Pharmacy Retail Archives - Page 10 of 12 - I Hate Working In Retail

By

10 Even Crazier Vending Machines from around the world

Live Crab Vending Machine

Live Crab Vending Machine
Located in the Xinjiekou subway station, in Nanjing, China, this particular vending machine is full of live hairy crabs and crab vinegar, making it available to enjoy seafood on the go. When it was first installed, people would stop and stare at the crustaceans inside, and others would even take out their cameras and take photos of them. Business was out to a slow start, with only one hairy crab sold per day, but as people got used to the thought of buying live crabs from a vending machine, the figures jumped to an impressive 200 crabs a day. People noticed they were cheaper than the crabs found at the local food markets, and buying them on their daily commute they also saved precious time.
Depending on size, crabs can be bought for as little as 15 yuan (two dollars). They all seem dead, but their actually just hibernating due to the low temperature in the vending machine.

Sex Toy Vending Machine

Sex Toy Vending Machine
Sex toy vending machine in Gyeongju Love Motel
(Link)

Bike Vending Machine

Bike Vending Machine
The Bike Dispenser first came out in 2005 in Eindhoven, Netherlands. It’s actually a renting machine – users have to return the bike to the nearest dispenser at their destination. The bikes are equipped with RFID tags that allows the company to track the bikes, in case people forget that they left their rented bike at home. We do that sometimes.
(Link)

Gold Vending Machine

Gold Vending Machine
Feel the need to buy gold but don’t want to drive all the way to the bank or to your broker? Just use this handy dandy gold vending machine, from “GOLD To Go”. The first one was installed earlier this year at the Emirates Palace Hotel inAbu Dhabi.
The vending machine is an unmanned point of sale. You can purchase gold bars and coins of assured quality, backed by the security of a Swabian Fort Knox and with the ease-of-use of a vending machine. Prices are updated in real-time. The GOLD to go gold vending machine is largely burglar-proof and tamper-resistant. It has an excellent user guidance, which makes it very easy to handle.
(Link)

(Medical) Marijuana Vending Machine

(Medical) Marijuana Vending Machine
The city that popularized the fast food drive-thru has a new innovation: 24-hour medical marijuana vending machines. Patients suffering from chronic pain, loss of appetite and other ailments that marijuana is said to alleviate can get their pot with a dose of convenience at the Herbal Nutrition Center, where a large machine will dole out the drug around the clock. “Convenient access, lower prices, safety, anonymity,” said inventor and owner Vincent Mehdizadeh, extolling the benefits of the machine.
(Link)

Anger Release Vending Machine

Anger Release Vending Machine
‘Passive Aggressive Anger Release Machine’ is an interactive sculpture by Yarisal and Kublitz. Experience the most satisfying feeling when a piece of China breaks into million pieces. All you have to do is insert a coin, and a piece of China will Slowly move forwards and fall into the bottom of the machine, breaking, and leaving you happy and relieved of anger.
(Link)

Baguette Vending Machine

Baguette Vending Machine
Few things in France are treated with the reverence and respect of bread in general and the baguette, the long wand of dough made from a recipe defined in French law, in particular. But now one entrepreneurial baker has come up with an idea that sounds as sacrilegious as putting Dom Pérignon in wine boxes: selling baguettes in a vending machine. Jean-Louis Hecht has taken advantage of the August holiday period, when many of France’s 33,000 boulangers shut up shop, to install Paris’s first 24-hour automated baguette dispenser.
So far Hecht has only installed two machines, one next to his baker’s shop in Paris’s 19th arrondissement and a second in the north-eastern town of Hombourg-Haut, close to the German border, where he also has a shop. The baguettes are partially cooked before they are put in the machine, then finished off when ordered and delivered crisp and steaming for $1.40 each.
(Link | Via)

Wedding Vending Machine

Wedding Vending Machine
AutoWed is a novelty wedding machine offering a quick hitch, a couple of rings and a personalized certificate for just $1. Audio prompts, specially produced music, a bespoke retro keyboard and VFD display, ring vending and ticket printer all wrapped up in a Cadillac-pink cabinet with shiny aluminum fittings.
(Link)

