Airport Experience® News - Retail Issue 2026

BEFORE YOU TAKE OFF FIFA ON THE FLY Branded Automated Retail Supplemented In-Line Stores During Demand Surge

BY SARAH BELING

Left: Earlier this year, Prepango rolled out FIFA licensed automated retail in airports whose cities played host to World Cup Games. The machines were a boon to sales, Prepango says, and allowed airports to meet the surge in demand for FIFA-branded products.

“There are quite a few people that wrote [us] and said, ‘Oh, this is so cool that they’re putting more automation in here,’” he adds, noting that the popularity of the installation may have the ability to turn the tide on attitudes toward smart automated retail from traditional ‘coil’ vending. “The U.S. market, especially in malls, have been quite resistant to automating retail, and some have this perception that ‘machines cannibalize store sales,’ and the data clearly shows that they truly don’t,” says Benson. “Are we really saying that sales at the store that you spent a million dollars building out and stocking up will be significantly impacted by this 6 x 3’ kiosk on the other side of the mall?” As he puts it, there are two separate categories of consumers: those who want to shop in-line, and those “that don’t actually like going into stores and prefer to go to a machine and take their time making their selection.” Prepango’s successful World Cup installation – which Benson credits in large part to the company’s hard-working deployment teams and ready-made operational systems – gives confidence that the strategy could be repeated for other limited-edition events. “We would look at other events, selectively,” says Benson. “FIFA was massive and will be hard to beat in terms of its scope, size of audience and the integration into every aspect of everybody’s life for 39 straight days.”

f there’s one thing the 2026 FIFA World Cup proved, it’s that automated vending concepts have

says. “The interest from FIFA sparked off a whole conversation of, ‘Well, if you’re going to be putting in FIFA [machines], you should add in your Shop All Fans [trading card machines], Shop All 24s [convenience machine] and your Illy coffee [machines] to compliment the overall traveler experience.’” The influx of FIFA fans was a golden opportunity for Prepango and automated retail at large, adds Benson. “The airports were expecting an explosion of travelers coming through their airports, especially in the host cities, and so, to give them additional places [to shop] instead of lining up at an in-line store, they could go to a machine and select [a product] at their own leisure.” Prepango’s World Cup concepts were a particular hit, however, not only for their product offerings but also for their experiential design. “The design of the machine was made very specific by FIFA, “says Benson. “We even had sound on the machine, which was the same soundtrack that you heard in between games on TV commercial breaks.

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made it easier than ever for fans to score tournament merchandise on the go. For this year’s tournament, Prepango offered travelers a special lineup of limited edition t-shirts, hats, cups, mini soccer balls, key rings and other officially licensed products, in a campaign that Ian Benson, executive vice president of development for the brand, says both tested the company’s capacity for high-volume sales and helped get them in front of new airport markets. After FIFA granted the automated vending company – known for its machines offering everything from cupcakes to cosmetics – an official World Cup license, the brand had a tight turnaround time to design new machines, coordinate with distributors and install their concepts in both established and new airports across the country. “We already had a significant presence in airports, so we could get them in very quickly – which no other vendor could do, because we had relationships there,” Benson

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AX NEWS SEPTEMBER 2026