11 April,2009 09:14 AM IST | | Agencies
In the market for a Bentley sports car, a Jean Paul Gaultier dress or a cellphone, but don't feel like dealing with a pesky salesperson?
At the touch of a button, visitors to the Mondrian South Beach can buy those items as well as more prosaic hotel gift-shop staples like toothbrushes from a new vending machine called a Semi-Automatic.
"We don't have a newspaper stand or some place where you can just buy a sundry item," front office manager James A Bryant III said. "We've got Semi-Automatic, which is sort of an in-your-face gift shop. Just like our hotel is really sort of brash and out there."
Never mind the Jean Paul Gaultier dress, the 1965 Corvette convertible or the 24-karat gold hand cuffs, visitors who really want to splurge can even spring for a penthouse on the property.
"It's incredible," visitor Claude Beller from Belgium, said. "Out of curiosity I might buy a couple hundred dollars' worth of something, but I'm not going to buy a $68,000 (Rs 34 lakh) Corvette."
That appears to be just the reaction Morgans Hotel Group, owner and operator of 11 luxury hotels in the US and London, is after as it rolls out Semi-Automatics nationwide.
"We asked ourselves, if we do our job of transforming guests into gods or rock stars... then our customers become more daring, more experimental and more indulgent with themselves," Morgans chief marketing officer Scott Williams said.
How it works
The giant white-framed and purple-accented display holds row upon row of white, high-gloss boxes, identical, but for terse descriptions: Sunset Dinner Yacht Cruise for 2, Sony PSP-2000 Black, 2000 Bentley Azure Convertible, Gunpowder Tea Candle.
Customers can view product images and details on a small screen. To make a purchase, they simply swipe a credit card, tap on the product and watch as a motorised arm scoots behind and retrieves it. Products too large for one of the machine's glossy shopping bags are assigned cards that can be exchanged at the front desk for the purchase.
The biggest items, like cars and condos, are dispensed in two stages. Buyers first pay a nonrefundable deposit of $1,500 (Rs 75,000) that puts the item on hold. Then, hotel staff bring the vehicles around for a test drive or take the buyers to visit the property.
"Even if they [guests] weren't thinking about buying, they sort of buy into the idea. They want to purchase something cool; it's almost a story to tell," Bryant said. "I've seen people spend 20 to 30 minutes just looking at the products and being amazed that we're selling kooky stuff."
Hot sellers?
Top-sellers so far are gold handcuffs, a gold rabbit's foot and T-shirts with the word "recession" parsed into "Recess Is On" on one side and "(Expletive) the Recession" printed on the other. The shirt reads like a nod to both the hotel's risk in launching a $250,000 (Rs 1 crore) toy in the worst market in decades and customers' willingness to play along.
