is sobering.
Posted by: Ampontan at May 20, 2008 1:13:50 PM
Sorry if someone already answered this question, but I didn't see it... Is it true that the vending machines in Japan don't have the theft-deterring bar where the item comes out? I.e. in the U.S., you can't stick your hand up into the machine to grab the stuff, but someone told me in Japan you could. (But of course nobody does.) So it that true?
Posted by: Bob Murphy at May 20, 2008 2:13:10 PM
There are a lot of comments about regulatory structure in Japan or about culture but something I've noticed in Los Angeles's Little Tokyo is that there are fewer in number and type than what people report from Japan. This makes me think that it may not be so much what Japan regulates as what the US regulates. I know that there can often be severe anti-vending machine ordnances in the states.
It may also be that the way in which vending machines were deployed historically helped create a different consumer perception. In order to sell a lot of things out of vending machines, customers need to be assured that a defective product can be returned. In the US, vending machines are almost always deployed by a third party, limiting that capability significantly. If Japanese machines are owned by traditional establishments--even if they only have "branches"--then consumers face fewer risks when they feed their cash into the slot.
Posted by: Steven Schreiber at May 20, 2008 4:26:29 PM
As John Dewey, Bill Wallace, and others posted above, it's the crime. Walking back from playing some basketball one evening in the outskirts of Tokyo a few years back, some friends and I were trying to come up with explanations for why the US didn't have many vending machines. The Brooklynite of the group simply noted that the machines would have an uptime measured in hours in his neighborhood. I admitted to jimmying my way into some when I was a teenager, in a very rural part of the country. I'd be curious if there's a correlation with petty theft/vandalism vs. vending machines over the years.
On a related note, vending machines have made a comeback in the USA in a different form: self-service checkout in Home Depot, gas stations, et al. The productivity gains for automated retailing should be pretty obvious, so again, I suspect you'd see "vending machines" still be popular in the USA as long as it's in a way that's harder to vandalize or cheat.
Posted by: DonDraper at May 20, 2008 5:06:30 PM
Amerikans don't have the convenience of vending machines because our nanny state needs retail vendors to police the behavior of all customers, particularly kids. Amerika's theme is "a country safe for kids," which, of course it's not. It is a country, however, that treats all adults like kids.
How would vending machines be tolerated in Texas, where the Baptist gummint requires that no liquor be sold after midnight any day or before 12 noon on Sundays? Or in Colorado, where you can only buy 3.2 beer on Sundays? Or in Georgia, where you can't buy any booze on Sundays and where their city, Helen, sports an "Oktoberfest" which is open on Sundays, but which sells no beer?
Posted by: Jimbino at May 20, 2008 7:59:35 PM
Interesting, that in North America, vending fraud is the staple for FTC enforcement actions.
Simple to enforce, with a reasonable chance at scooping enough to pay for the litigation and the fines.
Posted by: michael webster at May 20, 2008 8:24:26 PM
The oddest thing was that there weren't only a lot of vending machines, but there are also a lot of convenience stores, usually within 100m of the vending machines. The substitutes for the machines are common and accessible.
I should note that in the 6 weeks I was in Japan, I do not recall any Japanese person using a vending machine.
Posted by: Gary Arndt at May 20, 2008 8:39:08 PM
Tyler, I went out early this morning in Tokyo and saw this vending machine:
http://flickr.com/photos/dbw001/2509430091/
Posted by: Dennis at May 20, 2008 9:12:12 PM
Have you noticed that vending machines carrying food are relatively rare? In Tokyo, I found more machines that dispensed cheap ties than foodstuffs.
Posted by: Rendang at May 20, 2008 10:27:59 PM
Can you explain why Japanese bank ATMs charge a commission after normal banking hours? Including if you want to make a deposit. Doesn't sound profit maximizing. (Citibank doesn't though).
I've been here (Tokyo and nearby) a long time and my only hunch is that people just think, well, it's always been that way so that's the way it has to be.
Posted by: 超バカ at May 21, 2008 1:22:40 AM
Gary Arndt: "I should note that in the 6 weeks I was in Japan, I do not recall any Japanese person using a vending machine."
That's very odd. According to the Japan Times Online:
There are 5.51 million machines in Japan, taking a total of nearly 7 trillion yen (around $ 58 billion) a year.
One would assume that in six weeks in Japan, you would have seen at least a small amount of that $58 billion being spent. Or is it that you just have inadequate powers of recall. That started happening to me about my 55th birthday. I think I've had a 55th birthday, but who knows for certain.
Posted by: John Dewey at May 21, 2008 9:46:56 AM
Cowen: "you carless people have a hard time pigging out at the public library, you poor souls"
Psyche: "With a backpack and bike, I can easily carry a dozen books to and from the library. The real limit on my pigging out tendencies is the hours - the branch library is only open two evenings a week, and not at all on Sunday."
I'm with Psyche on this. Although I own two cars, I do like to walk to the library since it's only 1/2 mile away. If you can't carry, in a backpack, the number of books you're likely to read in the next week, you either don't have a job to occupy your time (in which case you can walk back to the library frequently) or you have some serious health problems. Since Cowen does have a job, and is in good enough health to travel, I don't think either applies to him--so clearly he could pig out at the local library without a car, if it's within walking distance.
I love Cowen's books, and assign them to my political economy classes, but his anti-carless smugness is just as annoying as the anti-car crowd's smugness.
Posted by: James Hanley at May 21, 2008 1:25:11 PM
Here's one possible explanation which noone has yet considered.
