MECHANICAL BUYING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 August 1938, Page 7

MECHANICAL BUYING

GOODS FROM SLOT MACHINES BIG SALES IN UNITED STATES Millions of articles, with ?n estimated value of £100,000,000 a year, are sold by coin-operated machines in the United States. Nearly 500,000 people in that country. receive full support, and many thousands more partial support, from the coin-machine industry. Among the articles sold in these automatic vending machines are cigarettes, amusement tickets, railway tickets, stamps, pencils, gramophone records, bird seed, flowers, foods, and many others. In addition, the industry is responsible for thousands of coin-con-trolled weighing machines, gramo-

phones, and pianos. In one year the industry purchased 3,000,000 square feet of glass, 10,000,000 dry-cell batteries, 26,000,000 feet of electric wire, millions of light bulbs, switches and electrical equipment, 240,000,000 feet of lumber, thousands of tons of steel, aluminial, bras?, chrome and metal products, and thousands of gallons of paint, varnish and stain. The New York subway in one year "sold 480,000 stick of chewing gum, 108,000,000 sticks of chocolate, and 6,240,0001 b of peanuts in coin machines, at a retail value of more than £1,00,000. The industry is growing as more and more articles are adapted to sale in the machines. , ' ‘ ■