Vending Technology Blog

Two Vending Industry Veterans Join VendScreen

By: Glenn Bulter | May 11, 2012

Stephen Pasker

We’re excited to formally announce that we’ve added two full-time members to our stellar team: Stephen Pasker and Erich Markee, who bring more than three decades of combined vending experience to VendScreen.

Stephen was most recently an industry consultant following his departure from Crane Streamware, where he served 11 years. He worked in customer support, documentation and quality assurance, most recently presiding over the implementation team. He has spent more than a decade working with hundreds of vending operators, helping them realize operational efficiencies and improvements.

Stephen learned about the vending machine industry from the bottom to top. He understands the needs of vending machine operators, the challenges they face, and what it takes to improve the profitability of their businesses.”

Erich brings more than 19 years of industry experience to VendScreen. Prior to joining VendScreen, he consulted for several operators, focusing on process development,

Erich Markee

data analysis, and cash and inventory accountability.

Prior to working as a consultant, he was general manager for Next Generation Vending, based in Stoughton, Mass., systems implementation manager for Sodexo Vending Services, and operations manager for A&B Vending in Saugus, Mass. He rolled out Crane Streamware’s vending management system to item level for more than 130 routes, and implemented pre-kitting, dynamic scheduling and various cashless systems for numerous vending operators.

Both Erich and Stephen add immense depth to VendScreen, Inc. with their tribal vending knowledge. We are delighted to have both of these A players on our team as we work to commercialize VendScreen Revolution.

Photos from VendScreen at NAMA Part 3

By: Paresh Patel | May 1, 2012

Wow, these are some nice shots! Thanks to Jon over at Rains Marketing for some great perspective from the conference floor!

VendScreen REALIZE Demo [Video]

By: Paresh Patel | April 30, 2012

Our super developer Gary Gause shows off the VendScreen Realize at the NAMA One Show in Vegas. The Realize is a resident device built into the OEM machine that handles purchasing,  cashless, nutritional data, ads, coupons, and telemetry (data back to customer VMS). It Directly synchs to an existing VMS systems (MEI, Streamware, and Cantaloupe now, more to come) with very little done outside of the VMS. Take a look…

What is VendScreen REDEEM? [Video]

By: Brian Geyser | April 28, 2012

Paresh shows off the amazing VendScreen mobile payment app called Redeem.

What is VendScreen REVOLUTION? [Video]

By: Paresh Patel | April 28, 2012

Paresh describes the VendScreen Revolution at the 2012 NAMA One Show in Vegas.

Photos From VendScreen at NAMA 2012 Part 2

By: Paresh Patel | April 26, 2012

Well we completed day one on the floor and it was exciting. Lots of interest and activity at the VendScreen booth. Today promises to be even more amazing as we will be receiving our 5 Gold NAMA Awards for Innovation this morning. Here are some more photos from the show…

Photos From NAMA 2012

By: Paresh Patel | April 25, 2012

We’re here at the NAMA One Show and VendScreen it a hit! The booth is teeming with action! Here some some pics just taken. Check our Facebook Page for more live stuff coming out of Vegas! http://www.facebook.com/VendScreen

Introducing VendScreen React Smart Phone App [VIDEO]

By: Paresh Patel | April 25, 2012

As an operator who has wanted and asked the industry’s software providers for 10 years for a mobile service app, I’m excited to announce VendScreen React!

VendScreen React is an innovative mobile app that to provide operators and their service technicians the ability to track and view service calls in real-time, plot the calls on a map and find the nearest next call, view machine planograms and update in real-time, and even view machine service manuals for each machine. With VendScreen React, the service technicians can even text a refund code directly to a customer’s cell phone, which can then be entered on a VendScreen equipped vending machine. VendScreen React is a critical (and much needed) link to the operator’s VMS (vending management software) from the field. The mobile app runs on both Android and iPhone. Below is a demo of the product.

