Preparing for vacation can be stressful, especially if you are flying. You have to worry about getting to the airport on time and making sure your carry-on baggage is an acceptable size. You also have to worry about making sure that you packed everything you need, and that you follow the rules about taking liquids on-board. There’s a lot to think about which is why sometimes, travelers end-up forgetting to pack things like headphones and cameras, or accessories for the computer. What are you supposed to do when you get to the airport and realize that you are leaving for your vacation without a camera?
Best Buy is hoping that you will use one of their new gadget vending machines that are starting to appear in airports. There are already machines at the Dallas Fort Worth airport and early next month they will be appearing at airports in Atlanta, Boston, Houston, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and San Francisco. These Best Buy Express vending machines have cameras, computer accessories, headphones, travel adapters, chargers, and more, stocked and ready for travelers to buy. And they are self-serve which means you can get what you need and quickly move-on without needing to deal with a sales associate.
Hopefully prices will be reasonable. Considering Best Buy doesn’t have to pay to have associates run the store, thus saving money, we’d think that they would be able to keep prices at a minimum. Back in May when Ryan and I were heading out to Philadelphia for a wedding, he put all kinds of movies on his iPhone to watch on the plane ride out yet forgot to bring his headphones. The cheapest pair we could find in the airport was $15, and they were the ones that you used to be able to get on the plane for free! Aside from that pair, cheap-o headphones could be purchased for about $25-$30. If Best Buy was able to offer decent products for reasonable prices, this could be a big hit.
Our only thought is, every vending machine out there seems to have issues every once in a while with not being able to drop the product purchased. What happens with the Best Buy Express machines when someone pays for a products but the machine doesn’t spit it out?
[via Gizmodo]
“Reasonable prices at an airport” is an oxymoron.
You are probably right, Bill. One can wish though, can’t they?
Heh yes, even tax-free zones offer higher prices than outside the airport. It seems cheap due to the discounts, but the discounted prices are usually still higher than elsewhere. I’m sure that BestBuy just sees this as a nice profit-making opportunity, since travellers have nowhere else to go.. It could always be cheaper than the regular stores at the airport though, which is a good thing
I’d pay $5 dollars for headphones at one of these things max. I don’t see how they think this can work. A electronic purchase is usually a planned, one not a spur of the moment vending machine one.
Not everybody is rational while buying things. If Best Buy set these convenient places at airports, you bet many will buy. Impulse buyers are even worse, when they have money in their pockets.
Usually when people travel on vacation, their wallets are loaded.
Exactly, I’ve experienced many cases of people buying their new camera at the airport for instance. They don’t research, don’t want advice, just want to buy a camera that looks good and fits in their budget. It amazes me personally, but apparently many people don’t care about value in this sense..
Not everybody thinks their purchases through before buying. If you forgot your camera and you’re at the airport leaving for vacation, some people would just buy the first one they find so that they have something. Same goes for headphones and any computer accessories (business travelers) you might need.