E Cube India eyes hotel industry for vending machines

Having commenced work on its new vending machines manufacturing facility, Vadodara-based E Cube India Solutions is now eyeing newer markets for its products. After serving a clientele comprising Coke, Pepsi, Amul and other food and beverage companies, E Cube India Solutions is planning to tap budget hotels and service apartments for its customised vending machines.

"We have begun tapping the hotel industry and are especially looking budget hotels and service apartments wherein we can provide customised vending machines. There is a huge scope in budget hotels since they lack lot of facilities being provided by premium hotels. Customers at budget hotels can check-in and use the same key-cards for vending machines and later pay when they check-out," said Ashesh Shah, founder and managing director of E Cube India Solutions.

E Cube India Solutions is into manufacturing of mobile-operated vending machines and products like V-Cash which enables payments to vendors directly through the cellphones via an SMS. Riding on the back of huge order books flowing in from markets like Taiwan and the US, E Cube India Solutions had planned to expand its vending machines manufacturing capacity.

Moreover, the company is also innovating by introducing vending machines for micro-finance. "We are introducing a micro-finance vending machine that can do several e-commerce activities for users. For instance, the machine can do mobile phone top-up or book cinema tickets by use of swipe cards, currency notes or coins," said Shah.

Typically, the machines range anywhere between Rs 80,000 and Rs 2.5 lakh in cost.

Apart from vending machines, the company also manufactures micro finance products like automatic teller machines (ATMs), debit/credit card readers.