Catering To The Ethnic Vending Market

Currently, Planet Antares vending operators serving the ethnic market segment are more successful as compared to a few years back. According to a survey, 90 percent of the vending operators believe that product suppliers are offering enough variety of food, snacks or beverages to meet the customer demands.

This has resulted in shaping of a great opportunity for those operators who understand the rising demand for ethnic products. As a whole, the industry seems to be slow to recognize the need to cater to this fast growing market.

Almost three-fourths of vending operators realize that their customer base is becoming more diverse in ethnicity. Planet Antares vending operators have reported the biggest gain in Hispanic customers.

A large number of vending operators are also catering to the demands of African Americans. However, other surveys have indicated that this group does not possess any particular product demands.

While most Planet Antares vending operators recognized a gain in ethnic customers, only about 40 percent of all operators have reported success with the products targeted to these customers. This indicated the fact that only a minority of vending operators have offered these products to this group.

By meeting ethnic market demands, a lot of vending operators have reported positive results. However, the challenge is to determine how much of the product mix should be geared to the ethnic audience when the customer base is mixed.

A large portion of the ethnic products have been offered in the salted snack segment, followed by food. This category has been offering the greatest product variety for many years and Planet Antares snack machines have more facings than any other type of vending machines.

In the cold drink category, Planet Antares vending operators have also provided ethnic choices. As the number of ethnic customers continues to increase, vending operators will find it necessary to carry products that target ethnic customers.