Hari Shotham thinks he's found the future of Australian retail shopping at his small St Kilda shop.
The future is – vending machines.
Hari’s shop has a stock of variety of products: vitamins, perfumes, mobile phone accessories, bandages, medicine, Coca-Cola, etc.
This is delivered to customers from 13 vending machines.
Hari has no shop assistants, no managers. Open 24 hours a day.
He does not even bothers to come to his shop most days and just monitors the activity from home via the store's CCTV on his mobile phone.
The Age reports that Hari claims he has opened “Australia's first vending-machine-only shop.”
Hari adds that each machine is turning over $1000 a week and the target is now of 20 machines we to make $20,000.
Hari Shotham, Vitamin Warehouse Source: Hari Shotham - Vitamin Warehouse
"Surprisingly, the numbers have been amazing. We haven't even got a proper sign out," Hari told the Age.
His biggest sellers at the shop are perfume for young women.
But Hari feels that once he has more products he might need a name-change.
He feels that because of cutting-down costs he is able to significantly undercut his competitors price on similar items.
Added to this are almost zero theft costs, adds Hari.
"The highest problem in pharmacies is everything has to be under lock and key. Theft is a massive problem. In a vending machine you cannot steal," says Hari.
Hari has worked with Chemist Warehouse and has 40-years’ experience.
He has also worked in Hong Kong and there lerant the potential for vending-machine retail buisness.
He tried replicating the Hong Kong model in Australia.
The orginal plan, tells Hari, was to buy vending machines, fill them up and install them at local shopping centre.
But centre management was unwilling to allow his vending machines.
He then decided to scout for a shop and found one in St Kilda.
Now time will tell if Hari’s business strategy would work but he is confident that this venture is the start of something huge in Australia.
