Imagine the situation. You are at the airport making a stopover from London. You don’t even remember what time it was when you left Spain. Your legs are numb, but your body is asking for rock. Tand you go to an iPod Vending Machine and take out some AirPods and an iPod Shuffle. Yes, you just spent 250 euros, a fortune; But that’s what credit cards are for, to worry about later. This was so real that at some airports in the United States they had to replenish the machines several times a day.
Airports in Atlanta, Dallas and others sheltered this experiment, this formula developed by Zoom Shop and other companies that had the exclusive exploitation license. Machines that cost a fortune but paid for themselves sooner than anyone imagined. In fact, there have also been cases of iPhone or iPad vending machines in the hall of private company buildings. But this is an other history.
An iPod in a vending machine
“During a recent trip to Las Vegas, NV, I was captivated by this Zoom Shop vending machine that sells Apple iPods. Located in the Las Vegas Hilton, home of the Star Trek Experience and Barry Manilow, this robotic retail system dispenses a variety of iPods and iPod accessories. Developed and operated by California-based Zoom Systems, you will find similar units at San Francisco International Airport, the San Francisco Argent Hotel and Hartsfield Atlanta Airport.”
This is how reporter Bill Detwiler summarized for CNET the discovery he had found. A relic. Businessmen around the world were staring at the relics behind the glass, wondering whether to choose the 80GB iPod model or the 160GB model.
The year was 2005. A few months later, in the summer, the company’s vice president declared to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the formula was a success: “We’ve made about $55,000 in a month in gross sales just from one machine. This is becoming the future for some high-end products in places like airports where space is limited.
No supermarkets: hotel halls, conference rooms or even the most prestigious hallways of the most expensive banking corporations in the country. That was where Zoom Shop installed its mastodons, like two-door refrigerators, packed with the most chic Apple products during the 2000s. To me, the iPod still seems like something prodigious that I use all the time.
Some of these products cost more than 500 euros – remember that only the iPod Nano amounted to 199 euros. Zoom Systems expanded to 100 locations and 165 high-end vending machines in just over a year and went from selling potato chips to selling laptop chargers, Bose headphones or the entire catalog of iPods. They aspired to install themselves in more than 1,000 points of sale in the US and another 1,500 in Europe. However, the expansionist desire soon encountered a demographic ceiling.
Over the years, ZoomSystems has partnered with companies such as Best Buy, Macy’s —which held the record for the largest store in the world for decades until the arrival of ‘Galeries Lafayette Haussmann’ in Paris— or Procter & Gamble —care products company such as bath soaps—and Max Wellness. Their “robotic kiosk” is certainly not what it was: it went through a terrible bankruptcy in 2015 that led to its almost dissolution until Swyft acquired the company.
In Japan, gashapon are such a common tradition that It is easy to find a smartphone for just over 10 euros in exchange. To remember these images of gigantic machines that are barely a memory in many other countries.
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