Flat Shoe Vending Machine

Flat Shoe Vending Machine
A great night out grooving on the dance floor can result in sore soles and a throbbing tumble out the door. Two British companies are capitalizing on clubgoers’ end-of-night anguish by installing shoe vending machines full of cheap flats. Each pair is dispensed with a matching bag so women can tote their tortuous footwear home.
(Link)

Smart Car Vending Machine

Smart Car Vending Machine
We’ve seen plenty of interesting vending machines all over Japan, even for outright marketing, though the Smart Vendor in Shibuya Station might just take the creativity award home. Holding a full-size Smart Car, the faux vending machine has two choices (coupe and cabrio), and a convenient slot to insert the amount you need (about $20k). Of course, this is a concept only, but is a nice extension of their already creative vending machine idea that fits right into the Japanese love for instant gratification on-the-go. Besides, could you do this with any other car without it seeming like a big joke?

 

Sourced from Oddee.com

Share the joy
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  

By

Marchex Data Reveals Ohioans Curse the Most in the Country; Washingtonians are the most courteous

By Sonia Krishnan, Director of Corporate Communications for Marchex


Are you f*&!ing serious?

As a native Buckeye who’s lived in Washington for eight years, this was my first reaction to the data analysis released today by our Marchex Institute, which found that people in Ohio curse the most in the country. Washingtonians, by contrast, curse the least. (WTF?)

The data also placed Ohioans in the Top 5 “Least Courteous” category. Apparently, residents there have a harder time saying “please” and “thank you,” which were the keywords that Marchex’s Call Mining technology scanned for when aggregating data on pleasantries.

It’s fascinating stuff. And it coincides with National Etiquette Week, a seven-day ‘gentle reminder,’ if you will, to be civil and courteous to one another.

The Institute, Marchex’s data and research team, examined more than 600,000 phone calls from the past 12 months. The calls were placed by consumers to businesses across 30 industries, including cable and satellite companies, auto dealerships, pest control centers and more.

The Institute scanned for curse words from A to F to S. Analysts then linked the frequency of those words with all 50 states.

Following Washington in the “Goody Two Shoes” category – states where people are least likely to curse – were Massachusetts (2nd place), Arizona (3rd place), Texas (4th place), Virginia (5th place).

Ranking behind Ohio in the “Sailors” category – states where people are most likely to curse – were: Maryland (2nd place), New Jersey (3rd place), Louisiana (4th place), Illinois (5th place).

Ohioans curse more than twice the rate of Washingtonians, according to the data. Washingtonians curse about every 300 conversations. Ohioans, on the other hand, swore about every 150 conversations.

The data also found that:
66% of curses come from men
The calls that contain the most cursing are more than 10 minutes long. So the longer someone is on the phone, the more likely that call is to devolve.
Calls in the morning are twice as likely to produce cursing as calls in the afternoon or evening.

The Institute also aggregated state-by-state data on who says “please” and “thank you” the most. The Top 5 “Most Courteous” states were: South Carolina (1st place), North Carolina (2nd place), Maryland (3rd place), Louisiana (4th place), and Georgia (5th place).

(Anyone else sense a Southern hospitality theme here?)

Washington didn’t make the Top 5 for Most Courteous, but it did rank in the top third of the country for saying “please” and “thank you.”

The Top 5 “Least Courteous” states were: Wisconsin (1st place), Massachusetts (2nd place), Indiana (3rd place), Tennessee (4th place), and Ohio (5th place).

This, I suppose, bears repeating: Ohio was the only state to find itself in the “Sailor” and “Least Courteous” categories.

“Ohio’s state slogan used to be ‘The Heart of it All,’” said John Busby, Senior Vice President of the Marchex Institute. “One could argue this data adds an extra layer of meaning to that phrase.”

You could also argue Ohioans are simply transparent, passionate people. Maybe we do curse a little more and maybe we don’t mind our Ps and Qs as much as we should. So what? At least you know how we feel.

So Washington, take your “Least Likely to Curse” title and allow me to remind you of two chilling words: Seattle Freeze.

‘Nuff said.

– Sonia Krishnan

Share the joy
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  

By

Are you supporting the corporate suckers or not?

Share the joy
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •  
  •