Evolutionary Vending Machine

A vending machine with a bunch of stuff in it. Batteries, gum, snacks, flash drives, pens, socks, pop-tarts, condoms, blank CD's. Basically everything you can think of that is small, lasts a long time, and someone might want.

The trick is, it has a few hundred items in small quantities, but only presents ten or so items at a time. The items are held in view to tempt passersby for a set time, average buying rate is calculated, and some other bauble is dangled.

Over a week or two, the machine finds a few things that fly off the shelves, and recommends it be stocked with those in large quantity. Once this is done, the machine continually adjusts the price of the goods it is offering, while carefully monitoring the rate of sale. It uses a simple algorithm to maximize profit.

One or two bays are reserved for experimental items, in case circumstances change.

If the machine notices it is operating at a loss (it knows how much you are paying for it), it will signal that it needs to be moved somewhere new.

This is a very smart vending machine. It sends you a lot of emails(SMS messages?), with information like the estimated time it will run out of product, the average profit it is making, and so on.