30 June 2021
Each year the AVA collate key statistics and feedback from the vending industry, so they can share their facts and learnings with their members in their annual report. This annual update provides a significant and useful snapshot of what’s happening across the industry.
COVID-19 of course features highly in the 2020 census, as the vending industry like many others has been adversely affected by the national lockdowns and social distancing measures.
However, despite the challenges forced upon operators as a result of coronavirus, it has provided an opportunity for many to re-think their operations and modernise their payment options.
The majority of these changes revolved around cashless payments, with the stats confirming:
- The growing momentum behind cashless continues
- The share of vending machines fitted with cashless has more than tripled since 2017
- Cashless is growing its share of transactions vs. cash
- Contactless transactions is gaining share vs. contact
The report also confirmed that cashless now tends to be the standard system offered with new machines, with cash being offered as the secondary option, which is a very definite switch from where things were in 2017.
The specific stats around the use of cashless speak for themselves and also highlight the growing consumer preference for completely contactless payment:
- In 2020 66% of transactions were cashless, up from 34% in 2017
- In 2020 60% of cashless transactions were contactless, up from 46% in 2017
- In 2020 27% of cashless transactions were Mobile/NFC, up from 8% in 2017
- In 2020 cashless transactions were 58% higher in value vs. cash, up from 30% in 2018
This broad acceptance of cashless payment, clearly accelerated by COVID-19 has changed the payments landscape in vending permanently. But as a direct result of the crisis, cost may become more of an issue for those investing, which could mean the increased use of refurbished machines, making it critical that payment systems (like our Vendotek and Flex terminals) can be easily retrofitted onto older machines, not just new equipment.
Source: AVA – The Automatic Vending Association (the-ava.com)
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