Customer retention system and process in a vending unit, retail display or automated retail store

A vending system comprising:

• a communication network;
• a centralized database accessible through said network that stores inputted customer data;
• and,
• a plurality of remote vending machines, retail displays, and automated retail stores connected to the network that access said database, each of said vending machines, retail displays, and/or automated retail stores comprising:
• a display module containing items to be vended and a plurality of touchable product viewing areas;
• means for physically dispensing items;
• a computer for activating and controlling the vending machine, the computer comprising means for inputting customer data, the means for inputting data selected from the group consisting of magnetic card readers, RFID readers, Bluetooth receiving units, touch screens, keypads, motion sensors, and touch sensors mounted in the housing;
• software run by said computer that communicates with said database for establishing customer profiles in response to data input, the software comprising:
• a subroutine for recognizing registered users and for registering new users by generating a global unique identifier (GUID) for individual customers that uniquely identifies the user derived from a combination of two or more personally identifiable information items including parts of a credit card number, a non-identifying calculated number based off that number, a user's name, a cell phone number, email addresses, MAC addresses from wireless enabled devices, wherein the GUID includes no personally identifiable information items used to derive the GUID;
• and,
• subroutines for activating said means for physically dispensing items in response to preselected conditions associated with each GUID.