Zeusophobia Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 I was hoping to top off at 15 a day, but I just read that 8 is pushing it. What's your opinion guys? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SchligVend Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 I serviced 21 today , my typical day is 12 to 15 machines depending on distance between accounts and how many machines u have at each account. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorris1953 Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 It really comes down to the number of cases that you can throw in a day. High volume can machines will take less time than a bunch of low volume vendors. Get large vendors so they don't have to serviced as often. Don't over service them. You should be getting at least $200 a fill. A good driver should be able to throw at least 200 + cases a day. Thats 13.33 cases of cans average per machine. Bottles will take more time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 It really comes down to the number of cases that you can throw in a day. High volume can machines will take less time than a bunch of low volume vendors. Get large vendors so they don't have to serviced as often. Don't over service them. You should be getting at least $200 a fill. A good driver should be able to throw at least 200 + cases a day. Thats 13.33 cases of cans average per machine. Bottles will take more time. 200 cases a day?!?!!!!%$$-7+!;$4( Do you mean PER WEEK?!?!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorris1953 Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 Cris back in the day a good rt driver could throw 400 cases of cans a day easy. That was before 12 pks and 24 packs. Everything was flats. Didn't have dex. Only had to count cases. You don't realize how much time is wasted going in and counting and coming back out loading dolly and then going back in. after you get to know your accounts you can almost know exactly what you need before going in. Load dolly with 2 Pepsi, 2 Coke, 2 Dr Pepper 2 Mt dew, 2 Diets and what ever off brands you think you might need. Lay down dolly can hold how many cases 10 to 15. ! trip. That is why you don't over service you accounts. 10 cases per machine should be minimum 15 would be ideal to service. I knew a guy who could hold 2 six packs in one hand at a time hold them up and before you knew it was reaching for another 2. He could put at least 10 cases in 5 minutes. Bottles and packaging has slowed the process down a lot. Vendors have advantages over the bottlers because they get to deal with core brands not the 300 different brands all the bottlers carry. Run cans machines with mostly core brands is the ideal way to go. Nothing smaller than a 501 would be ideal. IMHO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moondog Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 If we're talking about just soda machines, you should be able to do roughly 15 a day. Soda machines are much faster to service than snack machines - I could do 30 cases in two machines in the time it takes me to deal with one snack machine. I do it the way Roger suggested, just load up my convertible hand truck with what the account normally needs and make one trip. This is a no brainer since we're only talking about ten selections at most and the hand truck will handle 15 cases easily in the flat position. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 Cris back in the day a good rt driver could throw 400 cases of cans a day easy. That was before 12 pks and 24 packs. Everything was flats. Didn't have dex. Only had to count cases. You don't realize how much time is wasted going in and counting and coming back out loading dolly and then going back in. after you get to know your accounts you can almost know exactly what you need before going in. Load dolly with 2 Pepsi, 2 Coke, 2 Dr Pepper 2 Mt dew, 2 Diets and what ever off brands you think you might need. Lay down dolly can hold how many cases 10 to 15. ! trip. That is why you don't over service you accounts. 10 cases per machine should be minimum 15 would be ideal to service. I knew a guy who could hold 2 six packs in one hand at a time hold them up and before you knew it was reaching for another 2. He could put at least 10 cases in 5 minutes. Bottles and packaging has slowed the process down a lot. Vendors have advantages over the bottlers because they get to deal with core brands not the 300 different brands all the bottlers carry. Run cans machines with mostly core brands is the ideal way to go. Nothing smaller than a 501 would be ideal. IMHO. Don't get me wrong, I am sure I could stock 400 cases in a DAY if that was all I did and the accounts were really close to each other... but your 200-case/day number is way off base with modern vending. A GOOD route driver can bring in $1,000 in soda AND snack sales in a day. If Snack sales account for roughly 40% of sales, or $400 in a good day, that leaves $600 in soda for the day. Let's assume all $600 worth of revenue is from cans alone. $600 in cans at 75 cents per can equals 800 cans or 33 cases of cans. That's right. 33 cases of CANS, when combined with snacks, would yield about $1,000 in a day. 200 cases of cans would yield about $3,600 in a day and that simply doesn't happen buddy! Not unless you're a bottler that's taking care of nothing but schools and malls!!! I'm sure you're right in that a good route driver COULD have delivered over 400 cases in a day... but this is modern-day full-line vending here where we do soda AND snacks. 200 cases is completely unreasonable and I would say that 20 cases of cans in a day is much more reasonable. After all, How could we possibly hold 400 cases of cans?!?!! How many full-line vendors do you see running around with semi trucks??!? Times have changed Roger!!! By the way, just to be a little cruel, here is some fun math. To stock 400 cases in 8 hours requires 50 cases per hour. Assuming a 501T that is not completely sold-out will need about 16 cases of soda, you would have to restock a 501T with 16 cases of soda EVERY 20 MINUTES. That means, from the time you leave stop A, you have 20 minutes to drive to stop B and fully restock it. That's just insane. I'm not trying to insult you Roger but I don't want any newbies thinking that you should have to restock 200 or 400 cases in a day to be considered "good." If you can stock 20 cases in a day, every day, you'll be making money!