Vagabond released its WiFi Insight series telemetry hardware, the first in a line of affordable telemetry products the company will release over the coming months. With the Insight series, Vagabond now offers the vending industry’s first integrated business management platform that is affordable enough to outfit the vast majority of machines.
The release of the Vagabond WiFi Insight provides operators another option to link their machines to their Vagabond account. Live sales data was previously only available through integration with third party point of sale (POS) terminals. The impending release of cellular Insight versions will provide Vagabond’s customers with even more options to manage their portfolio of machines.
The new Insight telemetry hardware is compatible with virtually any vending machine. It’s easy to install and begins to send live sales data within minutes. The WiFi Insight uses the wireless network at a machine’s location to deliver the updated sales in real time to Vagabond’s servers that then update the customer’s mobile and web account.
Vagabond WiFi Insights cost up to 75 percent less over three years than using the traditional industry telemetry options. Vagabond customers can recoup their investment within the first year through the use of the Vagabond VMS software. The software helps them reduce labor requirements by up to 25 percent by ensuring machines are visited only when they need to be. It eliminates theft by providing transparent cash accountability. It can increase revenue by up to 10 percent by more accurately matching product selections with the particular tastes of the machine’s customer base.
Vagabond developed proprietary hardware to address customer requests for lower cost real-time telemetry devices that allow them to take advantage of labor and inventory savings across their operation. Vagabond’s President Juan Jorquera said in a prepared statement, “Operators with less than 1,000 machines want the Vagabond solution to manage their entire business but can generally only afford credit card readers on up to 20 percent of their machines. It doesn’t make sense for those operators to purchase expensive credit card readers for the rest of their machines. With the release of the Insight we now can extend live views to the operator’s entire portfolio, including machines that don’t warrant the cost of POS devices.”
“The Vagabond team believes that operators need to have visibility into their entire portfolio in order to be successful in today’s vending market. This allows customers to operate at profit margins that dramatically exceed the industry average. Our efforts to develop the Insight represent our team’s ongoing commitment to providing affordable business management solutions for industry operators,” said Michael Lovett, Vagabond’s chairman.
The Vagabond Insight hardware can be reserved by visiting vagabondvending.com/insight. Due to early demand, Vagabond currently reports a 4-week waiting list for the WiFi model. Insight units will be shipped in the order they are reserved.
In addition to the WiFi Insight available, Vagabond is taking pre-orders for its CDMA cellular counterpart, which will start shipping in early 2014.
