Kicker: Vending for gold

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Minimarts may be a great place to buy mega-sized slushy drinks and snacks, but GS Retail stores in Seoul, South Korea, have branched out to chips of another kind.

Last fall, five Korean convenience stores installed specialized vending machines near their checkout counters. Sandwiched between the coffee center and beverage case is a tall gold kiosk where you can buy gold bars while you wait for your pastry order

KOREAN STORE OWNER: [SPEAKING KOREAN]

This GS25 store manager says people are becoming more interested in investing in something they can actually hold on to. But even he was surprised that during the first day he sold eight gold bars through the vending machine.

Perhaps even more surprising is the fact that since September, GS Retail reports sales of $19 million dollars in gold bars. With that kind of response, no wonder they’re expanding to 50 gold bar vending machines by the end of the year.

There are five different sizes available. The smallest is about a tenth of an ounce—or about the weight of a soda cracker. That’ll currently set you back about $225. The biggest gold bar available is about an ounce and a third. And that requires a lot more slushy funds equalling more than the cost of 1700 of the frozen beverages.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Ok, suddenly my impulse purchase of white cheddar popcorn in the checkout lane doesn’t seem quite so bad.

BUTLER: It’s The World and Everything in It.

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