Earlier this year I passed through Atlanta’s Hartfield Airport on my way back from nine months out of the country. It was my first step back into American culture and the first thing I saw when I got off the plane was a vending machine filled with iPods, headphones and other small electronic gizmos. I remember thinking at the time that America had made some massive consumer leap in my absence, vending machines having upgraded from candy bars to iPods. I thought it was a brilliant idea since the prospect of spending hours waiting in an airport surrounded by screaming babies and crackling passenger announcements would probably send even the most ardent of Apple haters scrambling to thrust their credit card in the machine.
Apparently I’m not alone in thinking the machines were a great idea. The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports (stupid F$*#ing registration required, sorry) that the iPod vending machines are wildly successful.
Mark Mullins, executive vice-president of Zoom, the company behind the machines, tells the AJC, “We put in some iPods and found we couldn’t keep them in stock. We found no customer resistance to swiping a card and buying a $300 item from a machine. We’re selling thousands (of iPods), and the machines at the Atlanta airport are major contributors to that.”
Of course there’s no way for the those shattered-nerve impulse buyers to put any music on their new iPod, but another Zoom spokesperson says there are plans to add a music-download kiosk across from the iPod vending machine.
The machines are also in the San Francisco airport and are reportedly starting to pop up in hotels and other locations across the country. And for those who were wondering, no the iPod doesn’t drop in the machine, a robotic arm grabs it and hands it to you.
http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2006/12/ipod_vending_ma.html
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