Products are typically shipped to retailers in bulk by enclosing multiple individual product units in a container, such as a carton or box. For example, canned beverages may be shipped to a retailer in a carton containing twelve individual cans. When the products are to be sold individually, the retailer must remove the individual product units from the carton and stack them on a display, such as a shelf.
Alternatives to the traditional package-ship-unpack-display model have been developed in an effort to improve operating efficiency. For example, U.S. Ser. No. 13/184,639 filed on Jul. 18, 2011, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference, discloses a gravity-fed product dispensing system with multiple dispensing decks. The system includes a dispenser configured with an upper deck for supporting a container and multiple dispensing decks positioned below the upper deck, wherein each dispensing deck includes a product display area. The dispenser may be positioned on a retailer's shelf and loaded with product simply by placing a container comprising multiple units of product onto the upper deck of the dispenser. Once the container is positioned on the upper deck, the products exit the container through an opening in the container and travel to the product display areas under the force of gravity. Consumers may retrieve the products from the product display areas.
Despite advances already made in the field, those skilled in the art continue with research and development efforts directed to apparatus and systems for dispensing products initially provided in packaging containers.