Published • 17 Dec 2025
If this year had a theme, it would be progress you could see and measure. New products on shelves. New categories taking hold. New markets opening in places that once seemed out of reach. Businesses across the country advanced unattended retail in ways that strengthened the entire ecosystem.
This recap highlights what people read, what they used, what they adopted, and how their choices helped guide our roadmap. It isn't a ranked list; it's a look at the developments that carried real weight and shaped the industry's progress.
Your Most Helpful Blogs of the Year
Readers came to our content looking for clear answers and practical takeaways. We spent the year building articles that went deeper than headlines—content that unpacked real sales patterns, explained new categories, and showed how specific tools work in everyday environments. The pieces that stood out all shared one thing: they helped people make better decisions the same day they read them.
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Inside the Data: What ADM Reveals About 365 HQ's Own Micro Market
This article worked because it didn't talk in generalities. It broke down actual data from a real location, showing how even small adjustments in mix or placement can change the performance of an entire market. It encouraged people to dig into their own numbers with more intention, which became a running theme throughout the year.
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Merchandising Adult Beverages in Smart Coolers: A Practical Guide
As more locations considered adding adult beverages, this guide gave them a grounded view of what the category demands. It outlined how to stock and display products in Vision smart stores and clarified the compliance steps that maintain consistency across the process. This helped readers gauge whether the category made sense for them.
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What's Selling Now in PicoCooler Vision: 2025's Top Products & What They Tell Us
This wasn't just a product ranking. It prompted thoughtful conversations about how shopper preferences are changing, especially the growing demand for better-for-you snacks and premium beverages. The blog showed how early patterns emerge across a wide range of products and gave readers a clearer view of what's gaining momentum, long before those trends become obvious across multiple locations.
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How to Grow and Scale in the Vending Industry: 5 Lessons from Quality Vending & Coffee
Readers valued this piece because it stayed grounded in the real work behind growing a vending and market business. It walked through the practical steps Quality Vending & Coffee took to build trust, scale responsibly, and adapt with technology. The lessons felt familiar to many teams navigating similar challenges, which made the story both valuable and easy to apply.
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5 Lessons Modern Operators Can Learn from The History of Vending
Understanding how the industry has evolved can make it easier to decide what to do next. This article walked through key moments from vending's past and showed how they relate to the choices businesses are weighing today. By laying out that history in a practical way, it gave readers a clearer frame for evaluating upgrades, testing new formats, or rethinking how they approach a location.
Tools That Helped People Make Smarter Decisions
Two new resources shaped planning conversations throughout 2025 and gave teams tangible ways to evaluate their next move.
ROI Calculator
The shift from vending to market formats is a meaningful one, and the ROI Calculator gave teams a practical way to evaluate that move with real numbers. Instead of relying on rough estimates, people could see the financial impact laid out clearly, which made planning conversations more focused and productive. It became a tool many used to prepare for equipment upgrades, map out new spaces, and make a stronger case when pitching new locations.
The Vending Ebook
With interest in vending growing again this year, many people were looking for a clear starting point. The ebook helped newcomers understand the fundamentals—how routes are structured, what makes a good machine location, and how different product categories tend to perform. It offered a simple way to see what goes into running a successful vending program and provided readers with a grounded framework for deciding how and where to begin.
Both tools supported a broader trend: people across the industry were preparing for growth, and they wanted clarity before taking each step.
Ten New Products. A More Flexible Ecosystem.
Here are all ten product launches from 2025:
- PicoAmbient Vision
- PicoFreezer Vision
- PicoCooler with Ambient Cabinet (Standard)
- PicoCooler with Ambient Cabinet (Wide)
- Imbera PicoCooler Vision
- MarketSight
- Age Verification
- CV Express
- PicoCoffee (U.S.)
- 365Pay Rewards Program
Taken as a whole, these releases showed where the industry is heading. Businesses want equipment and software that can flex across different spaces, support broader product mixes, and simplify day-to-day operations without adding extra steps. Within that momentum, three launches stood out for their impact across a wide range of locations.
Age Verification
Age-gated products have become an important category for many locations, and success in that space depends on a secure, consistent process. Age Verification is built on the strong foundation already in PicoCooler Vision and Stockwell, giving those formats a compliant way to support alcohol sales without introducing extra labor or complicated steps. This opened the door for more locations to carry regulated products and broadened the range of products businesses could confidently offer in an unattended environment.
