Patent ID: 8417380

Claim:
A method of inventory rebalancing comprising the steps of: receiving inventory data from a first vending controller disposed within a first vending apparatus, the inventory data comprising a listing of vendible media products within the first vending apparatus and data representing the percent of time that each vendible media product has been stored within the first vending apparatus over a fixed period of time; receiving inventory data from a second vending controller disposed within a second vending apparatus, the inventory data comprising a listing of vendible media products within the second vending apparatus and data representing the percent of time that each vendible media product has been stored within the second vending apparatus over the fixed period of time; determining from the inventory data a subset of high-demand vendible media products, wherein the percent of time that each high-demand vendible media product has been stored within its respective vending apparatus over the fixed period of time is less than a pre-determined value; determining from the inventory data a disparity between the quantity of vendible media products within the subset contained within the first vending apparatus and the quantity of vendible media products within the subset contained within the second vending apparatus; and relocating one or more of the high-demand vendible media products from one of the first and second vending apparatuses to the other for decreasing the disparity.