All New to me

[jdenney741]

Hello everyone, I'm new here. I have a couple quick questions. 

 

Little background info. I'm a full time college student, I work full time, and have a wife, son, and a daughter in 1-3wks for my second. 

 

Here's the story. My school doesn't have a cafeteria, does not have any close food options close by, closest is about 5mi away- Mcdonalds, taco bell etc. The school does get a food truck or coffee truck that comes by every day but not to the same building. There are only 2 buildings atm. So most of us students use the 8 vending machines on campus for snacks and drinks throughout the day. 

 

I want to ask the school if I can run the new machines in the new buildings. 

 

The school is in the process of building and completing 2 more buildings. Both buildings will need 4 vending machines each. 

 

The current vending machines are 1 snack, 2 soft drink (one coke and one pepsi), and one coffee machine. The current machines sell out like crazy. Charging 1.50-2.50 per bottle drink depending on the drink. The snack machines sell out faster, offering everything from chips to candy to gum. 

 

Each machine takes both cash and cards. 

 

I want to know if it would be a smart investment to ask the school if I can open the new machines. I'm there 4 days a week so re-stocking them wouldn't make me go out of my way just a matter of bringing supplies with me and stocking before I go to class. 

 

How do I go about getting machines? I would like newer machines, with card readers. Most students use cards to purchase everything. Sams club has machines new from 3-5k, my local craigslist has some machines but they are older. 

 

This is all just a pipe dream atm, but I feel if I could make a couple hundred dollars extra every month it would be a blessing. 

[AZVendor]

I'm going to answer this in hopes that this isn't a trolling post.  If this is a legitimate question then don't be offended by my comments but remember that this forum exists to help vendors to avoid mistakes. 

 

This is a pipe dream for you.  It's clear from your post that you don't have any idea of what it takes to install machines and operated them on an ongoing basis.  I don't think you realize the size of investment that you would be making, the time you would spend taking care of every little thing in the machines and you definitely don't have a realistic expectation of what your net profit should be or could be.  You certainly have your hands full now with school, a full time job and a family.  You don't need to add a side business that will take, for an inexperienced vendor, up to 12 hours per week to service the machines.  That is an estimate because I don't know how busy the machines will be nor how fast you will catch on to what you're doing. 

 

Here are the facts as I see them:

 

• The vending sales are dictated by the population in the building and what they are doing.  You don't have any guarantee of sales and the two new buildings might be duds compared to where the machines are now.
• A successful vendor must learn before doing and you will probably fail because you don't know what you're doing or how to do it.  It's very hard to learn with the number of machines you are talking about.
• There will certainly be a bidding process for these new locations, if the current vendor's contract doesn't already give him the rights.
• You don't know how to repair the machines, how to move them, where to buy them, where to buy the products, etc.
• You can't just do this before classes and leave your product sitting around or in your car where it can melt.
• You would have to pay someone to install and set the machines up for you.  Those two installations, for someone like you, will take a full day or more.

My recommendation is to concentrate on your school, job and family and leave the vending idea for after graduation.  Maybe your schooling will help you down the road in a vending business.

[orsd]

If you have your heart set get a gumball machine and try it out in a restaurant to see if its for you

Or get a single price soda machine and put it in a tire shop

Way easier to learn the ropes this way

[moondog]

Hello everyone, I'm new here. I have a couple quick questions. 

 

Little background info. I'm a full time college student, I work full time, and have a wife, son, and a daughter in 1-3wks for my second. 

 

Here's the story. My school doesn't have a cafeteria, does not have any close food options close by, closest is about 5mi away- Mcdonalds, taco bell etc. The school does get a food truck or coffee truck that comes by every day but not to the same building. There are only 2 buildings atm. So most of us students use the 8 vending machines on campus for snacks and drinks throughout the day. 

 

I want to ask the school if I can run the new machines in the new buildings. 

 

The school is in the process of building and completing 2 more buildings. Both buildings will need 4 vending machines each. 

 

The current vending machines are 1 snack, 2 soft drink (one coke and one pepsi), and one coffee machine. The current machines sell out like crazy. Charging 1.50-2.50 per bottle drink depending on the drink. The snack machines sell out faster, offering everything from chips to candy to gum. 

 

Each machine takes both cash and cards. 

