About v2v Factory
v2v Factory, based in Spain, has carved out a niche and grown considerably over the last few years in the vending sector. By the end of 2022, they managed a fleet of close to 10,000 machines. This growth has occurred organically, based on a finely tuned understanding of the market, through a continuous learning process, that has allowed its team to convert customer experiences into innovative solutions.
The increase in popularity that these technologies has experienced in recent years has raised competitiveness in the retail sector and driven the need to innovate through digitalisation and new formulas that offer added value to both operators and consumer. This is where v2v Factory has made a difference, thanks to its telemetry solutions and with real-time vending as its hallmark.
Promoting a more interactive, efficient and sustainable vending system
The organic growth of the company has occurred thanks to its ability to create innovative solutions that are valued by vending machine operators of all sizes. Although there is still room to improve integrated telemetry solutions in vending machines, in some regions, v2v Factory has achieved exponential penetration in the sector. Its technology-focussed team has been able to adapt to new market trends and develop new tools aimed at optimising operators’ decision-making, whilst at the same time, improving the user experience for end customers. All based on its telemetry devices and management platform.
Real-time user identification solutions, facilitate the availability of coupons and vouchers that contribute to a better shopping experience and improved customer loyalty. At the same time, real-time data enables operators to receive information and analytics to make agile inventory and pricing decisions to increase sales opportunities, optimise stock levels and reduce logistics costs, which overall improves the environmental footprint. The ability to change prices remotely also opens up the possibility of applying discounts to products that are close to their expiry date to reduce food waste.
Challenge
Real-time vending is a series of tools that when integrated into unattended vending machines, allow operators to connect instantly with their machines and receive a two way flow of information. This enables operators to:
- Receive data to help optimise their operation (machine usage, inventory, expirations)
- Carry out analysis that contributes to improved decision making (sales by area and category, market trends)
- Modify product prices remotely
- Identify customers and process discounts and/or personalised coupons.
This is only possible with a secure and reliable Internet connection.
Solution
v2v Factory needed resilient and reliable connectivity for their real-time vending application. Although their solutions are able to perform transactions without an Internet connection, suffering prolonged network failures over time could have a significant impact on operators at different levels:
- Loss of added value. All of the advantages of real-time vending depend on having secure and reliable IoT connectivity.
- Opportunity cost. In terms of lost sales due to not being able to customise offers and provide discounts to certain users.
- Image impact. A poor user experience could have a negative impact on the user’s perception of the operator’s brand.
Wireless Logic provided v2v Factory with a multi-operator connectivity solution that allows its telemetry devices for vending machines to always have cellular coverage and limit the risk of service outages as much as possible. This connectivity guarantee, has enabled v2v Factory’s fleet to grow from 4,000 to 10,000 telemetry devices over the past four years. In addition, the use of the SIMPro platform provides them with comprehensive control over the use and consumption of their SIM cards and billing, and the SIMPro API is a great advantage in terms of integrating data with their systems, automating internal processes and allowing them to devote more time to innovation and solution development tasks.
Outcome
The partnership between Wireless Logic and v2v Factory offers vending operators the possibility of having a value-added and highly reliable service, both for data exchange and for payment flexibility – from bank cards to the use of loyalty cards.
Looking forward, v2v Factory are developing innovative solutions that will allow operators to enter the new era of vending. The possibility of having a wide and constant data flow, opens the door to the implementation of machine learning algorithms for product recommendations based on consumption trends, and the development of a wide range of technological solutions for the vending sector.
Wireless Logic and its multi-operator solutions have been very important in our growth because they have given us the opportunity to deploy our solution for vending and unattended environments in any location without losing coverage.