Primary Benefits

VendScreen React is integrated with the operator’s existing VMS – Easitrax or VendMax. The operators can continue to log calls in the VMS and do everything as usual. No new procedures or processes required from the office. We have created a proprietary sync utility (VendScreen Relink) which resides on the operator’s server. This utility creates the interface between VendScreen servers and the operator’s servers. One key benefit, aside from having a mobile app with important service call information in the field, is no new data entry or procedures are required. Everything works seamlessly and automatically.

Revolutionary Vending Innovation

Any operator knows there are two very important and distinct sides to our daily operations – route and service. However, the industry’s software providers have almost exclusively worked on just the route side. Despite hundreds of millions of iPhones and Android phones sold in the consumer market place, none of the major VMS providers have provided any mobile app to help the operator with their service side of the business. With VendScreen React, operators will get that access to improve that side of their business. Clearly, this is a new level of thinking for the industry.

Enhancing Vending’s Image

The vending industry has long been viewed to trail not only the consumer marketplace, but other comparative industries as well. While retail sector has been using barcodes for decades, in vending, operators are just starting to use them now. Mobile apps help enhance the image in the industry. When the consumer is sent a refund code to his or her phone from the technicians phone, that not only solves a real problem for the user, but solves it in an innovative and cool way. And by the way, yes, our mobile app scans barcodes!

Saving You Time and Money

With VendScreen React, a machine’s service call history will be available immediately at the technician’s fingertips. This saves the technician time at the location because he/she can review the history immediately and know where to start with diagnosing the problem. All too often, technicians start fresh at each service call, duplicating effort that may have already been done another day by another technician.

Moreover, we provide other key information – including quick notes on how to change prices or get the meter reading. Even more interesting, is we provide a PDF version of the machine manual right on the mobile phone! No more thumbing through the machine manual to look up Error Code 123. The technician can simply “search” for that error code and immediately be presented with the right information to solve the problem, saving a significant amount of time at the location.

Boosting Sales and Profits

Operators know our service technicians are usually not as efficient as we would hope them to be … and much of this is simply from the lack of free-flowing information. How many times has a service technician drove past or near another service call, or returned at the end of the day only to learn there was another call he/she could have done. Downtime costs the operator in not only lost sales, but lost goodwill as well. VendScreen React is aptly named because it will allow the operator to REACT to things affecting their business in real-time. Having quick response will improve sales and profits by reducing wasted time and gas.

VendScreen React is the first mobile app in the industry that provides not only rich, much needed features, but also integrates with existing backend databases so it is up and running immediately. There is no need for new data to be entered, or data to be updated in two places. The operator’s staff continues working as they always have (such as entering service calls in Easitrax or VendMax) and we provide additional tools to relay that information it is available to the people who need it! This innovation is extremely unique and original.

Introducing VendScreen Revolution

By: Paresh Patel | April 25, 2012

As I write, we are preparing and setting up for one of the most important events in VendScreen’s short history – The NAMA One Show, where we will introduce our 5 new products to the world. One of those products, the VendScreen Revolution, will make it’s debut on the conference floor tomorrow, and it’s sure to impress. Here’s a summary of this amazing new device:

Key Features

VendScreen Revolution is a retrofit Android-based computing device with a touchscreen that can be installed into any one of the millions of existing vending machines in the field. The device operates on the standard MDB interface and fits into the standard card reader slot available on many machines (and can be surface mounted on machines that don’t have the card reader slot).

Primary Benefits

VendScreen Revolution offers four key benefits:

1. Cashless acceptance – we can accept magnetic stripe, Near Field Communication (NFC), coupon codes, QR codes, mobile wallet payment, and more.
2. Nutrition Information – we provide nutrition information including the full nutrition facts label, as well as allow users to filter products and find products that suite what they are seeking.
3. Data – we can track usage characteristics, as well as upload DEX data to our cloud-based server. We make that data available for VMS platforms using industry standard VDI. We also monitor MDB alerts.
4. Advertising and Promotions – we provide brands the opportunity to market to the consumer directly at the machine at the very moment of the purchase decision. The consumer benefits with promotional pricing and discounts, reducing out of pocket cost for the purchase.

