Patent ID: 7894936

Claim:
A method comprising: determining, by a controller of a vending machine, a current price of a product for sale by the vending machine; determining, by the vending machine controller and for the product, a price increment, a predetermined price, and a demand threshold that are defined by data stored in at least one data table; determining, by the vending machine controller, a rate of units of the product that are sold by calculating a number of units sold during a predetermined period of time; comparing, by the vending machine controller, the rate with the demand threshold; determining, by the vending machine controller and based on the comparison of the rate with the demand data, whether a new price should be greater than or less than the current price; setting, by the vending machine controller, the new price to the predetermined price if the new price should be greater than the current price; subtracting, by the vending machine controller, a price increment amount from the current price to yield the new price if the new price should be less than the current price; and displaying, by the vending machine, the determined new price.