BigRedvender

Good machines very sturdy coin mechs interchage with NW 60's and AA PN 95's I have about 10 out on the route and they work well. Candy Change is a little tuffer then some but still doable with out to much trouble.

Congrats I hope it moves along. you might be amazed on how much you can find in a smaller size town. I live in a town of 25000 and have around ``18 stops here now. Keep us informend we will give any help we can on our end. Big Red -

Well I just bought another route last week added 11 stops to my route got a pretty good deal for 12 locations and also 5 extra machines parts and a nice electric coin counter. I gave the guy a lowball offer he countered and met in the middle way lower then he wanted for the route. I told him you only have documentation for a pull every 2-4 months and if you put that average out you not making much. Unless you have deposit records This is the amont I will pay see you later. Must of needed cash bad because he called me back and took the deal. Grabbed the cash and made the deal. It pays to keep a cash reserve set aside. Now that I have gotten the route to cash flow I plan to split up the profits from it a little better. Keep .50% in the bank for candy gas and I 25% for locating and 25% for building up a cash reserve of about 3 months income. That will be for more route expansion or equipment purchases. I am in good shape for equipment other then some 2” machines and a few sticker tattoo machines. It is all about a plan for growth and I want to keep growing larger and larger until I hit my goal on stops and then it is start working the dead weight out and move up on quality of stops.

IRight now I am just consentrating on eastern Nebraska and western IA I live in the Omaha NE Council Bluffs IA area

Well another member on the board here is moving and had a bunch of machines for sale. I will pick them up tomorrow after my car club meeting. I am getting at ruff count around 45 1" heads Mostly Oak and NW with a couple AA and eagles thown in for good mesure. Along with various stands and parts, double, and triple plates. All will need a good cleaning some will need to get refinished new locks. I will probably need to order some gumball wheels for a few f them. I have some for the ealge Oak machines. I need to find the same kind of deal on some 2" machines now. I hope to have a couple of 5 ways ready to go soon. then start placing some toy heads on and around the route little by little. I just got some gumball wheels for the route masters I got so I will probaby try to slip some BB in a couple of spots just to see what happens. This should give me enough machines to work my way up though some of the small towns into Norfolk. I hope I can get a few stops here in town also. Plan on trying a couple of C stors with some 3-4 ways and see what happens with thIem. With what I have in storage and am getting I should have around 50 heads to place and 3 of 4 way vendesings. Tonight I think I will try to get a couple of the 2" NW 83's I got ready to place I got some new mechs and plan on giving them a good sanding and paint. I got a couple of new NW 60's to go with them on the rack I plan on placing them on.

Well I made it into another month One more month and I will hit the 6 month mark. I did my Route 1st time for Fremont and Blair. I also had some added stops in Omaha. I ended up with 100.00 clear after last month after candy. This month I ended up with 275 after Candy Gas and a couple of lunches. The route was good Fremont Did good to great on 4 stops ok on 2 and 2 sucked. Will probaby swap a couple of machines around and see what happens. Maybe some candy changes and lables on a couple of them also. One I think the machine just isn't to notacable so I might slip one of my Eagle doubles in and see what happens. Gray vendstar next to a gray wall just dosen't stand out. the Black eagles or Red NW I have should stand out a little better. I placed 4 machines this month so I will have 36 stops next month. I also got a message from a forum member with a bunch of used equipment for sale. 40+ heads Oak and NW old 60's and super 60's some with stands and doulbe and triple plates, lids and coin mechs. All for a great price. I will probably pick up on the 21-22. 1/4-1/3 of them will just need cleaned and placed the rest will need to get refurbished. Good thing I was a body man in a previous lifetime. With the compressor and some air tools it should take to long to get them cleaned up and painted. I will need to get the garage cleaned out now so I can use it again. To much hot rod stuff in the way. Maybe paint the Napa store machines Mopar Sublime Green with a Pentastar sticker on it and the other Hugger Orange with a SS badgeing on it. Kind of design them for the spot. I would imagine they would get noticed then. I did do some scouting aroud Blair and found a few spots. I did notice an empty machine in one location I think the owner forgot about. It hasn't been filled in months. I called him looking for used machines he said he had a bunch of the old Vendesing 3 way machines. Ok thanks but no thanks. I did't want to share the info hey your machine is empty come fill it and give me some compation. The 4 vendesings I got on the route I think I might pull and swap out with some doubles maybe a 4 way In one spot. I am going to do some changes on a couple of the fremont stops. See if I can move one machine from the front to the break room and swap a vendstar for a single or double. Also but something brighter and more fitting in the auto parts store. Oh well enough rambling for now Big Red.