A New Way of Thinking

VendScreen Revolution is a revolutionary shift in thinking (hence the name). Instead of creating single or limited purpose hardware devices for the vending machine, VendScreen has developed a versatile computing platform to retrofit onto existing machines. We provide the functionalities and features of single-purpose hardware devices through apps. With our connection to the MDB communications bus, the computing platform, and the connection to the internet through our 3G connection, the possibilities are endless in the features and functionalities we can bring to the machine. We can’t even possibly imagine all we’ll be able to do with this platform in a few years. Just like your smart phone can be updated over-the-air to provide new features, VendScreen Revolution can be updated over-the-air in a similar manner.

Enhancing Vending’s Image

It is without a doubt that VendScreen has already helped improve the image of the Industry. VendScreen was featured in national publications such as USA Today (and even appeared on the front page of the mobile and iPad editions!). We have had significant media coverage. If you search “VendScreen” on Google, you will find over 13,000 websites writing about us.

Some have even told us point blank that NAMA is spending a million dollars to improve the image of the industry, but what VendScreen has done to enhance the image of the industry could not be bought with money.

Saving Time and Money

Using data provided by the VendScreen, operators can improve the efficiencies of their routes. VendScreen Revolution brings telemetry to the mass-operator market. Currently, as the judges are well aware, less than 5% of the vending machines are connected. This is due in part to the high cost of establishing that connection and maintaining it for single purposes. By way of analogy, that is like bring high speed cable internet to your home for the sole purpose of email. If you bring high speed internet to your home, you want to do more than just write email.

VendScreen Revolution connects machines in a manner that makes practical sense – leveraging the connection for multiple purposes. This will save the industry money and time.

Increasing Sales and Profits

VendScreen Revolution provides information to people with dietary restrictions and requirements – people who may not have used the vending machine otherwise. By catering to this segment of the consumers, we’re able to increase sales. In addition, we provide various payment options. While Gen X and Gen Y consumers are becoming increasingly cashless, vending machines have not kept pace and we have limited ability to sell to our best customers.

VendScreen provides a rich user interface, using the same touch and swipe method people have already become familiar with in using their personal mobile phones. Industry statistics already validate the benefits of cashless acceptance. VendScreen builds on this and provides opportunities to increase sales by catering to consumers, improve ability to sell to everyone who wants to purchase an item even if they don’t have cash, increase sales through advertising and promotions, and reduce costs by providing data to improve routing efficiencies.

True Innovation

Much of what VendScreen Revolution has done can be considered innovative – from the use of an Android-based operating system in a vending machine, to creating an inviting user interface, to providing consumers with information, to linking the data to the VMS so operators need not take any additional steps to keep the data current, to multiple forms cashless payments including coupon codes and QR codes. Not only has VendScreen been recognized in the industry as one of the most innovative products this year, but it has been recognized in national and local media as such.

VendScreen Wins 5 NAMA Gold Awards for Innovation

By: Paresh Patel | April 17, 2012

For the past several months, we’ve been working hard to prepare for the NAMA One Show Conference in Las Vegas on April 25th, where we will publicly unveil VendScreen for the first time. This year’s conference promises to be one of the best ever, and we’re happy to part of that. So when we heard the news recently that VendScreen will be honored with 5 Gold NAMA Innovation Awards in 4 categories, we were ecstatic!

Outstanding achievements by 26 companies in 8 categories will be recognized and VendScreen will be taking home more gold than any other company at the conference!

Here are our 5 products that took Gold:

Vending Machine Category: VendScreen Realize (our OEM device)

Payment Systems & Devices Category: VendScreen Redeem (our iPhone Wallet app for consumers) AND VendScreen Revolution (our namesake Retrofit Device)

Operating Systems Category: VendScreen React (our iPhone and Android mobile app for operators)

Accounting & Control Systems Category: VendScreen Realm (our dashboard for operators)

Glenn and I are so proud of our team and we want to thank all of the amazing people who have helped us produce products that we believe will help revolutionize the industry. Stay tuned for more exciting news next week as we will be tweeting and blogging from the conference floor in Las Vegas.