Vending machines
A machine that sells when you are closed.
A vending machine sells a physical product with no staff: it selects, charges, dispenses and records the sale. The Italian market is worth around €1.55 billion with more than 785,000 machines installed (CONFIDA, Venditalia 2026) — and the growth is no longer in coffee, but in cosmetics, OTC pharmacy, fresh food, local produce, sports and electronics.
Machine types
The machine follows the product.
Smart fridge
Electronic lock, tap to open, take the item, charged automatically on what is missing. Right for fresh, fragile, high-value products — poke bowls, sushi, salads, desserts.
Smart lockers
Cells opened by code or QR: click-and-collect, spare parts, keys, returns, rental gear. Refrigerated and charging cells available.
Beauty and fragrance
Cosmetics and dose-based fragrance dispensing — the format brands use for launches and sampling, with lighting that treats the product like retail, not like a snack.
Micro market
An unstaffed shop: open shelves, a fridge and a self-checkout. It sells far more than a machine because the product can be picked up.
OTC pharmacy
Night service outside the door. Medicines cannot be sold from a machine in Italy — parapharmacy can, with the right controls.
Combined kiosk + machine
The kiosk takes the order, upsells and charges; the machine dispenses. It is the setup that turns a corridor into a point of sale.
What makes it profitable
Data, not guesswork.
- Telemetry: what sold, what is running out, what is broken — before the customer finds out.
- Planogram built on the site, then rebuilt on the real numbers after the first weeks.
- Cashless: contactless card, phone, badge. It raises the average ticket and empties the machine of cash.
- MDB, DEX and EVA-DTS: the protocols that decide what can be added to a machine you already own.
Rules to settle first
Food means a HACCP plan that covers the machine, with recorded temperatures and an automatic stop when the fridge goes out of range. Alcohol and tobacco require real age verification — read a document or a digital identity, never estimate age from a face. Italian vending has its own fiscal reporting regime, separate from the fiscal recorder used on kiosks.
Tell us what you want to sell, and where.
You get a written proposal on your case. No automatic prices.