These days, just about anything — candy, DVDs, a new phone — can be purchased through a vending machine. And if you live in Nashville, you can now help yourself to a used car.
Online auto retailer Caravana created the five-story, automated vending machine that aims to make the car-buying process fun, easy, and less costly, the Detroit Free Press reports.
The Nashville vending machine took years to develop and holds 20 vehicles.
Like Caravana’s online process, shoppers looking for used cars at the vending machine first browse and select a vehicle online via high-res photos and 360-degree virtual tours.
To use the actual machine, customers schedule a day and time to pick up their pre-selected car.
When they enter the lobby, they’re given an oversized coin that can illuminate the tower and cue music when placed into the machine. The coin also triggers an automated process where the machine spins, grabs a vehicle and brings it to a track that delivers it to one of three bays, the Free Press reports.
“I think what we’re trying to create is a fun way to pick up your car that is also metaphorically representative of what we are as a brand. … It’s fun, it’s easy, it’s automated, and the customer is in control,” co-founder Ernie Garcia said.
The company says that while the upfront cost of the vending machine was hefty, the savings from labor and real estate to house the cars is significant, reducing the cost for customers by $1,500 to $2,000 per vehicle.
Used car vending machine 1st of its kind in U.S. [The Detroit Free Press]
by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist
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