Time to 'grabbit' at malls, stations & airports

Grabbit, a pioneer in automated vending machines, has tied up with Atom Technologies (a mobile payments service provider) to offer high-value products at malls, Metro stations and airports. Shoppers will now be able to purchase items like gold and diamond jewellery, apparel and other non-food items, besides food and beverage items from Grabbit vending machines and make payments through their credit cards by dialing into a tollfree number of Atom (processed through interactive voice response, IVR).

So far, in India, vending machines have catered to low-value purchases only. This is for the first time that high-value products will also be available through vending machines. For this, Grabbit has tied up with Kisna (diamond jewellery), Agni (gold jewellery), Radico (health and beauty products), Mega Lifestyle (health and beauty products), CelTel (mobile phone accessories). It is also in talks with a few renowned brands in apparel to bring them on shelf.

The process is very simple. After choosing a product from the shelf in machine, all the consumer will need to do is call up the toll-free number and key in the vending machine number (displayed on the machine) and product item number. The consumer will receive all the details of the products and will be asked to key in credit/debit card number. Once the customer has entered the card details, IVR will confirm the success of the transaction. The customer will then be required to key in the last four digits of the card as disbursement code in the machine system to dispense the chosen product from the vending machine.

“In case of high-value products, vending being an impulse purchase, customers use their plastic money for purchase (as they might not be carrying enough cash). For food stuff also, we keep products of value above Rs 100. In view of this, it will be beneficial for customers if we provide this payment option also in the machine, thereby increase the utility of vending machines,” says MD Nayar, Director, Grabbit Vending, an Empire Industries Ltd vending division.

Dewang Neralla, Director, Atom Technologies, informs: “We have tied up with ICICI Bank for the payment gateway technology. Cards of any bank will be accepted.” He also says that there won’t be any additional charges. The payment will be based on the product MRP.

Initially this service will be for Mumbai and Delhi and will be majorly for non-food segment. “Upon successful completion of pilot, we would like to roll out IVR technology in all machines as a standard feature of payment system in addition to currency option,” says Nayar.

Grabbit is targeting monthly sales of Rs 50,000 per machine. Testing results have been good for high-value products. “Volumes were not that great, but value number was good,” says Nayar.

Grabbit is present in six cities: Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Jaipur with close to 400 vending outlets, and plans to add another 600 machines by December 2009. The company has recently bagged orders from GMR (Delhi Airport) for placing 28 vending machines at the Delhi Airport, where it has already installed one machine. It has also successfully completed a Delhi Metro pilot at three stations (Visvidyalaya, Rajiv Chowk and Kashmiri Gate). Post this success, it plans to expand to 40 more stations.