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Honor box theft questions.


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I've been reading about honor boxes for a while, and my main concern is theft. My idea was to stock it with starlight mints for 25 cents.... So the theft would have to be like 5 to 1 for me to lose money. Also, what fool can't spare a quarter?

 

A lot of people on here seem to warn that theft will destroy any and all honor box businesses. I don't exactly live in Beverly hills and theft is already a problem for most businesses here. Are people going to dump out all my candies into their pockets and steal my quarters?

 

 

 

 

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You will have shrinkage. You just have to monitor is closely with each collection. Set a shrinkage percentage that is acceptable to you and if the percentage is over that then yank the box out on the next collection and look for a different home. Fortunetely with the cancer charity boxes I sometimes end up with more money than I should have in the box. That helps counter the theft.

 

Theft wont kill you business as long as you moniter it. Not all locations will have large shrinkage and you should only have between 5-7 dollars tied up in COG in the box

 

Also, in my opinion .25 cents is too low. You need to take shrinkage into consideration when making your price point. I sell mine at .50 cents/ 3 for a dollar and that goes well. You could also go .35 a pc and 3 for a buck.

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I for one think .50 per mint is kinda high. I sell mine at .35 or 3/$1. I think that is more reasonable considering the Yorks are .07 a piece. That leaves plenty of room for a price increase or two. Just my honest opionion. Back on topic, shrinkage is a part of this game. As has been already said you have to keep an eye on it and act accordingly.

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I would not advise doing starlights at any price. As previously stated, they are typically free. I run all of my boxes at .50 cents and 3/$1 in my area.

I live in upstate NY and there is a broad mix of neighborhoods that I have boxes in. My experience has been theft (shrinkage) from both the lower income area AND the higher income areas. All it takes is one scummy employee or one scummy customer to throw off your numbers for a particular location. I run a fair number of boxes and my experience has been very good. The places that steal are just part of the business. You have a small investment involved with each location so while it is annoying when theft occurs, it shouldnt be that great of an issue.

Just a final thing on pricing.....you should carefully consider your area of the country to determine your price points. Also, I have some locations where I started with a bulk machine that was doing like $3 monthly. Instead of dumping the location all together I swapped equipment (placing boxes) and saw my numbers go up to $50+ a month on some of these locations.

Just because it was a bad bulk location does not mean it will be a bad honor box location.

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I sell my mints for .50 or 3/$1.00 here in Ohio. You will definitely have shrinkage. You just have to keep an eye on it so you can easily recognize it if it becomes a huge problem. My wife and I keep track of everything when it comes to net, gross, cost to fill, shrinkage and much more. Some people may say we are crazy for doing that but to us it is extremely important to know what is going on at all times. I have some locations that pull $5 a month gross and I have other locations that pull $100 a month gross. The same goes for my shrinkage; I have some locations that have 40% shrinkage and some locations that have 0% shrinkage. Just be careful about pulling a box from a location due to shrinkage. For example: I have a location that cost me almost $7 to fill every time but the mints sell extremely fast and I usually pull $20 out of the box every 4 days. Is there shrinkage.....yes but am I making close to $100 a month...yes. Locations are hard to get so just be careful.

 

Brandon      

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I sell my mints for .50 or 3/$1.00 here in Ohio. You will definitely have shrinkage. You just have to keep an eye on it so you can easily recognize it if it becomes a huge problem. My wife and I keep track of everything when it comes to net, gross, cost to fill, shrinkage and much more. Some people may say we are crazy for doing that but to us it is extremely important to know what is going on at all times. I have some locations that pull $5 a month gross and I have other locations that pull $100 a month gross. The same goes for my shrinkage; I have some locations that have 40% shrinkage and some locations that have 0% shrinkage. Just be careful about pulling a box from a location due to shrinkage. For example: I have a location that cost me almost $7 to fill every time but the mints sell extremely fast and I usually pull $20 out of the box every 4 days. Is there shrinkage.....yes but am I making close to $100 a month...yes. Locations are hard to get so just be careful.

 

 

 

Brandon      

 

Excellent example of simple economics here.  We are in the business of making profits.  I have an honor box location that sells only about 7 items per month but PAYS 100%.  How much money do I make on this 0% shortage location?  About $4/month.  It's not bad when you consider that I am in-and-out in about 5 minutes, but I wouldn't mind pulling this location if it weren't a block away from another location.

 

In contrast, the account that is a block away from that 0% shortage account has about a 35% shortage rate.  However... they consume about 80 items/month.  So.. even though I may only see $50 out of what should be $80, I probably make about $20/month from this location and it may consume about 30 minutes each month (I go every other week).  So the one with 0% shortage makes $4 in 10 minutes, or about $24/hour... while the 35% shortage location makes about $20 in 30 minutes, or about $40/hour.  It's all about the profits!  Oh... and I put my short-date items in that location because they buy them all anyway...

 

I would RATHER have HIGH-VOLUME locations with 30% shortage than low-volume locations with 0% shortage just because it takes a lot less work when you don't have to check dates on chips... plus... the high-volume locations consume just about everything, including the cheaper-priced items.

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