If many of the Japanese vending machines are located next to convenience stores, and are indeed operated by those stores, it may be that crime is not the only factor. It may simply be that stores in Japan have discovered something of which stores elsewhere remain ignorant. Quite simply that offering a choice of purchase channels for the same goods significantly boosts overall sales. The rest of the world's retailers remain ignorant of this because it is in many ways counter-intuitive: you would expect a vending machine outside your store to cannibalise your existing sales. In fact it may create a large number of additional transactions.
Hence the right question to ask may be Bill Wallace's: not "Why do these inscrutable Japanese have so many vending machines?" but "Why do we all have so few?"
Let me advance a few examples where this rule applies.
In direct marketing, the single easiest way to increase your response rate is not by reducing price: it is by increasing the number of channels through which a customer can place an order. Conventional economics would suggest you either want a miracle rake or you don't - and that it would be irrelevant whether you acquire that rake by phone, by post or via the web. Sales results show this is not how people behave.
Creating a drive-thru window for a fast-food outlet grows sales. Indeed I have seen queues of seven or eight cars at our local drive-thru when the restaurant itself is empty. Logic would suggest you should get out of your car and go and collect the food at the counter. Channel preference means you don't.
How many of you have been excitedly about to bid on eBay and you suddenly discover they don't take PayPal? Sod it, you think - too much trouble.
Do young people give to charity? Not much. Yet allow them to donate by text message and they suddenly become quite generous.
In London I have an account with a taxi firm. I can order cabs by text message or by human phone call. For one month the text service wasn't working: in that month I ordered 10% my usual number of taxis through that firm.
This is a very rough guestimate from years in direct marketing, but if you have a vending machine selling cigarettes outside a cigarette shop, around 50% of the vending machines sales will be incremental, even during the shop's opening hours, and not allowing for queues.
It may be that different people have differing but strongly held channel preferences that remain constant over time. It may be something that varies by mood, mode or mindset. But it is a preference very strongly held.
Anyone who has stayed in an upmarket European hotel where the trend is to have no coffee-making equipment in the room knows this feeling: "Oh God, I'm in my underpants and just to get a coffee I have to place a human phone call and answer the bloody door. I can't face it." Yet at other times more personal service is welcome.
It could just be that 7/11 is missing the biggest trick in the book. Vending machines in its carparks could make a fortune.
Posted by: Rory Sutherland at May 21, 2008 1:47:28 PM
@Robert -- if the Japanese use vending machines due to social awkwardness, then why do you not see more vending machines in the UK, which has roughly the same national characteristic? Not that the UK is short on vending machines -- just that it's about the same as here in the US, a supposedly more extrovert country.
I think Rory's theory immediately above is better. Vending machines are a painless way of offering multiple sales channels because if they're in front of the owner's store, stocking them is merely a case of stocking another shelf, one that happens to be outside the front door and accessed with a key. And yet to the customer, the vending machine is a distinct sales channel, as in right there -- no time wasted to go in the store or stand in line.
Posted by: DBX at May 22, 2008 9:50:23 AM
I have to go with Ampontan on this one.
Posted by: Jun Okumura at May 22, 2008 11:29:01 AM
Rory's right about the more outlets/more sales opportunities model. However, let's not overlook a simpler partial explanation: The Japanese love of all things technological. Vendomats over there are much more inclined towards bells, whistles, and other attention-grabbing devices. And Japanese vending concessionaires enjoy a greater degree of certainty that their investment in the machines won't be endangered by random defacement or vandalism.
Then there's the fact that coin-op machines (e.g. Pachinko) in the immediate post-war era permitted the average Japanese to purchase entertainment without the costs associated with ownership--this translated to other coin-ops. That's a consumption habit that's been passed down through generations.
Posted by: Jamey at May 22, 2008 11:36:45 AM
When I was in college in Rhode Island in the 60's, vending machines were almost entirely safe from vandalism. The Mob owned and ran them. Are the Yakuza doing vending machines in Japan, or is that too small potatoes for them?
Posted by: Bob Munck at May 22, 2008 11:52:06 AM
'Disgusting sweet fizzy juice' is not actually very common in Japan. Sweet things are not too popular there. Most Japanese soft drinks are like less sweet versions of Gatorade.
Posted by: Bob at May 22, 2008 12:42:00 PM
I was in Tokyo a month ago. It's true that they have vending machines everywhere, even somewhat rural areas, such as on the way to Mount Fuji. But what is interesting is that the cultural norms there frown upon consuming food when on the street. They apparently go to a park, or home, to enjoy their vending purchase. This is changing as the younger folks are influenced by Western standards, but by and large I never saw anyone drink a Boss coffee in a can while walking along the street.
Posted by: Sidd at May 22, 2008 2:46:04 PM
I think the low level of street crime and the high level of density make it possible to have so many vending machines. As a previous poster noted, vending machines wouldn't last too long in Brooklyn because someone might break into it and steal all of the goods or money.
Similarly vending machines wouldn't do so well in safer locations like the suburbs because there is next to no foot traffic.
Vending machines in the USA generally flourish in areas that have a high level of foot traffic along with a fairly high level of security. This is why you'll find a good number of vending machines on college campuses, office buildings, and grade schools.
Posted by: Chris at May 22, 2008 3:41:19 PM
I remember just before I moved to Tokyo in the 80's someone asked me if I was going to ride a horse to school. This whole thread gives me that same feeling I had at the time....."whaaa?!"
FWIW, Ampontan seems to be about the only one who knows of what he speaks in regards to Japan.
Oh yeah, best things I ever bought in vending machines in Japan? That's easy...whiskey, porn and beer. I was 15. It was awesome.
スコ
Posted by: scosco at May 22, 2008 4:30:30 PM