 

I want to know if it would be a smart investment to ask the school if I can open the new machines. I'm there 4 days a week so re-stocking them wouldn't make me go out of my way just a matter of bringing supplies with me and stocking before I go to class. 

 

How do I go about getting machines? I would like newer machines, with card readers. Most students use cards to purchase everything. Sams club has machines new from 3-5k, my local craigslist has some machines but they are older. 

 

This is all just a pipe dream atm, but I feel if I could make a couple hundred dollars extra every month it would be a blessing. 

You could do this but you'd probably need to lease your equipment through USI.  Eight new machines would run you in the range of 40K and I doubt you've got that sort of investment.  If this is a worthwhile account, you'd be looking to net in the range of a grand a month (less lease ) and your time would be in the range of 16 hours a month.  You'll need a Sam's Club nearby for products.  The biggest obstacle I see is in getting the school to actually let you have this account as you have no prior vending experience.  This business is no rocket science but there are a lot of little things to know before you'll be truly successful - things you can read about in the back posts of this forum.  Don't forget that if this account does not pan out, you'll still be stuck for those machines.  Think hard and do your homework before biting off more than you can chew.

[TKK]

Is no one pointing out that there already is a vendor there? You cant just ask the school if you can take care of them lol. Like oh yeah go ahead buddy heres the keys..thats assuming the school does their vending which im like 99% sure its bottlers and other vendors. These accounts are hard to get because normal vendors like us cant offer everything the big guys do. Maybe if your third party. So why give a new student a chance at something they have 0 experience with, than stay with pepsi, coke etc.

[jdenney741]

I would ask to be the vendor in the 2 new buildings, assuming a contract isn't signed for all the buildings. Although why would a school sign a contract for buildings that aren't built yet? 

 

I would start by getting 4 machines, because 1 building is about 8 months ahead in completion date. 

 

I think it would be worthwhile to at least ask the school about the machines for the new buildings. 

 

How did everyone here learn to run a vending business? By getting machines and learning on the go? 

 

The first building will be finished in about 7 months. Then 8mo after that for the second. (guessing by how long they have been taking and going up. )

[AngryChris]

I would ask to be the vendor in the 2 new buildings, assuming a contract isn't signed for all the buildings. Although why would a school sign a contract for buildings that aren't built yet? 

 

I would start by getting 4 machines, because 1 building is about 8 months ahead in completion date. 

 

I think it would be worthwhile to at least ask the school about the machines for the new buildings. 

 

How did everyone here learn to run a vending business? By getting machines and learning on the go? 

 

The first building will be finished in about 7 months. Then 8mo after that for the second. (guessing by how long they have been taking and going up. )

 

Usually, if the contract is for a large school and is serviced by a large well-known vending company, the contract would state that they have the contract for every premises that is operated by the school unless otherwise stated.

 

If the school is getting some new buildings, those would likely fall under the contract.

 

When I make an agreement, I usually make an agreement with the COMPANY and their specific location (if they only have one).  

 

When a company has multiple locations, I make an agreement with the COMPANY to have sole rights to all of their locations unless a location is specifically excluded from the contract.

 

When a company is owned by a parent company, I have to check to make sure there are no contracts that would supersede mine first, then I make an agreement either with the company I am dealing with directly or an agreement with the parent company to do that specific company (a good example would be nursing homes as they are often owned by other nursing home companies).

 

Contracts can get tricky... I used to service a university with about 2500 students on campus.  On campus, there were probably 20 buildings and I probably serviced 11 snack machines there.  It turned out (beyond my former employer's knowledge) that this university had a satellite location located about half way between their main campus and my former employer's warehouse.  That specific location was actually owned by another school, so the vendor that serviced the other school had the rights to this satellite location.  Because it was used but not "owned" by the university, there were problems getting the contract.  I believe that they eventually got the location but who knows how difficult it was.

 

The easiest lesson to learn is to never assume that someone doesn't have the contract.  When prime locations show up, vendors show up too.  Almost every profit-oriented vendor will wonder "what's going into THAT building?" when they pass by a construction site for a large building.

 

All I can tell you is to ask someone fast.  If someone acts like they don't know the details, they might know but they might just not want to to business with you.  I can't tell you how many times a family member of mine called on a location and they said they weren't looking for vending... then we find out that only a few months later, they got a new vendor.  You have to find out all of the details and fast!