Vending

COVID-19 clobbers Japan’s vending industry

Image courtesy of iStock.

October 14, 2020

Japan's vending industry, long considered the most dynamic in the world due to the population's affinity for automation, is getting clobbered by COVID-19, according to a Bloomberg CityLab report.

The country's nearly 3 million beverage machines saw sales fall by more than 35% earlier this year, as people stayed home because of the pandemic.

The country's 4.6 trillion yen ($44 billion) vending machine industry is working to reinvent itself, with operators looking to boost the variety of merchandise they sell and upgrading technology to support cashless payment and provide real-time data. Operators are adding products such as stockings and face masks.

While the country's vending industry is more dominated by very large players compared to the U.S. and other markets, the companies have not upgraded their machines as aggressively.

DyDo Group Holdings, Inc., a major operator of beverage machines, is currently upgrading its 280,000 machiines to deliver real-time data.

For an update on how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting convenience services, click here.