Do you have an idea for kiosk-type business rattling around in your noggin? If so, you may want to enter the second installment of Coinstar’s “Next Big Idea” contest. The Redbox parent is offering $10,000 for the best new concept in retail-based kiosks. The submission deadline for the contest is September 30, with the winner being announced at the 2010 Customer Engagement Technology World expo in November.
From the contest website:
The winning entry will have the potential to shake up the market for their product or services by offering great value to consumers and retailers. Your idea should address a unique need, like the Coinstar coin counting machine, or solve a consumer problem, as the redbox DVD rental machines do by offering superior convenience. Your business should have a large potential market (>$1B) and have the potential to capture significant market share.
With Redbox kiosks making up a huge chunk of its revenue, its not surprising that Coinstar is looking to duplicate its success with another concept.
Are any of you going to enter this contest, Insiders? If you have a potential billion-dollar idea, would it be wise to sell it for a mere ten grand, even if it meant another company would assume the costs and risks associated with getting it off the ground?
Uh oh! When requests like this are made, it usually means a form of strategic bankruptcy for not only Coinstar, but also for the form factor–kiosk vending machines.
Cell radio as the interface for transactions seems to have the greatest potential. Why visit a kiosk vending machine for products or services when a cell radio handset is in hand, pocket or purse.
I read the contest rules and submission guidelines offered in the article for “The Next Big Idea Contest.” Could it be that Red Box is loosing out and they need ‘the next big idea’ ASAP. The contest has a short window and there is absolutely no sense that the contestant has her ideas protected, or has any right to her concepts and they could be usurped by the Constar even before the contest is over. This is a strange contest that is a just culling of the public to help this company set up the next kiosk businesses, which by nature are not permanent businesses.
@ Double L
Maybe redbox should copy BB and offer candy, soda and magazines via its kiosks? ;)
“Are any of you going to enter this contest, Insiders?” Well Heck Yeah!!! I’ve got a lot of BIG BIG Ideas! I’m always thinking, thinking, thinking….!!!
And while I’m thinking of it,..I truly have nothing to do with the industry, BUT there I was at one of my required monthly employee meeting/class conferences yesterday when the Instructor referred to the REDBOX kiosks to exemplify ‘convenience’. So where ‘another’ blogger on this site has stated ‘as a fact’ HIS/her neighborhood kids go around demeaning other people by calling them ‘Redboxers’ to suggest they are ‘cheap, pathetic, losers’,…. Well, I guess we all move in different circles, because the educated adults in my circle use Redbox in a positive manner to exemplify ease of convenience. :-)
Of all this blogger X’s spin and bullsh*t two items stand out….
The ‘cheap, pathetic, loser’ comment.
The ‘I’d have no problem with redbox if they simply raised prices’ comment/comments.
What else do you need to know?
I have no interest in the DVD business. I did not have sexual relations with that women.
Yes! I have a billion dollar idea but I’d rather give it to coinstar and take a paltry $10k in exchange. Who the hell would be SO stupid as to do something like that. Really, you have a super idea that could make enough money for you and all your future generations but you’d rather just take 10k and let coinstar make billions and billions. Morons…
I believe that one shouldn’t look a “Gifted Horse ” in the mouth. Its $10,000 more than what you had…right. And if one thinks “why give my idea to them” well….if you had the venue to work your idea, then you would hav. I say take their offer and run with it.
Ditto!
I am going to enter the contest. I’ve had an idea for a kiosk in my head for awhile now. I’ll sell it for 10k, sure I could develop it myself and make more. That is after I develop the concept, create a prototype , create a marketing plan and establish relationships with major nationwide retailers (not easy to do) then wait years to turn my first profit.
I don’t have that kind of time nor the money to create a prototype and mass produce the kiosks or the desire to be in the kiosk business so…. I’ll give them my idea take the 10k and move on to other business ventures I actually want to do.
Good idea.Offer more. Redbox will make more moola why not properly share. If they need help they should b willing to pay for it.I have an idea ,I always have a idea many will be submitted that they can use but only one will be paid. Why not pay for all of them. they will make money . Jus offer more.
It would seem that the coming previews of new releases has run aground somewhere…Here’s one that I keep in reserve in case the previews don’t get posted….( as of late ) I keep a link to Blockbuster, which I formerly dealt with…. They not only have a list of what they are releasing this week but also the following week….Of course, they have releases that Redbox would never have…but in a short time, you will be able to weed out the ones which would never appear at Redbox….leaving a pretty good idea of what may be available in the coming weeks..,. For me, it helps to have an idea of what and when is being released before the day it happens….therefore I can make a list of the movies I am really interested in and be at the Redbox at the earliest opportunity to get them before some airhead parent allows their urchin to handle the discs and they come back with a variety of food and body fluids imbedded into their playing sides…
OMG – I luv Justin Bieber sooo much its almost crazyee!!