“Merchandising, while often neglected, is the single biggest differentiator of highly successful smart fridge operators. A well-merchandised fridge will yield tens of thousands of dollars in additional revenue over the life of a smart fridge.”
Nathan Downs, FoodSpot CEO
Other than location, merchandising is the single biggest driver of profitability in smart fridge vending.
Traditionally, merchandising a vending machine required little thought—sweet, salty, and shelf-stable snacks look the way they do in coils. However, in a swipe, grab, and go smart fridge that sells fresh restaurant-quality food, merchandising is a skill operators must learn to be successful.
How to Think About Merchandising
Imagine you’re on a shopping trip to Target. From the parking lot, you see the iconic red sign calling you into the store. As you walk in, the interior is well-lit and clean, and the signage helps you navigate the store. As you approach the clothing section, you see full shelves with neatly-folded shirts and jeans. The labels give you instant information about the products and prices.
This is merchandising at its best.
It’s a scientific fact that humans spend more money when they comfortable and confident throughout the buying process. Commonly, smart fridge operators will increase their smart fridge sales from 10–30% overnight by performing a makeover that follows the Merchandising Best Practices discussed below.
Merchandising Best Practices for Smart Fridge Vending
To illustrate best practices, we’ll use a FoodSpot Microstore that is operated by a rural hospital in the Midwest, but all operators can learn from these principles.
Shelf Reference: The top shelf is shelf 1. The bottom shelf is shelf 6.
- Find the right balance between shelf-stable and fresh products: This fridge is stocked with 30% shelf-stable products (drinks and cracker packs on shelves 1 and 3) and 70% fresh products (soups, salads, and sandwiches on shelves 2, 4,5, and 6). Starting with this ratio of 30% shelf-stable and 70% fresh is good for learning and gives your customers the impression that your smart fridge is a reliable source of fresh food. Don’t fear waste initially—customers need time to form new habits. After three weeks, analyze sales and adjust inventory accordingly.
- Give them what they want: “What products would make you come to this fridge 2-3x per week?” You can send out a survey to your customers. A FoodSpot smart fridge displays a QR code that your customers can scan to request products. This particular operator heard from both white-collar and blue-collar workers in their building, so they stocked the fridge with both premium salads (shelf 5) and value salads (shelf 6). As general rules:
- Ritual items like a Starbucks Frappuccino or Red Mill Oatmeal drive repeat visits.
- Microwaveable meals give a sense of heartiness and are popular during peak mealtimes.
- Cover all meal periods: The fridge is stocked with products appropriate for breakfast (yogurt, milk, orange juice), lunch, and dinner (salads, soups, and sandwiches). You may want to include dessert or other impulse products as well.
- Group by shelf for easy browsing: Products are clearly grouped by shelf, making the fridge easy to navigate: drinks on shelf 1, breakfast and snacks on shelves 2 and 3, sandwiches on shelf 4, and salads on shelves 5 and 6
- Keep it full: Each shelf is full of products. After right-sizing the amount of fresh food, max-out shelf space with shelf-stable products.
- Make your food neat and visible: Products that can be propped up at an angle are done so to showcase colors and freshness. Metal row dividers (included in FoodSpot fridges) are used to organize further (shelf 3).
- Communicate prices: Price transparency builds trust and speeds up decision-making. Use shelf clips or labels to display product names & prices.
- Add Variety: Regularly introduce new items that are similar to your top-sellers.
Consistently returning to the principles above will help you optimize your smart fridge profitability. However, more tailored insights can be gleaned from your data.
Learn From Your Data
The FoodSpot dashboard has been designed to offer quick merchandising insights to improve profitability. We’ll use data from FoodSpot operators to illustrate how to refine merchandising strategy.
Using the Top 10 Tiles
The main tab of the dashboard includes charts displaying the top 10 Best Selling items and the Top 10 Most Expired Items. This data can be viewed by period or fridge. The following data is from a small liberal arts college in Los Angeles.
Here are some considerations for this operator based on their Top 10 charts:
- The most expired item is a Candy Yam with Apples. The operator may consider removing this item from their offering and filling the empty space a similar product in the Top 10 Best Selling chart, such as a Gluten Free Waffle Pack.
- Some frequently expired items need not be removed completely but just need to be reduced. For example, the operator may consider reducing Pesto Chicken Pasta (#7 on the Expired list) by 30% and backfilling that shelf with Meat Lasagna, their best-selling item.
Replacing commonly expired items with commonly purchased items will immediately improve fresh food vending sales.
Seeing Patterns
The revenue and waste tiles on the main tab of the FoodSpot dashboard show historical sales and expirations by quantity and dollar value. We’ll use the revenue and waste tiles of a hospital cafeteria to explain how seeing patterns can optimize your merchandising.

- Peak sales days tend to be Saturdays and Sundays, prompting the operator to stock more food on Friday to meet the weekend demand.
- Peak waste days tend to be on Wednesdays, prompting the operator to stock fewer fresh items during the middle of the week.
Merchandising is a Journey
Whether you’ve been operating a smart fridge vending machine for one month or one year, you can always improve your merchandising. Whether it’s using shelf dividers to clean up the look of your fridge, or spicing up your menu with a seasonal item, continuously refining your merchandising skills will continuously improve your smart fridge profitability. We recommend a refresh every 6-8 weeks. Set a calendar reminder every 6 weeks to ask yourself: “If I were to change three things about the fridge what would it be?” The best answers will come from your dashboard and talking to your customers.
If you are interested in learning more about operating a smart vending fridge, get in touch with our team here!