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I have also heard that vending machine locations are highly contested. You can buy the machine, but you are not going to have the pull to deploy it at the airport. Those contracts were signed long ago.

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Then why are there so few? And containing such a small variety of goods?

In Japan anywhere from a busy subway to a remote park, there will be rows of vending machines everywhere, with more varieties of sodas, coffees, soups, ice creams, candies, hell even clothes or meat! And those are just the common types. You're never far from what you want in an automated fashion.

Why are we so behind in America when there seemingly is excess on the supply side for the chance to supply more goods and deploy more machines, and demand on the consumer side for better, more convenient, more available, and more varied vending machines goods?

There are many huge contextual differences between the US and Japan when it comes to vending machines, but the most obvious one is that Japan is eminently walkable, while the US is so pedestrian-unfriendly that there's no guarantee that people will even be around your row of vending machines in the first place.

I agree, but in my very walkable european neighbourhood I don't see any vending machines either (except on the train stations, in waiting rooms, etc). Granted, there are small shops every corner, so vending machines don't feel necessary, but sometimes it would be useful to have some.

In Germany a lot of vending machines have appeared over the last ~10 years, and there are a lot more popping up all the time. And not just in the big cities. Nowhere as many as in Japan, but for example in my area there's a farmer selling fresh eggs in a vending machine, a meat packaging plant selling meat and sausages, an ice cream/frozen yoghurt vending machine (some local Ben & Jerry's competitor), a bunch of vending machines for CBD stuff, a pizza vending machine at the local university (it makes hot pizza), multiple old shops in pedestrian areas converted to house 5-10 vending machines, etc.

Especially the model of renting shops to fill them with vending machines seems to be getting popular. They regularly get into fights with the city whether they have to obey the legally allowed opening times for stores or can be open 24/7. That and farm shops putting up vending machines.

Which city is that? Here in the city center of Lübeck, I see none of those. And only one new-ish traditional vending machine.

I’ve lived in Berlin for the last 11 years and have never seen the phenomena you describe (I wish I had them in my neighbourhood!)

I think it has to do with available space, as other commenters have mentioned. Here in Valencia, Spain, there's a huge amount of unused "retail" space. Most of the city is 5-7 floor apartment buildings with the ground floor being designed for retail / parking / etc. There are many building, outside of the city center that were built years ago with their ground floors sitting empty since day 1. Many spots that were occupied at some point are sitting empty as well. It's pretty cheap to buy or lease a space. Anyways, in the last 5 years or so there has been a lot of spots being converted into vending machine spots. Basically a small area of retail space, no front door or wall, and maybe 4 or more vending machines in it. I've noticed sometimes even some cafes are carving out a little spot of their frontage to install a few machines.

In Slovenia local farmers started using vending machines for homegrown milk, eggs, pig fat and similiar produce. While they were very rare just a few years ago, now they are very commonplace, even in smaller towns.

I get that you want to cram your pet issue into everything but that doesn't explain the dearth of product variety in places in places in the US where vending machines are located or the general rarity of them in walkable places in the US.

>but the most obvious one is that Japan is eminently walkable, while the US is so pedestrian-unfriendly

Japan is also extremely tiny compared to the US.

Japan is also something like ~70% mountainous where things cant even be built.

It also helps a lot with planning/building if parts of your country were bombed into oblivion and gave you a chance to rebuild and rethink everything from the ground up.

> It also helps a lot with planning/building if parts of your country were bombed into oblivion and gave you a chance to rebuild and rethink everything from the ground up.

Hahaha, now this is a good joke. Japanese cities are notoriously chaotic and urban planning is almost non-existant; my guess is that they didn't rethink anything, they just rebuilt everything in a hurry, and afterwards, shoganai.

> but the most obvious one is that Japan is eminently walkable

Big cities like Tokyo or Osaka are walkable; outside of them, Japan quickly devolves into very pedestrian-unfriendly urban sprawl (I know because I live in one such place). But somehow you still find plenty of vending machines everywhere, even besides a road in an otherwise empty field.

Vending machine in an empty field just reminds me of Japan's low crime rate.

It's not noticeably low when you're from a nice country. It'll be very noticeably low when you're from a nightmare place.

There are few places in the world where things won't be taken when left unattended.

Just curious, what nice country are you referring to ?

NYC is arguably more walkable than anywhere in Japan outside of Tokyo, or in my opinion including Tokyo, but it doesn't have 0.1% of the vending machines as suburban Japan.

Also, what we would call non walkable suburbs or rural areas in Japan have more vending machines than anywhere in America as well.

