What is a micro market?
According to the most recent NAMA tradeshow, mini retail is a 7 billion dollar opportunity, which is about 17% of the vending market in the U.S. 5.1 billion of this is in a micro market.
You will soon see them in apartment complexes, retirement homes, frequent flyer clubs, and especially in the workplace.
A micro market is a small, self-contained store in a location without an employee to monitor it. It’s comprised of freestanding storage, such as shelves, that hold a product and a checkout system installed nearby. This means that there is no machine that vends the product, but the system is autonomous like a vending machine. Most micro markets are honor-system based and thus must be in a secure location, but there are new technologies such as pressure-sensitive shelves that record when product is taken off them. For a price, these technologies give vendors the option to use a more secure vending system.