Month: March 2011

Vending machines are everywhere, delivering just about anything you can think of nowadays, from chips to lobsters. Yes! There are vending machines selling lobsters and eggs in Japan now. People can’t be fulfilled with the traditional ones which sell chips and pops only. In Japan, there are over 5.6 million vending machines, one for every twenty people. Here are some of the strangest ones that have found around the world.

 Live Lobster Vending Machine

here is a video on egg vending machine

It is certainly not surprised to find bags of fresh eggs inside vending machines alone side of the road, set up by local farmers in Japan.

Book Vending Machines

Book vending machines can be found at the airport and hotels in England. The machines offer a variety of titles from best- selling author, puzzle books to kids’ titles. Book machines are also coming to Australia and Asia lately.

While I am amazed by how talent and novel these vending machine developers are, I do think about the potential concerns among store managers and consumers. These vending machines take over merchandises that are selling at local stores. From the store mangers’ side, they might be worried about the sales impact by the new innovation that brings consumers so much convenience. From the consumers’ side, even though they brought consumers with great advantages and convenience, they probablywould be considering if the eggs and lobsters are fresh.  After seeing these bizarre vending machines, will you get stuff from the newest vending machines?

By now, you probably have heard about “groupon”. If not, Groupon is an easy way to get huge discount while discovering fun activities in your city. Each day, it features a cool new experience with an undefeatable price in dozens of cities across the country (ex: restaurants, salons, spa and etc)

Website like groupon.com, which launched in Nov.2008, is having a big success now.  The website works with local businesses each day at an incredible low price. The groupon deal can only activate if it meets the minimum number of members who join the deal. When there are enough people, you will get a groupon that can be used just like cash. To make it simpler, the idea of groupon means “group coupon”, the deal becomes available to all people who sign up for the offer with a cheaper price. However, while lots of people are taking great advantages from the groupon deal, there are some downsides that we need to know as well.

First, you may not get the great deal you are expecting. To avoid this, maybe you should search for the regular price before you join the groupon. Second, be aware of date limitation, certain locations may have a date limitation on using groupons. For example: a restaurant can say that groupon can only be used during lunch time not dinner or they don’t accept groupon on weekend. Also, they often come with expiration dates, many times in just six months.

Overall, groupon can give you some super good deals, however, make sure you double check with the regular price and limitation before getting it. Have fun with the newest deal-groupon!

Apple has recently released their new product-Ipad2

Ipad 1 has just been out for about a year and now there is Ipad 2 already? Yes. Apple has been updating their products once a year. Apple fans are really excited about it while people like me-non apple fan think they are pushing their products too often.

8 reasons that you shouldn’t be buying Ipad 2- there will be Ipad3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10..of course that’s a joke, but honestely I think apple only released their products because it is time not because they have a full developed and enhanced product. How much more technology they have improved in less than a year? If they want a better product, they would need a lot more time than one year. However, to gain profits and reputations, they need to release Ipad 2. Once they developed more advanced techonology, they would realease Ioad 3 and etc just like how they have done on Iphone. Their strategy doesn’t fail though, there is still huge line ups of customers around the world getting Ipad2.

From marketers’ point of view, they have done a pretty good job on marketing. However, it leaves us a question- is it ethical to do so?