PicoCooler Vision + Ambient
This configuration gave businesses more control over how they present their assortment. Banking refrigeration and ambient shelving under a unified system created a smoother experience for shoppers and a more flexible setup for teams managing multiple product types. It helped many locations offer more without needing additional square footage or separate workflows.
PicoCoffee (U.S.)
PicoCoffee, coming soon to the U.S., will bring a higher-end coffee experience to markets by giving tabletop coffee machines a clean, cashless checkout. The Pico terminal becomes the single payment point for both the beverage and the surrounding micro market, streamlining shopper flow and eliminating the need for separate devices. Locations will be able to pair premium coffee with breakfast items, snacks, or cold drinks, and keep everything in one cart and one transaction. With its plug-and-play setup, clear touchscreen prompts, and unified reporting through Connected Campus℠, PicoCoffee will give teams an easy way to expand their offering without adding complexity to the space.
These releases made it easier for businesses to customize their retail environment based on space, traffic, and shopper expectations. That flexibility continued to show up throughout the year.
What We Learned From 100+ Events
Across over 100 events, we heard a wide range of goals and challenges from businesses at different stages of growth. Some were adding their first market. Others were layering Vision coolers into existing locations or looking for better ways to manage mixed portfolios of vending, markets, and dining. Many simply wanted to see the technology up close, ask questions, and compare notes with peers.
Those conversations gave us helpful feedback on everything from category expansion and age-restricted sales to data visibility and shopper experience. They helped confirm where our current roadmap is headed and highlighted a few areas where we could refine how products are positioned and supported. Taken together, the events reinforced a clear message: people are actively planning their next phase of unattended retail and want partners who stay close to that reality.
The Updated 365Pay App
The updated 365Pay App focused on what shoppers had been asking for: a simpler layout, a faster path through checkout, and clearer account tools. The release also introduced the 365Pay Rewards Program, giving shoppers an easy way to earn and redeem rewards within markets and Vision coolers that use the app.
These changes supported a smoother experience across locations and reduced points of friction that previously slowed purchases. Since 365Pay connects to kiosks, Vision units, and mobile transactions, the update strengthened the foundation for how customers interact with the broader 365 ecosystem.
Which brings us to the part of the story that mattered most this year.
The Real Story: Growth From Across the Industry
2025 was full of wins from businesses building retail experiences in workplaces, campuses, arenas, residential spaces, and community hubs. A few examples stood out because of the ambition behind them:
Elevate Vending's rollout inside Capital One Arena
Elevate Vending introduced unattended retail into one of the most active venues in Washington, D.C., placing technology where speed and reliability matter every minute. Their installation demonstrated how well modern equipment performs in a high-traffic setting, where shoppers expect quick transactions and staff need equipment that runs consistently without added oversight. It also showed how unattended retail can support large event spaces seeking faster service.
GKP Vending's expansion from one Stockwell to twenty-six by the end of Q3
GKP Vending started with a single Stockwell and, within months, identified a model that fit the needs of their locations. Their growth to twenty-six units reflected a clear understanding of where compact, secure coolers can fill gaps that traditional formats can't. The pace of their expansion underscored how approachable Stockwell is for businesses that want to scale without overhauling their operations.
The first 365-powered markets installed in Costa Rica
Another milestone this year was opening our first markets in Costa Rica. These installs marked a continuation of our global expansion and demonstrated how the 365 ecosystem can adapt to new regions and customer expectations. Bringing the platform into a new country helped set the foundation for additional growth throughout Latin America.
These are just three examples out of hundreds. This year, businesses opened new markets, added new categories, modernized old equipment, and brought unattended retail into environments that didn't support it before. Every step forward helped shape where the industry is headed next.
Looking Ahead
We opened this recap by talking about progress you can see. That remains the focus heading into 2026. The past year showed that when businesses have tools that align with their goals, they grow with confidence—and set new expectations for the entire industry.
Our job is to continue building the technology that supports that growth. More flexibility across Vision products. More clarity through ADM. A stronger shopper experience through 365Pay.
If 2025 was the year many businesses expanded what unattended retail could be, 2026 is the year those ideas get refined and scaled. And we're ready to support that work every step of the way.