Ashford markets a complete e-commerce software solution for vending kiosks - a solution that controls and monitors the kiosk and provides back-end web server support. Applications include:

Point of Sale - Sell both e-commerce products like cellular air time numbers, long distance calling numbers, theater and concert tickets as well as traditional products like cellular phones and CD players. Combines the interactive, graphical interface of a kiosk with the ability to handle vending hardware (bill acceptors, credit card readers, printers, etc.).      Prepaid Wireless Kiosks ...

Trade Shows - Interactively display information on your company and products. Touch screen for user interaction. Interactively control booth lighting to highlight specific products or areas within the booth.

Information Access - Users can query information from a local database or from the Internet.

On the Kiosk:

• Interactive user interface that supports static and dynamic graphics.
• The ability to control and monitor vending hardware (bill acceptor, credit card reader, etc.).
• Continuous monitoring of hardware and software to detect faults.
• All sales are reported to the server.
• All faults are reported to the server. The kiosk periodically reports its status to the server including the amount of cash currently in the kiosk.
• The ability to control product dispensers for selling traditional (non e-commerce) products.
• Connects to the Internet using cellular CDMA technology. This is a fast and economical method for Internet connectivity - no need to run expensive landline connections.

On the Server:

• Operations tools - upload and download files from/to the kiosk, modify the kiosk configuration (for example, new pricing information), download new software versions, restart the kiosk at a scheduled time.
• Reports for tracking kiosk status, faults and activity.
• Reports for tracking sales. Sales can be reported for all kiosks, by individual kiosk, by location, by time interval, etc.
• All kiosk-to-web server communications containing sensitive information use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).

A Customizable Software Solution - No two e-vending solutions are exactly the same. Different products, different merchandizing schemes, different reporting requirements make it impossible for a single software solution to fit all e-vending needs. Ashford's e-vending software framework has a modular architecture to which new features or new requirements can be easily added.