ANyone have any experience in the vending business?
 

A partner and I are looking into it. Anyone know anything about it?

Good/bad idea?

Like a condom machine?

Sure, I suppose that would be a vending machine too.

Or little STD test-kits in a strip-club restroom. Welcome to 2003.

Heh, good idea, thanks, man - but we've only got like 3 or 4 malls here and all of em have those chairs in already. :)

I used to have some great vending business bookmarks but I'm afraid I lost them all. Here's some advice:

Do <B>not</B> go with any of those "all in one" companies unless you personally know someone who used them. There are a few major assholes out there that constantly change their names and spend all their time ripping off vending newbies.

Do a <B><I>lot</I></B> of market research ahead of time. Be sure you can place the machines. Get advance commitments wherever possible.

Depending on what you are vending, expect as little as pennies per day on any given machine. Do <B>not</B> believe the inflated numbers the vending machine suppliers give you. Find message boards and ask for the real deal on whatever product you are thinking of going with.

Look for alternative products and services to vend. There are already a billion candy machines out there, but there are other, less-saturated vending niches like table-top games you can place in bars and restaraunts.

Finally, your best friend is http://www.bbb.org/

SpaceAce

http://www.reliefmart.com/octopus_massager_gift.htm
sell these in the malls

people buy them like crazy

Now that was informative. Thank you, SpaceAce.

You're welcome. If I think of anything else while this thread is still on the front page I'll post it. The best thing you can do is check every single company with the BBB. That will save you a lot of heartache. Spend some time wandering in and out of all the bars in your area looking for ones that have no machines in their restrooms. Often times you won't even have to cut the owner in since it's a service to his customers and doesn't cost him anything. Also, be sure to familiarize yourself with some basic masonary and tools because the heavier machines need fat bolts installed in the walls in order to hang them.

Oh! One other thing: you can get some fantastic deals on vending machines at <A HREF="http://www.ebay.com/">eBay</A>. You can often pick up condom machines with keys for a couple of bucks each. Apply a quick coat of paint and they're good as new. Depending on how serious you are, there are sometimes great packages for people who are willing to drive to pick up the machines. You can get 50+ machines dirt cheap.

SpaceAce

Ok here is another tip from self experience.

The best coin-op machines are redemption machines, one crane in a good location will make you more money then 25 gum ball machines.

Redemption Coin-op is where the cash is.

Instead of playing around with a machine here a machine there etc. Setup a small location with 10 redemption games and 4 arcade games.

I used to put out 10 to 12 gum/candy machines a day for a guy here. It's definately easy to put them out if you approach it right.

(Get a little kid to ask and put one of those stickers in them that says Jerry's Kids or whatever. You have to give a percentage to them but it's very small.)

great advice, but its one thing getting machines and another getting them placed.

Like getting 10 galleries for cheap is easy getting them placed for results is a different story.

10 - 12 machines will get ya bullshit, been in this for a while.

I did recommend that he try to get advance commitments from locations. If he's serious, though, buying 10 machines ahead of time should be pretty safe. If you try hard enough, you'll place ten machines (depending, of course, on what the machines are).

SpaceAce

10 to 12 a day, lol. I was like 15 and I got paid $12 for each location. We only carried 10 or 12 in the jeep and made one trip. Took no more than 4 hours to place them all but they were just the small machines you see in grocery stores, etc.

i like those gumballs

Yea, my partners uncle is in the business. They take the gumball machines and paint them different colors. Then they build wooden stands that look awesome. They do shit like hang a plaque on them with the businesses name and there is a shelf at the bottom for plants/magazines etc. It's really helped them get the exclusive contracts in the bigger places around here.

What a lot of useful information!

I wonder if I will get the same reaction if I ask advice about the adult industry on a vending machine bbs.:)

You are talking to a board full of entrepreneurs. I'm sure collectively we've dabbled in damn near all businesses. Personally I've done

Card Shows
Flea Markets
Lawn Service
Computer Sales/Repair
Appliance Sales/Repair
Ebay
Tanning Salon
Pallet Build/ Repair
Adult


I'm sure there's a couple I'm forgetting.

I dunno, webmasters as a group tend to have knowledge on a wide variety of topics. Jacks of all trades, you know. We come from so many backgrounds and tend to be into so many things that you're likely to always find at least one of us with experience in whatever you are interested in. I am not convinced the same is true of vending barons :)

SpaceAce

I sold a 976 number biz to a guy in vending. He had games in 7-11 stores all over Southern California. He showed us one of his pickup trucks loaded with bags and bags of quarters. It was pretty impressive.

Had another friend that knew the family who owns Folz Vending in NY. They recently merged with American Coin Merchandising which has something like 31,000 machines places.

Supposed to be about a $40 Billion dollary industry. But then again its an all cash biz so I doubt the numbers are accurate.
They say 7 out of 10 people use a vending machine each day.

My grandfather had some vending machines way back. Not many, but he was always handing us lunch size bags with quarters as kids.

KRL - Are you still doing the phone thing?

Keep in mind that vending from machines is only a small part
of the vending business.

Technically, vending is any sale made from a non-permanent
point-of-sale.

Vending machines, like anything else, have advantages and
disadvanteges. The advantages are...

They're easy. Once they are placed you just have to run the
route a couple of times a week to re-stock and collect money.

The disadvantages are, unless you have a product that
is new and exciting, the machines can be very hard to place.
The machines are expensive, and placing enough to make a
decent living can take months or years. Most "Sweet" placement
spots (my own term) will want you to pay them a percentage
(usually 8-20%, depending on the product you are selling).

You may want to consider display vending as a start.
This is where you place displays in stores and businesses.
A vending machine costs around $1000.00. Most displays
cost around $50.00. Once they are placed, re-stocking and
route maintenance are about the same. Granted, the profit
margin is lower...but it's a good way to get spread out in an
area develop working relationships with local businesses.

For example...I once took 17 days and placed lolipop stands
filled with suger-free, cute, colorful lolipops in 58 dentists
offices.
The stands cost me $1,400.00
The pops cost me 26 cents, they sold for $1.00.
The state got 7%.
The offices didn't get a percentage.
Within 30 days sales were running 300 units a day...you do the math.

My advice is, unless you have pockets deep enough to make the
initial investment in time and machines, look into display vending.
I haven't done it in years (I moved on to different operations),
but I know I could start it up again tomorrow and make money.

Bob

I've got a Pepsi machine in a nursing home. I don't like to take money out of my bank account to waste on things like CD's and beer and video games, so I use the cash from the pop machine for that. I can just imagine if you had a few of those in high traffic areas it would bring in some nice coin.

I have a friend that had a good vending machine business going. He sold it recently for $175,000 Canadian. He had a contract with a local truck stop on a major highway that made big bucks. (the Flying J on the 401, for anyone in Ontario) Arcade machines, pool tables, as well as food and pop machines in other areas.

It's a great business to be in. Kind of a bitch in Canada though when they keep releasing these stupid new coins. It costs about $300 per machine to replace the coin changer to work with the new coins, so that pissed a lot of people off who had dozens of machines.