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Vending Retail Marketing is an emerging interdisciplinary field that combines elements of marketing, retail distribution, and self-service technologies. It refers to the strategic and operational activities involved in promoting, selling, and managing products and services through automated, unattended retail channels—primarily vending machines, but also including kiosks and web-based self-service platforms. Vending retail marketing is evolving rapidly, driven by technological advancements and changing consumer behaviors. In "Vending Retail Marketing: Text and International Cases" published by Springer in 2025, Dr. Dobromir Kirilov Stoyanov explores the modern vending landscape, focusing on three key trends: increased away-from-home food consumption, ICT advancements enhancing vending capabilities, and Generation Y's influence as tech-savvy consumers.
As the first comprehensive and systematic study of vending retail marketing, this book traces the evolution of vending machines from ancient automatic dispensers to today’s smart, AI-powered machines. It addresses a significant gap in current scholarship, which has traditionally been dominated either by questionable entrepreneurial guidelines on how to start a vending machine business or by academic articles that, although making important contributions to the field, predominantly study the vending phenomenon from a social perspective (e.g., how to diversify vending portfolios to improve health and nutrition in educational and medical establishments). The book provides an interdisciplinary overview of vending as a business phenomenon, examining its role as a retail channel, an industrial product, an advertising medium, and a service innovation. It presents detailed classifications of vending channels by product type, payment systems, distribution strategies, and communication approaches, supported by global market data and practical examples.
This book is primarily intended for undergraduate and graduate students in business, marketing and information systems that want to understand the complex phenomenon of vending retail marketing - an emerging interdisciplinary research area that combines elements of marketing, retail distribution and self-service technologies. However, it can also be insightful for any store and non-store retailers that are interested in implementing conventional and/or smart vending solutions in their business operations. Moreover, as over the years, vending machines have become a “cult object” that have inspired artists, videogame developers, educators, movie producers and advertisers, this book can have multiple applications across industries and therefore serve as a valuable source for any person in the world who wishes to to understand better vending machines – their past, present and future. Read more
Testimonials
Vending is often considered the poor relation of retailing, focused on low value products, often in challenging retailing environments. Yet vending has a long history and quietly satisfies diverse needs cost effectively. Better still, the emergence of automation technologies may herald an exciting future for vending which can address increasingly diverse consumption patterns in terms of time, place, and assortment. Dr. Stoyanov’s book gives a glimpse of the brave new future of vending, but instead of being carried away with wild dreams, it is solidly underpinned by the fundamentals of vending which should drive any future vending business, with a focus on key decisions such as location, assortment, and pricing. The evidence presented is based on solid theoretical foundations, with plentiful empirical evidence to link theory with practice. A series of highly informative case studies reflect on the development of vending experience around the world, emphasizing that vending is much more than a technology—it is a reflection of the cultural, economic, and institutional environments in which it operates. Vending may be considered a niche form of retailing, and Dr. Stoyanov makes a good claim to be a definitive source of insights to this niche.
Adrian Palmer
Henley Business School
University of Reading
Reading, UK
Dr. Stoyanov has authored a comprehensive review and critical explanation of the evolution of marketing strategies, including pricing and multi-pricing considerations, in retailing. His well documented attributes and research findings include unattended business formats, innovative technologies, product classifications, diverse distribution channels, and varied payment schemes. His work includes thoughtful case studies with discussion questions and supported responses. Overall, this work establishes a new compendium of the issues and advancements of self-service technologies as applied in the real world of retailing.
Michael L. Kasavana, PhD
Emeritus NAMA Endowed Professor in Hospitality Business
Michigan State University
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