Being from NYC, I'd prefer not touching a vending machine that's most likely got piss all over it.

From a trip to Tokyo, Beijing, Bangkok, Hong Kong, and NYC in a couple weeks -- that's mostly an NYC problem.

Everyone is complicating their answer. The answer is simple: In the US, these machines will get cracked and the ROI will be negative. Same reason why Amazon Go didn't work.

I think you overcomplicate stuff, its just boil down to the culture

Any technical or laws difficulties is just the "easy" part

I assume there's something else going on, as outdoor vending machines are not a particularly common sight in most walkable cities in Europe, say.

I'd love it if the local city park near me had some neat vending machines near the bathroom pavilions. How relaxing it would be to get hot ramen and a tea from the vending machine while watching the swans and ducks migrate through. Instead I just have to make sure I tote all the family's snacks and refreshments when we go to the playground.

>Then why are there so few? And containing such a small variety of goods?

Because if there are only a few with only few options you can charge the brands a lot more for the privilege of being available in your machine

Because in the USA, they're seen as target practise. Good luck leaving an (expensive) pinball machine in a Manhattan subway for 72-hours.

Crime and theft is why.

Japan has a whole host of nice things we can’t have in the US because we let bad actors run wild.

On a roadtrip a few years ago I was struck by the design of a row of vending machines at a rest stop: entirely walled off / caged off by a solid metal security mesh, with small holes to just barely let people operate them. Very much like this picture: https://s3-media0.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/NudVpPKiq1AsWL1CSAa_... So I agree crime and theft is a big factor. But it's not enough of an explanation, as other high-trust societies (and even more parts of the US not that long ago) don't or didn't emulate various Japanese aspects, and even in Japan there are various "why do they do things this way" aspects that would make most sense in a low-trust or corrupt society. Some of them can be traced to being an over-reaction, like the lack of public trash cans in Tokyo. Increasingly I think the real answer to these "why can't place x have this unique thing Japan has?" sorts of questions is "because it's not Japan" -- you need the whole collection of aspects that only came about via Japan's unique history, you can't do it by just capturing a few aspects like their low crime state. It's an unhelpful answer, but at the same time suggests maybe people should look for ways to do something better, not emulative. (As much as I find the vending machines everywhere in Japan very cool, I don't particularly want them.)

Here's something to blow your mind: Out in the countryside, farmers have stalls where they put some of the day's harvest for sale. It's completely unmanned without surveillance and operates on the honor system; customers leave cash in a nearby container and take the produce they bought.

Yes, it works beautifully because there are literally no bloody assholes uncivilized enough to be thieves.

Vending machines are abundant for the same reason: There simply aren't any assholes fucking uncivilized enough to loot or otherwise damage/destroy them. The supremely civilized culture of Japan manifests in superb security and all the good things that are only possible in such an environment.

You leave a vending machine outside somewhere in the United States of America? Son, that thing is going to get freedom'd faster than the US military goes bombing deserts for oil. I say that as an American and yes it is fucking shameful, but that is the state of affairs.

As an aside, Japan really likes the warm glow of a vending machine at night: Dutifully serving its customers without complaining and lighting the way; some of them come with features to remember repeat customers and their preferences, recommend products based on their expressions, and some still might even make small talk. Yes, Japan loves vending machines.

The countryside honor system is still present in certain parts of the US (sometimes it's even present in suburban neighborhoods!), it doesn't blow my mind. (I also have living memory of how good things used to be in various places, too.) Similarly, there are still many places where a vending machine will remain unmolested. What did surprise me once while visiting Tokyo was that in several game centers the extra prizes to restock the claw/UFO machines are often just stored... on top of the machine in a bag or basket. Sure, most Japanese are too short to reach and steal them, but foreigners frequent those places too, and yet people behave.

My favorite vending machine anecdote comes from HN several years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15412395 The pictures from the submitted post are worth revisiting too, if they were put up today people would think they were AI generated: https://web.archive.org/web/20171004222639/http://www.spoon-...

Did you know there's an anime where the main character dies and gets reincarnated into a fantasy world as a vending machine? https://myanimelist.net/anime/52619/Jidou_Hanbaiki_ni_Umarek... I got a handful of episodes in while it was airing, I'm now reminded to go back and finish the season maybe next month, but it was quite a bit more charming and interesting than I gave it credit for from the premise. Indeed, there is a lot of love for vending machines.

We have honor box farm stands in the USA too. Not counting coolers with eggs alone, there are probably half a dozen between our home and my wife's office.

