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I counted 16 vending machines side-by-side outside a random shop I visited in "my" town (the town where I stay when I'm in Japan). And yes they're everywhere.

by Tor3 6y ago

I counted 16 vending machines side-by-side outside a random shop I visited in "my" town (the town where I stay when I'm in Japan). And yes they're everywhere. I appreciated them particularly the first couple of years I visited, as at that time shops insisted on you paying as accurately as possible, they tended to refuse accepting banknotes if that implied returning a lot of coins. Strange thing, and that has since changed (i.e. that's not a problem anymore), but, back then the easiest way out was to simply buy a 100yen coffee from a vending machine, paying with a note, and keep the change to use in shops.

greggman3 6y ago
Been here since 98, never ran into the issue of not being able to pay with banknotes because of returning lots of coins. In fact quite the opposite. Go into a convenience store, buy a pack of mints for $1.04 (104 yen) hand them an $100 bill (10000yen) no one blinks an eye. Most convenience stores in the USA won't accept $100 bills AFAIK. I can see if it was some tiny store and they couldn't make exact change then yes, they'd have an issue. Also, liquor (and maybe beer) I think may have changed. I haven't seen a beer/liquor machine since 2016 but the one I saw then required an id card to prove you were old enough to buy. Tobacco too apparently (I don't pay attention to cigarette machines) https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taspo https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taspo
- innocenat 6y ago
  Nowadays I think I only saw liquor/beer machine only in hotel. I don't remember last time I saw them on the street anymore.
- SilasX 6y ago
  >Been here since 98, never ran into the issue of not being able to pay with banknotes because of returning lots of coins. In fact quite the opposite. Go into a convenience store, buy a pack of mints for $1.04 (104 yen) hand them an $100 bill (10000yen) no one blinks an eye. Similarly, I was surprised in Amsterdam when a family got on a bus and didn't have a ticket (or whatever) and so just gave the driver a 50 Euro note, and he made change and gave them their tickets.
- biztos 6y ago
  In Thailand I began to wonder how much trade the 7-11's do just from foreigners needing to break large bills, where "large" was 100 THB or more (3.20 USD). Being an American tourist, I always felt guilty about it and would make sure to buy at least a hundred baht of goods if I was breaking a thousand, but I'm pretty sure it was standard to buy a 7-baht bottle of water and calmly collect your 993 baht in change.
- cehrlich 6y ago
  Alcohol vending machines are rare, but still exist. There’s one outside of my in-laws house (rural Shiga-ken).
  - mullen 6y ago
    Even though I do not drink alcohol, I loved seeing Alcohol vending machines in Japan. A couple of hotels we stayed at had alcohol vending machines and I thought it was so awesome we were in a society where the trust level was so high that you could leave alcohol vending machines out in a public space and it did not cause trouble. In America, that vending machine would last a couple of hours at most.
    - Tor3 6y ago
      In most countries outside of Japan any vending machine wouldn't last.. the only place I still see them in my own country is inside airports and the like. The vending machines disappeared from outside years ago when some people started breaking them to get at the money.
- spike021 6y ago
  Similarly, I've been on two long trips to Japan recently and had no issues either. Though I suspect that there's less of an issue when the conbini you're in has a change machine at the teller. So they just put the bank note in and it dispenses whatever the change amount is, even if many coins also come out.
- ghaff 6y ago
  >Most convenience stores in the USA won't accept $100 bills AFAIK. At some point, with some marginal exceptions (such as dollar coins that have never been that widely used and a $2 bill ditto), the US at some point apparently decided that it was going to keep the same coins and bills in general circulation forever. So we still have essentially valueless pennies and $100 bills, while in circulation, aren't taken by a lot of places in the US. They're even a bit hard to get. I had to go to a couple of bank branches last time I needed to restock my "emergency" travel cash supply.
dingaling 6y ago
We used to have to acquire large numbers of quarters to do our laundry in the USA, and the easiest way was to feed a $5 bill into a vending machine and press the 'reject' button. Clunk clunk clunk clunk...

by Tor3 6y ago

greggman3 6y ago

Been here since 98, never ran into the issue of not being able to pay with banknotes because of returning lots of coins. In fact quite the opposite. Go into a convenience store, buy a pack of mints for $1.04 (104 yen) hand them an $100 bill (10000yen) no one blinks an eye. Most convenience stores in the USA won't accept $100 bills AFAIK. I can see if it was some tiny store and they couldn't make exact change then yes, they'd have an issue. Also, liquor (and maybe beer) I think may have changed. I haven't seen a beer/liquor machine since 2016 but the one I saw then required an id card to prove you were old enough to buy. Tobacco too apparently (I don't pay attention to cigarette machines) https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taspo https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taspo

innocenat 6y ago
Nowadays I think I only saw liquor/beer machine only in hotel. I don't remember last time I saw them on the street anymore.
SilasX 6y ago
>Been here since 98, never ran into the issue of not being able to pay with banknotes because of returning lots of coins. In fact quite the opposite. Go into a convenience store, buy a pack of mints for $1.04 (104 yen) hand them an $100 bill (10000yen) no one blinks an eye. Similarly, I was surprised in Amsterdam when a family got on a bus and didn't have a ticket (or whatever) and so just gave the driver a 50 Euro note, and he made change and gave them their tickets.
biztos 6y ago
In Thailand I began to wonder how much trade the 7-11's do just from foreigners needing to break large bills, where "large" was 100 THB or more (3.20 USD). Being an American tourist, I always felt guilty about it and would make sure to buy at least a hundred baht of goods if I was breaking a thousand, but I'm pretty sure it was standard to buy a 7-baht bottle of water and calmly collect your 993 baht in change.
cehrlich 6y ago
Alcohol vending machines are rare, but still exist. There’s one outside of my in-laws house (rural Shiga-ken).
- mullen 6y ago
  Even though I do not drink alcohol, I loved seeing Alcohol vending machines in Japan. A couple of hotels we stayed at had alcohol vending machines and I thought it was so awesome we were in a society where the trust level was so high that you could leave alcohol vending machines out in a public space and it did not cause trouble. In America, that vending machine would last a couple of hours at most.
  - Tor3 6y ago
    In most countries outside of Japan any vending machine wouldn't last.. the only place I still see them in my own country is inside airports and the like. The vending machines disappeared from outside years ago when some people started breaking them to get at the money.
spike021 6y ago
Similarly, I've been on two long trips to Japan recently and had no issues either. Though I suspect that there's less of an issue when the conbini you're in has a change machine at the teller. So they just put the bank note in and it dispenses whatever the change amount is, even if many coins also come out.
ghaff 6y ago
>Most convenience stores in the USA won't accept $100 bills AFAIK. At some point, with some marginal exceptions (such as dollar coins that have never been that widely used and a $2 bill ditto), the US at some point apparently decided that it was going to keep the same coins and bills in general circulation forever. So we still have essentially valueless pennies and $100 bills, while in circulation, aren't taken by a lot of places in the US. They're even a bit hard to get. I had to go to a couple of bank branches last time I needed to restock my "emergency" travel cash supply.

dingaling 6y ago

We used to have to acquire large numbers of quarters to do our laundry in the USA, and the easiest way was to feed a $5 bill into a vending machine and press the 'reject' button. Clunk clunk clunk clunk...