Multifamily
The amenity residents use at 11 p.m., not just on the tour.
An apartment micro market turns a stretch of lobby wall into a 24/7 pantry: milk, eggs, snacks, cold drinks and the things people run out of at night. Residents pay in the Kava app or with a tap. Under Vending-as-a-Service or Managed Operations, the owner never buys the hardware.
- capital with VaaS
- $0capital with VaaS
- open, with no staff
- 24/7open, with no staff
- offline buffering
- 72 hrsoffline buffering
Rooftop decks sell the lease. A lobby pantry gets used on a Tuesday.
Most amenities get used by a few residents now and then. Food gets used by nearly everyone, often, and usually when the leasing office is closed. A smart cooler in the lobby covers the milk-for-tomorrow's-coffee run, the late snack and the forgotten ingredient without anyone leaving the building.
It also keeps the program honest. Shoppers tap to open, vision and weight build the receipt, and the door locks again on close, so an unstaffed lobby doesn't turn into an honor box. Locking smart coolers cut shrink by 62% compared with open honor-system markets.
- Open 24/7 with no staff and no cash.
- Receipts within 10 seconds of closing the door.
- Stocked from your building's own sales, not a generic list.
We gave residents a 24/7 pantry in the lobby and didn't spend a dollar of capital.
What the property team actually does
Pick a wall
A Kava Cooler C2 needs 30 inches of width and 32 of depth; the double-door C2-XL needs 54 inches. Both plug into a standard 115 V outlet.
Choose who runs it
Vending-as-a-Service bundles hardware, Kava OS Pro and service on a 36-month term. Managed Operations adds stocking, cleaning and reporting.
Open the door on install day
A program of up to 10 coolers typically goes live 10 business days after signing. We bring the hardware, the stock and the setup.
Tell residents
A line in the resident newsletter and a note by the elevators. A contactless card or the Kava app is all anyone needs.
Read the monthly report
Usage, top items and busiest hours by building, ready for your next owner update.
What residents get
Open when they are
Late shifts, late flights, early runs. The pantry doesn't keep office hours.
Their way to pay
The Kava app or QR, contactless cards and mobile wallets. No cash, no keypad and no convenience fee.
Charged correctly
Vision plus per-shelf weight sensing reaches 99.4% checkout accuracy, so residents get the receipt they expect.
Less waste
Items close to expiry are marked down instead of thrown out. Expiry-aware pricing cuts fresh-food waste by 33%.
Privacy
Recognition runs on the device and looks at products, not people. No images of faces are stored or sent.
A store that fits the building
Each building's planogram follows its own sales, so a family-heavy community and a downtown studio tower end up with different shelves.
Three ways to add a lobby market
| Buy the hardware | Vending-as-a-Service | Managed Operations | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capital up front | $5,900 per Kava Cooler C2 | None | None |
| Monthly | Kava OS from $19 per device | $189 per C2, or $259 per C2-XL | Quoted per property |
| Term | Monthly plans, no long-term contract | 36 months | Set in the agreement |
| Who stocks | Your team or your operator | Your team or your operator | 8Kava |
| Hardware service | 8Kava or a vetted field partner | ||
| Best for | Owners who want the margin and have an operator | Owners who want a fixed monthly cost | Owners who want no involvement at all |
Every option runs on the same hardware and the same Kava OS. See pricing for current rates.
Formats for residential buildings
Kava Cooler C2-XL
The lobby pantry. Up to 480 items behind two locking doors, with a 10.1-inch door display for building announcements.
Kava Kiosk K1
Open shelving for coffee, snacks and household basics in larger buildings, with self-checkout. $2,900, or $99 a month.
Kava Lockers LX
Package rooms and refrigerated grocery pickup, opened by code, QR or app, with sensors that know which compartments are full.
Kava Box B160
For large communities: a 160 sq ft walk-in store with up to 700 items, ambient to frozen, that fits in a parking space.
Your building already has a convenience store. It's double-parked outside.
Residents already buy milk, snacks and cold medicine at midnight. They just pay a delivery fee, wait for it, and send another courier through your lobby and your package room. A lobby market keeps that spend, and that traffic, inside the building. How many of the boxes in your package room are things a cooler downstairs could have sold?
What keeps an unstaffed lobby store working
Apartment micro market FAQ
Who sets the prices?
You or your operator, within whatever rules you agree on. Residents never pay a cashless convenience fee, and Dynamic Pricing can mark down items near expiry automatically.
What stops theft in a lobby with no staff?
The door stays locked until someone taps a card, a phone or the Kava app, so every opening is tied to a payment. Vision and per-shelf weight sensing record what leaves. Across deployments, locking smart coolers cut shrink by 62% versus honor-system markets.
Do residents have to download an app?
No. Contactless cards and mobile wallets work at the door. The Kava app adds QR checkout and keeps receipts in one place for residents who want it.
Does it need building Wi-Fi?
No. Each cooler has built-in LTE Cat-4, with Wi-Fi 6 and Ethernet as options, and it buffers up to 72 hours of transactions if the connection drops.
What happens at the end of a 36-month VaaS term?
You can start a new term or end the service. Hardware that comes back goes through our refurbish-and-redeploy program instead of a landfill.
Where to go next
Put a corner store next to your mailboxes.
Send us your unit count and a photo of the lobby. We'll suggest the format, the placement and the model that fits your budget.