This despite the fact that we have numbskulls and halfwits in the area. Last year someone knocked down all the mailboxes on the nearest paved road. We also picked up an absolutely staggering number of Twisted Tea cans from the side of the road last Vermont Green Up Day.

I've seen that on a trip to New Zealand actually. Was quite sweet.

A tent full of strawberry punnets, with a little lockbox outside to put money in.

Common in Australia too - 60 to 90 minutes outside of capital cities and you should start seeing them.

Yup take one and pop your koha in the box, and as a kiwi now living in the UK I see it here too, just not as frequently for sure.

You’ve really never seen unattended farm stands in the rural US?

I’m from very rural USA (population: 32). I’ve only seen farm stands in very isolated towns where people generally know each other. A lot near my home town have disappeared.

In my experience, I’ve seen unattended farm stands, antique stores, and flea markets even in Tokyo.

Rural Iowa here. I've seen them in populations as big as 30,000 (Mason City, Iowa for example)

Because they sign an exclusive contract with either coke or pepsi and take what you get. the owns of the venue don't care about customers just that contract.

Japan also has very flexible zoning for residential and commercial uses, so nearly anyone can host a vending machine as a commercial enterprise, which would generally not be allowed in most other places with different laws.

Also, some of them are insanely thin, like 25cm depth for a cold drink machine, so they can fit nearly anywhere with a power outlet.

The vast majority of vending machines in Japan are allmost as deep as American counterparts. And even if not, maybe we could just have more thin vending machines here.

Also the zoning issue is just a very clear policy failure. I don't think even the most hardcore NIMBY suburbanites would complain about being able to get meat and dairy steps from their front door in an automated low traffic fashion.

The zoning thing again comes back to high trust. Trust that businesses aren't going to screw up the neighborhood.

This is overselling the variety a lot. Hot and cold drinks including a couple of types of soup (sold only in winter) are everywhere. Cigarette vending machines are pretty common (usually located in front a tobacco shop). Ice cream and small snack vending machines often exist on a train platform but they are not common on the street.

Occasionally, a shop sells its sausage or something in a vending machine out in front. Sometimes, usually in a small town, you will see one that dispenses hot food like fries or takoyaki. School or work cafeterias often have a cup noodle vending machine for after-hours food but it's usually located inside. My guess for order of magnitude: if you train/walk around Tokyo for a week on vacation, you might see 5,000 drink vending machines, 100 cigarette vending machines, 10 ice cream vending machines, 5 snack vending machines and 3 total of any other type of food and maybe one selling something weird.

I have a non-technical friend that runs a vending machine business. He targets exclusively small locations like gas stations, bodegas, etc. He makes a great living, but he's also started farming out filling and collection to employees now because it's a lot of driving and work to do it.

That makes no sense to me. Why would a gas station or bodega invite an automated competitor onto their property? Unless the vending machines offer some merchandise the store is unable/unwilling to carry?

Because they make money on low price candy, like gumball machines and other quarter operated stuff that kids impulse buy with their parents money.

They're renting out the space or making a royalty from the sales. So it's not really competing with them, it's a way to make money with absolutely no maintenance or stock management. It'll be less profitable for them, but the rock bottom overhead makes it worth it.

A few things:

- the machine pays for it's space through rent or share of the take obviously

- think of it more like sharing the custom rather than giving away the custom. sharing benefits both parties just like in any other cooperative deal. the machines are something that some customers are attracted to just like the regular shelves

- think of it also like an extra employee for free. A very stupid employee that can only do one thing, but it can always reliably do that one thing without supervision or breaks or pay. Some sales would not have happened anyway, but the machine took care of some customers by itself, and the shop owner makes less from it, but it also cost them less, and the total package of amenities presented by the shop is more than without the machines.

Some people actively do not want to deal with a clerk even if they are fast and good natured and there is no one else in line to make them wait. For that matter, not just some people but almost everyone feels like that at least once in a while, because every day is not a happy day. Come to think of it, in that sense, it's not even just about sales but about serving a need that costs more or less nothing to serve. Your shop is simply a bit more useful for everyone around by including a bit of this option.

It depends on the machine and what it sells. Some machines might actually draw paying customers to the store.

Or you put it out and a week later someone has bashed it to pieces with a baseball bat

What cultural difference causes this?

Low trust vs high trust society

Pure capitalism.

Damn, never knew the USSR, China, North Korea and other places managed to abolish theft!

Who talks about theft? It’s about vandalism.

https://harvardpolitics.com/capital-and-violence/

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/06/why-peopl...

Low social cohesion and high individuality. Zero or near-zero shame built into people for being pieces of shit when they're growing up. It's all very "western".

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