In most industries, such as perfumery, electronics, clothing, and groceries, Black Friday means one thing: discounts. Whoever offers the bigger markdown wins the customer.
In vending, it doesn't always work that way. Sometimes discounts alone are not enough to attract customers. A cup of coffee costs very little, for example, and a few percent off won't make anyone stop at a machine. That may be why so little is written about Black Friday in vending. Ready-made advice from other industries simply doesn't work here.
This article looks at why Black Friday works differently in automated retail, and how to stand out during one of the best-known sales events in the world when a discount is not a cure-all.
Black Friday is not just a day of discounts. It is a ritual that shoppers prepare for in advance.
Where the name comes from is not known for certain. According to one version, in the 1960s Philadelphia police used it to describe the traffic jams and crowds after Thanksgiving. Retailers later gave the word a new meaning: since accountants wrote losses in red and profits in black, a "black" Friday became the day stores move into profit.
In their study, Jane Boyd Thomas and Cara Peters interviewed 38 American women who had shopped the sale for several years in a row. The sample was small, but it showed what the event really looks like from the inside. For these women it is a shared outing with family or friends that they plan in advance, run like a race for the best deals, and consider a success when they manage to do what they set out to do.
So, price is not the only thing that draws shoppers to Black Friday. It is also the time spent together in anticipation of good purchases, the plan, even a little thrill, and the satisfaction of a plan carried out. This is the angle from which automated retail is worth looking at.
Every element of the ritual from the previous section looks completely different at a machine.
The authors of a study of shopper behavior at vending machines (Perfetti et al., 2025) describe the purchase as automated and impersonal: there is no salesperson nearby, and the decision is often spontaneous and made quickly, without much thought. In a regular store, the choice is usually more deliberate.
When an operator introduces a "20% off" discount, they offer the customer only one of the four elements: the price. The rest of what makes Black Friday an event does not appear at a machine on its own. That may be exactly why there is so little ready-made advice for automated retail: classic advice relies on familiar, established routines that do not exist here.
If the ritual does not come together at a machine, the customer should be offered something better suited to the format of automated retail itself.
A pleasant experience worth repeating. A survey of US students found that Black Friday shoppers look for positive emotions in shopping more than others do (Kwon & Brinthaupt, 2015). Brazilian researchers surveyed 500 shoppers of the event and concluded that it builds a habit, since 77% of them had also bought in previous years (Guerra et al., 2023). The logic is simple: the more pleasant the purchase, the more willingly people repeat it.
A gift alongside the discount. One participant in the study said her family starts its route at an outlet center, because the first 50 shoppers there receive a gift (Thomas & Peters, 2011). The authors themselves recommend that retailers offer prizes and gifts alongside discounts, so that price is not the only reason to stop.
Honest rules. The authors of the Brazilian study note that some shoppers associate Black Friday with deception: some stores raise prices a week before the sale and then "cut" them. This breeds distrust and negative reviews. There is no salesperson at a machine to ask about the terms, and the customer trusts what they see on the screen or the sticker. That is why the price before a promotion should stay unchanged, and the terms should be clear without explanation.
For an operator, Black Friday is not about one day's turnover. It is five tasks that are hard to solve on ordinary days.
Choose a goal, not a mechanic. Each of the five goals has its own mechanic and its own metric, so after the promotion you can see what worked.
Announce the promotion a few days ahead: according to Thomas & Peters, Black Friday shoppers plan for it in advance based on advertising. One goal and one mechanic are enough for a first promotion. Write down the metric before the start, not after.
Automated retail is one of those industries where Black Friday has not yet gathered full momentum, and that is exactly what makes it an attractive field for creativity. While companies in other industries compete for the customer with almost identical offers, a machine operator has the chance to invent their own approach, one that will look fresh.
An experiment should not be seen as a risk, because even an idea that did not deliver the expected result leaves the operator with knowledge of what their customers actually care about. That is why someone who tries something new today acts with more confidence tomorrow than someone who waited until the approach became widely accepted.
In the end, when a promotion winds down, its main gain is not the memory of one good day but a circle of people who have gotten to know your machines and have a reason to come back to them. So if you work in automated retail, allow yourself to try something new this Black Friday, because this is how a base of interested customers takes shape, one that stays with you even after the promotion is behind you.
