Products and processes for managing the prices of vending machine inventory

Abstract

According to one embodiment of the disclosed invention, an apparatus determines a current price of a product for sale by the vending machine. It then determines, for the product, a price increment, a predetermined price, and a demand threshold, that are defined by data stored in at least one data table. A rate of units of the product that are sold are determined. The rate is compared with the demand threshold. Based on the comparison of the rate with the demand data, it is determined whether the new price should be greater than or less than the current price. The new price is set to the predetermined price if the new price should be greater than the current price. If the new price should be less than the current price, a price increment amount is subtracted from the current price to yield the new price. The determined new price is displayed.

1 . A method comprising: 
 determining a current price of a product for sale by a vending machine;    determining demand data of the product;    determining, based on the demand data, a new price of the product, in which the new price is determined to be one of 
 (i) the current price;  
 (ii) an amount less than the current price, and  
 (iii) a predetermined price if the new price is greater than the current price.