Awesome I have 20 vendstars out right now Low to mid range locations 15-50 bucks and they have been working ok so far. 20 bucks for a set of locks off of ebay sucks but hey they are not cookie cutter ones that vendstar used so no one eles in the area should have a key. It will give you a good start and get the needle moving. As you grow and start cashflowing you can always upgrade your machines. It should take 25-30 spots to start to keep feeding its own expension. Good luck and will help in anyway I can.

I have just recently got the wife a new laptop and also purchased MS office home and student edition. I was playing around setting up some spreadsheets moving some from the Open Office program I was using to excel. In the process I separated out the two areas I have been running now into their own routes. Moved Omaha Council Bluffs into one sheet and Fremont, Blair into another. I will probably build a new master sheet for quarterly reports on what my stops do, but for now I just made it work though the end of the year. Monthly Gross for the whole route on the bottom of the sheet and the machine gross on the side of the sheet. Given everything I purchased It will probably take a month or two to get it all sorted out. I will wait and see what some of the Check cashing placed do for this month and next month before I decide to move some more to singles with just gumballs. I also tried moving the machines around up by the counter to see if that helps. I will find out in a couple of weeks. I also got started cleaning up the routemasters I did get one cracked open and so far I am ahead about 1.75. Of course the machine was free. I found a set of 5 sets of locks on Ebay for them for 22 bucks so that wasn't to bad it will give some extras If I come across 2 more. So far they look ok do have a couple or pretty rusted screws I should replace just for appearance and safety sake. I will need to check and see If I can find a new clear Front panel. It would help the appearance a ton If I could. I need one at least since one is cracked but It would be great if I could find two. Or find out where to order some from.

Yea I am getting just about to that point. I might give it a try.

Awesome Congrats hillbilly.

Well The I chatted with the guy he does in person locating apperantly has around 20 locations set up in the Omaha area. 40 bucks a spot and he will do in bundles of 10. I might give it a try end of October. I am debating between that and going with First Choice again for 4-6 locations this next month. Will probably run the route again the 28-1st of Oct. Looking to see how it dose. The 8 spots I just got in fremont will have about 6-7 weeks on it and the rest will have about 5 when I run it. I have two vendstars ready to place the last of them I pulled out a couple from my check cashing places because of the lower perfomace. I went with just GB so I plan on checking them quickly but not doing a collection on them this month. I plan and trying a EOM on them I will probably Swap a canister or two also at a couple of my stops to try something diffrent. I did that at one stop last month and hope it helps a little bit. 1 grossed 240 last month spent about 30 bucks to fill machines so the net was $210.00. I hope to be close to $400.00 this month. Looks like I am starting to make a little money now at least. After I get stock for the 5 way rack and a couple of new coin mechs, I need to work on getting a couple of my smaller toy setups stocked and placed around the area. After that I should start showing an ok amount of cashflow. I am getting close to it now. I have a new route book set up so it should help keep track of sales and things a little better. I also worked on a spreadsheet with all my locations cost of the machine and locating fee and what the sales are for the time there. I also added a column for total sales for the year to date. On the end of it. I have been using Open Office but recently bought MS Office and put it on the computer also so been moving a lot of my stuff over to excel. I do know Man I need to take a course in it again. Last spreadsheet course I took was the old Lotus 123 Before IBM bought it out and ended up killing the brand.

