Video: Chinese Vending Machine Sells Live Crabs

Serkan Toto

Dr. Serkan Toto is an independent consultant and advisor focusing on Japan’s web, mobile and social gaming industries. Based in Tokyo, he works together with financial institutions and startups worldwide. Serkan has been the Japan contributor for TechCrunch.com since 2008. He is sept-lingual, holds an MBA and is a PhD in economics. → Learn More

Friday, October 22nd, 2010

We have covered the one or the other obscure vending machine in the past, but this one’s a first: a vending machine that sells live crabs. This model is located in a subway station in Nanjing, China, and keeps the crabs at 5°C at all times. In other words, the crabs inside are alive, “hibernating” in a frozen state.

A sign in front of the machine promises 100% customer satisfaction: if buyers get a dead crab, the maker (a Chinese company based in Nanjing whose name I couldn’t decipher) promises they’ll get three crabs for free.

Each crab costs between $1.50 and $7.50, depending on the size. The machine’s producer says they currently sell around 100 crabs daily, resulting in about $500 sales.

The (Japanese) video embedded below shows how it works (the interesting part is between 0.25min and 2.15min):
http://www.dailymotion.com/swf/video/xfaa2j_japanprobe-dot-com_webcam?additionalInfos=0
JapanProbe dot com
アップロード者 pubjapaned. – 動画ブログや動画ブロガーをもっとみる。

Via Japan Probe

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