In this blog, I will try to answer the following question using five hypothesis.
“what cultural, social and economic factors have influenced business owners to
sell their merchandise by means of vending machines and not
by person-to-person contact?”
1st Hypothesis:
time of the day, meaning they do not have the time to go to
a convenience store or may not wish to be bothered talking to
store clerks.
Consumers are increasingly demanding faster services at
every minute.
2nd Hypothesis:
People may not wish for others to know which sanitary products or
embarrassing items they purchase. People may feel more
comfortable dealing with an impersonal machine and would rather
make such purchases through a vending machine.
The reasons for the usage of vending machines
I carried out a questionnaire asking people for the reasons why they use vending machines and the reasons are the followings:
a) it is more convenient to buy a product from a vending machine
b) convenient location wise
c)convenient time wise
d) certain products can only be bought via vending machines
e) there is no need to talk to a store clerk
f) drinks from the vending machines are often colder or hotter.
I interviewed 40 people and asked them for the reasons they use vending machines.
It turned out that all of them use vending machines because of their convenience.
So I also asked if the convenience due to the location or time wise and more people said the convenience was due to the location.
For example, one girl said “I use vending machines because of its location. I do not have to go all the way to school canteen in order to purchase a drink and there is no need to line up to buy a drink.
Vending machines are located near classrooms.”
Other reasons why people use vending machines were that certain products can only be bought via vending machines, there is no need to talk to a store clerk and drinks from vending machines are often colder or hotter.
The interesting thing I found through this questionnaire was that only products they want to buy can be purchased through a vending machine. One girl said “I use vending machines because I have only seen my favourite drink to be sold on vending machines and have not seen it to be sold anywhere else.”
I found several drink and cigarette vending machines located just outside a convenience store and this shows there is a demand for vending machines suggesting some people do not want to have a face to face contact.
I was surprised that the reasons did not include that people may not wish for others to know which sanitary products or embarrassing items they purchase.
I asked people I interviewed if they have bought something they do not want others to know through a vending machine and all of them said no.
This maybe because I only carried out a questionnaire within ICU community and there is no such vending machines located in ICU or near ICU.
3rd Hypothesis:
Economic incentives for installing vending machines may include their
ability to help lower labour costs for store managers.Employing someone for
24hours can be very expensive. Installing a vending machine in place of
a person could initially be an expensive investment
(costing as much as 1,200,000 yen)[1] , but eventually the money gained
by not employing a person for the job may effectively lower the costs of
labour. This means that products can be sold cheaper, raising their
relative demand.
4th Hypothesis:
There are about 5.4 million vending machines in Japan and 48.8% of themsell beverages. Although irregular vending machines are currently few and
far between, the demand for convenience may see an increase in the numbers. Vegetable vending machines such as the daikon vending machine located
between ICU and Musashisakai station, may have been installed because of
how daikon production factors. The most important production factor may be
how the farm growing this product is located in Tokyo, a city of over 15 million
people. This limits the size a farm can be, and because of this, it is most likely
run by a family or in the form of a small business. This family may not be
able to maintain their farm, household chores, and selling produce at all
times of the day and therefore has settled on a vending machine to best suit
the needs of Tokyo consumers.
I went to visit three farms within 5 minute distance from ICU where there
were vending machines selling various agricultural products such as eggs,
vegetables and kiwi. However, I visited these places at least three times and
they were all closed or did not have anything inside of the vending machine
at the time I visited there. This proves my hypothesis wrong. I believed that
owners of the vending machines wanted them in order to lower labour costs
and have their products available 24 hours a day.
This may be due to their products not being in season therefore there was
nothing to sell.
However, I managed interview a farm with a vegetable stall (Mujin Hanbai).
I found a lady on the property and managed to ask her several questions.
Me: “why does the farm have a stall?
The lady: “Actually, there is almost always someone nearby, making sure
everything is ok. Customers like to touch the vegetables before they make
the purchase. Vending machines do not allow you to do so… in fact, we all
would like to have a vending machine instead of a stall.”
Me: “What makes your family want to own a vending machine?”
Lady: “ There is a shortage of labour. Stall will require someone to be
around in case there is something wrong, like no change. ..”
「なんでここは無人販売なのですか？」
「一応、人がついているんです。確認をしながら仕事をしています。手で触って触れて確認できるので、お客さんのなかにも自分で選びたいって言う人が多いですね。自動販売機だとそれが出来ないので…。本来ならば自動販売機にしたいのですが…」
「なぜ自販機を使いたいと思うのですか？」
「手が足りなかったり、ずっとついていないといけない。無人にしていても不具合のことがあるので。。。ずっとついている子は出来ない。 午後からも仕事があるんですが」
The interview with her suggests that farmers decide to have vending
machine for the reason of shortage of labour.
4th Hypothesis:
There are also many vending machines in Japan that dispense meal tickets
(mainly in ramen restaurants). A possible reason for this could be to keep the cooks hands
clean and ensure hygienic standards. In small ramen shops that do not employ many people,
the employment of one more person to handle a cash register may be a big cost for the store.
Economic incentives to lowering labour costs may be especially strong in these types of small
businesses.
I went to interview a ramen store owner which is located just a few minutes from the ICU
JOMO exit. The owner said he installed the food ticket dispensers when the restaurant was
opened. The biggest reason for having a vending machine in his restaurant was that hands
of the people who work there get really oily and therefore too dirty to touch money. If they
did not have a vending machine then they would have to wash their hands often. Other reason
was that because of the loud ventilation, it would be very hard to hear people’s orders. Vending
machine dispenses tickets with the orders written.
The meal ticket vending machine