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorris1953 Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 The question was how many soda machines could be loaded in 8 hr day. Didn't say anything about filling snacks. etc When I ran a route (1986 to 1992) that included Cup drop Soda, Cn Pop, snacks, Coffee, coldfood, Ice cream, etc. I ran about 75 cases of soda a day and serviced 40 vendors. Didn't have to drive very far. About a 10 mile radius. 15 cases per machine is only a little over 13 machines. That isn't unrealistic.It don't include loading or shopping Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orsd Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 400 cases is 4 pallets or about 8000 pounds thats isusu NPR territory for sure Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 The question was how many soda machines could be loaded in 8 hr day. Didn't say anything about filling snacks. etc When I ran a route (1986 to 1992) that included Cup drop Soda, Cn Pop, snacks, Coffee, coldfood, Ice cream, etc. I ran about 75 cases of soda a day and serviced 40 vendors. Didn't have to drive very far. About a 10 mile radius. 15 cases per machine is only a little over 13 machines. That isn't unrealistic.It don't include loading or shopping Well, you're right about the question pertaining to soda machines only but we are business owners here, not bottler employees.. so we have to do the purchasing, the stocking, the repairing, the maintenance, etc.... 75 in a day can certainly be done but that's a heavy heavy day. Realistically, if you have a typical route that most of us have, you'll have some driving to do and I would say that 30-60 cases in a day for JUST SODA machines is realistic, but I really feel like our answers don't really give him a realistic idea... Let's face it. If you have good accounts that are buying a lot of soda, you have to install a snack machine before your competitor does. That's just how it works!! 400 cases is 4 pallets or about 8000 pounds thats isusu NPR territory for sure I could haul 4 skids in my truck if it weren't for the wheel wells, but it would probably put me way over the weight rating, but how would you realistically get to every variety that you would need without having a box with a bunch of roll-up doors like that of a bottler trailer? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Feral Vending Mechanic Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 Sheeeeit. When I got my start at Boeing, I'd wheel a cart with 44 cases on it into a building, fill the machines, write down any extra I needed, go back to the truck for another 25 cases, top off the machines, then drive on to the next building and start all over again. ( Boeing was so big, we had "soda routes" and "snack routes." ) Busiest day was something like 30 machines. Sweet, sweet union scale wages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 The largest account that I ever had to service was a distribution center. During the holiday season, I had to use a Magliner Sr. to haul 16 cases of bottles, about 8 cases of cans, and 2 totes of snacks at a time. I had to make this trip with all of those cases twice just to get things ALMOST full, and then I usually had to bring in a few more snacks and maybe another 8 cases of mixed soda. This was to service primarily the main break room which had 1 glassfront, 2 snack machines, a coffee machine, 2 food machines, and 3 stack vendors. There was also a rear break room in the back of the warehouse and an auxiliary break room behind the main break room. The auxiliary break room had 2 stack vendors and a snack machine. The rear break room had 1 stack vendor, 1 snack, 1 coffee, and 1 food machine. Altogether, I usually brought in about 35 cases of bottles and roughly 20 cases of cans. I usually got to this location by 6:30am and I was DONE with it by 9am which was very important because once the buzzer went off at 9am, the break rooms were flooded with hundreds of people and they would almost completely empty the machines. I usually restocked everything by 10:30. One thing that slowed me down a lot was having so many customers in my way. There were literally lines of people and you had to do things like stock the can machine or the glassfront first so they could slam the other 2 stack vendors (bottles) and the snack machines. Once most of the people got what they wanted, you then had to quickly take care of the bottles and snacks. I have no idea how much revenue I was bringing in but my employer got a little fussy because it usually took me almost 4 hours to get it all done. After I finished with that account, I had to drive about 40 minutes to the next stop where I usually delivered about 12 cases worth of bottles and 4 cases worth of cans every day. After that stop, I had to drive another 30 minutes to a stop that took about 16 cases of bottles. The last "stop" was a college campus where I only stocked snack machines. I was putting in 65-70 hours per week and I truly felt like I had earned every penny of overtime considering how much soda I had stocked.... I believe I was restocking 50-65 cases of bottles and 20-30 cases of cans every morning. The truck I used at the time had to have its shelves removed so that I could stock bottles 4-cases high, then 3 cases-high closer to the middle of the truck, then 2-cases high in the center. This usually allowed for just enough room to walk through to get to the cab so I could drive, but I had to stack everything that way to avoid things from falling over during even a slight turn. My employer also wanted me to take care of that big account on the weekends because no one else was willing to work the weekends. I took it because hey! It was more overtime!