As the record summer heat sizzles on, consider what that cold bottle of water on your desk means to you. Look deep inside that invigorating bottle opening and envision the full depth of opportunities.This past holiday weekend, those of us who attended outdoor gatherings plowed through the ice bucket in search of bottled water. At my gathering, the host found he was running low on water within the first hour. All the soda, beer, and juice became an annoyance as we reached for those precious bottles of water. Water won any imaginable taste test hands down!Summers not over. Nows the time to state your position, loud and clear.State your case. The anti-bottled water forces dont stand a chance. Those academic arguments against bottled water...

In working on our upcoming State of the Vending Industry Report, it has become clear that good things are happening in today's highly challenging business environment.There is no doubt that new technology is creating a lot of excitement, even in a recession. And while I'm a big supporter of technology, I don't believe that technology in and of itself will return vending to the relevant role it once played in consumers' lives. Coffee service, by contrast, has held its own during the recession. Why? Because today's office coffee presentations are relevant to the consumer. Today's brew-on-demand systems excite the consumer and beat the pants off of alternative retail options when it comes to overall value. We as an industry must think long and...

st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } The most advanced technological solutions take time to find an application. Im pleased to say that the Starbucks E-Cup, a Starbucks interactive brewer with cashless capability, has found a niche, and that niche is going to become more prevalent in the future. Automatic Merchandiser reported on the E-Cup, in a feature article in March 2009. The E-Cup has a USA Technologies ePort card reader that accepts both magnetic stripe and contactless cards. I recently came across the first E-Cup in Cleveland, Ohio at a biomedical facility that houses a several research and development companies. The E-Cup was a perfect solution for this account. This is a new building. The building wants to attract biomedical...

Its a clich to say that an industry, any industry, is at a crossroad. But Ill risk using this clich, because this describes where the vending industry is at. The recession has caused more vending operators to consider making serious investments in their businesses than at any time in recent history. The best news operators have had to report recently is that the loss in sales has stopped and begun to recover slightly. Some locations have begun rehiring. Consumers in general are not freaking out about losing their jobs if they havent already, and have begun spending a little more freely. During the recession, operators realized the only way to remain profitable was to operate more efficiently. In many cases, this involved reducing...