Many people purchase bottled water for home and office use. As such, bottled water is a desired commodity which people want to have available at any time such as water is available from a tap. However, large quantities of bottled water may not be readily available at any desired time because, for example, a grocery store or a bottled water dispensing company may be closed for the day, weekend, holiday, etc. Accordingly, there is a desire to have large quantities of bottled water readily available on demand.
Various types of dispensing apparatus are known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,253,956 B1 discloses an apparatus for the automated retailing of refreshments to a vehicle occupant as the vehicle passes through an automated retail product dispensing station. A vehicle occupant places a retail product order through an automated interface and drives within reach of an automated retail product dispenser and the retail product is dispensed by a mechanism that places it within reach of the vehicle driver.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,065,568 discloses a drive-up vending machine that allows automated selection of the product and payment. The machine is for smaller size products.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,647,026 discloses an automatic drive-in store. A motorist drives into the store and may order retail objects from the vehicle automatically and have the objects delivered through a delivery system of conveyors to the automobile.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,113,974 discloses a timed cycle single-stop shopping facility. It includes the ability to purchase gas and while purchasing gas automatically selecting objects and having them delivered to a loading station adjacent to the vehicle.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,893,727 discloses an automated delivery system. It includes a specific means of inventorying the products and delivering the products to the customer.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,890,136 discloses a quick stop mass retail system for ordering and purchasing articles from a remote location for pick-up at an article pick-up area at an automated store. The system includes a system for communicating a customer's purchase order; a host computer adapted for receiving the purchase order; processing the order and storing the customer's purchase order in a database; a system for retrieving the article ordered from a storage location in response to the customer order, and a system for delivering the article to a pick-up area.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,186,281 discloses a system for article selection and purchase in a retail establishment and having the articles then delivered to a customer vehicle check-out area.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,684,200 B1 discloses a cashless vending machine.
Japanese Publication No. 05120521A generally discloses in the Abstract an unmanned shop system whereby goods are ordered automatically and delivered by a conveyor to a dispenser.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,143,247; 5,791,512 and 5,271,703 disclose various apparatus for conveying goods to a dispenser.
These devices and methods have various shortcomings which, along with other shortcomings, are addressed by the present invention.