Well worked on my Tri-Fold flyer today some. This is one to promote placing some racks as I will have a couple ready here soon. I will probably order some more products the end of the month as well as some coin mechs to get them ready. I have enough to do a few. I should have 1- 5 way 2-2" 3-1" machines on a rack 1- 4 way 4-1" machines on a rack 1- 3 way 1-2" 2-1" machines and a tattoo sticker machine to place were ever there is room. I had the wife go over my flier (she is a newspaper editor/reporter) to correct a few grammar errors but all in all she thought it looked pretty good. I also worked on some more business cards. I did some the other day but ran out so I need to do some new ones again. Love the Avery labels ones. Get online do the template and you have business cards and you can do a couple of different ones. One with just with candy machines and your Charities name for the candy side of things. One with Racks to help give a emphasis about doing toy/capsule vending. I will rework another flier to help with that aspect of things also. I also made up a card Big Red Buy routes. Email if interested in selling your location or route. I am one of those hard headed guys that don't have a cell phone right now but will probably get one in the next month or so just for the vending route. I had to laugh I did get a email from my Craigslist add looking for routes. Someone wanted info on buying mine. I think I know who it is I will have to check a location just to make sure. I had to inform him I am looking to buy routes not selling one right now. He was at least kind with his reply. I think it is the person that has a few NW Triple plays around town. I don't know they have the racks in the laundromat or not. If is that guy I know he has about 4 of them In town. Keep quite and keep an eye on them and will probably place a card on one or two of the machines every couple of months until I get a buzz off. I also pulled out the cash to pay for the Blair stops on Monday. I have two vendstars ready to place. I need to get one of the route masters ready also. I will probably do that tomorrow. What I know so far is that one is a nursing home and one is a hardware store. Was told the hardware store dose 75 a month. It has two triples and two old Komet singles. All vending candy. It might be a place to slip in a toy or two on a couple of heads and see what happens. With this purchase I will be up to 32 stops.

For some of you This might be old news but for the new guys it is something to think about. I have been doing this for about 3 months and am getting a idea on how to run the route and keep up on stuff. I been keeping track on some spread sheets and what I have been spending. Just opened up a account for the vending route now that I am starting to have a more positive cash-flow at the end of the month. I worked on a route book so I can keep track on product levels and how each one dose at various locations around town. How well each product dose So I can build an inventory large enough to run the route for the month for now. I also did it so I can keep an eye on the sales averages for each stop. I am working on spreadsheets to figure out sales for the quarter and yearly averages. I want to keep my Averages up to around 10 a month for a single 15 for a double or triple. As I grow and get more stops I want to work that up to Higher levels. Especially in the Metro area I do. That is the rate I figured to get the ROI in a year less if the machine averages more. GB given I have about 50-60 $10.00 a month would be 6-7 months after COGS. To leave machines sit in dude locations is inviting a lot of risk in my book. You have a low performing location. Work on finding a better one and moving it to a new one then. Why let it sit. Pull it and try it in the new one you got that might or might not work. It not making any real money so your not out anything but a trip. When is sitting there you still have the risk of theft, vandalism, or a business closing. That is where keeping good records and keeping monthly totals on stops help. I put together a nice basic route sheet printed on card stock and paper punched for a 3 ring binder. I keep track of product levels F-full 1/2 3/4 etc... Helps keep track on what is selling what I need to bring into each stop and what candies I have tried and how the sold after the change over and sales per machine. (I am not keeping track on a per head amount) Most of my machines fall into the 15-20 dollar category. Which is fine with me. I do think as I grow and get ready to get more machines placed I want to work that level up to the 20-25 range and then step it up to 25 plus. I not looking for those numbers now I am keeping that as a goal For a gross amount per location. There will always be a few that someone will have. I have 6 check cashing stores 4 do ok to good 2 don't. The two that don't I put in GB singles so I can have a longer service cycle with them. That is because I have all the stores.