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rmorris1953 Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 Didn't mean to ruffle your feathers Cris. Drivers like you are hard to find.. I wouldn't want to throw 200 cases every day. I was pointing out that well placed can vendors like 501's can sell a lot of soda before having to be filled. If you are only putting in 4 or 5 cases in at each stop then you are over servicing them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moondog Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 Well, you're right about the question pertaining to soda machines only but we are business owners here, not bottler employees.. so we have to do the purchasing, the stocking, the repairing, the maintenance, etc.... 75 in a day can certainly be done but that's a heavy heavy day. Realistically, if you have a typical route that most of us have, you'll have some driving to do and I would say that 30-60 cases in a day for JUST SODA machines is realistic, but I really feel like our answers don't really give him a realistic idea... Let's face it. If you have good accounts that are buying a lot of soda, you have to install a snack machine before your competitor does. That's just how it works!! I could haul 4 skids in my truck if it weren't for the wheel wells, but it would probably put me way over the weight rating, but how would you realistically get to every variety that you would need without having a box with a bunch of roll-up doors like that of a bottler trailer? I think that either the original question was unrealistic or the OP is only doing soda machines. I will assume that if he's only doing soda then his accounts will not be that high in volume - the catch 22 to any smokin' soda machine is that a snack machine will always be involved which will slow you down. If he is in fact doing just soda in lower volume accounts, then 100 cases (24 cans per) would likely be his max per day since he'd need to service about 15 machines and the travel time would not allow for much more (assuming he's got the payload to carry that much soda). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walta Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 To me if a route man is only bringing back $1000.00 dollars that means he serviced less than 7 machines. Assuming he is well managed and not a loli gagging theif I think he can and should do better. If there is less than $150.00 in the cash box it should not be serviced it can wait tell next week. If a location cannot sell 150.00 per machine before the product goes out of date, it is time for the boss to pull the equipment and find it a better home. If the machine will not hold enough product to sell $150.00 before it needs service it is time for the boss to sell the toy combo machine and buy something real. If the boss send a man on a route of machines that average less than $150.00 in them the boss should the boss should look in the mirror for the problem. The fact that 7 days have past does not mean every machine should be serviced. Good driver are hard to find and harder to keep. Walta Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 I agree with everyone here over what a driver should be capable of or what drivers used to do back in the day, but I think moondog hit the nail on the head... The problem is in the original question. I look at it from a former driver's point of view AND an owner's point of view. I would love to increase my service cycles but there are too many accounts that sell out of one thing too fast, and doubling up on a selection is not always an option. Today, vending markets can be so saturated with vendors trying to make a buck, a simple mistake such as NOT providing a snack machine can result in a lost account. Not providing bottles can result in a lost account. Not dedicating a selection to a slow selling product for the owner can result in a lost account. Not FIXING A MACHINE can result in a lost account, even when no one called you to report a problem. Customers even getting bored with you can result in a list account. The list goes on and on... But I don't know of any market out there where you can get away with selling 100 cases each day of just soda, let alone 200 or 400. The kind of locations that would be satisfied with soda only are the types of locations the bottlers get... Malls, amusement parks, recreation centers, schools, etc.. And most of those places prefer bottles anyway. Again, I'm not saying you're wrong at all Roger and you haven't ruffled my feathers at all. No harm done! I just think most vendors on here would feel like worthless,lazy, slow, good-for-nothing pieces of garbage if they heard that it takes 200 cases each day to be considered "good". More importantly though, I don't want a newbie to get scared off by hearing how many cases he'd have to sell each day. I'm sure after their first experience filling a 501T completely full, and seeing how long it took their rookie selves to do it, they wouldn't be looking forward to the idea of doing nothing but that for 8 hours each day... But stocking 3-4 cases here and there can be far better for a rookie. I'm just a little passionate about the subject, that's all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moondog Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 Didn't mean to ruffle your feathers Cris. Drivers like you are hard to find.. I wouldn't want to throw 200 cases every day. I was pointing out that well placed can vendors like 501's can sell a lot of soda before having to be filled. If you are only putting in 4 or 5 cases in at each stop then you are over servicing them. Good job Roger - now you've made him even more angry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moondog Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 Didn't mean to ruffle your feathers Cris. Drivers like you are hard to find.. I wouldn't want to throw 200 cases every day. I was pointing out that well placed can vendors like 501's can sell a lot of soda before having to be filled. If you are only putting in 4 or 5 cases in at each stop then you are over servicing them. For most of us, the service cycle is dictated by the snack machine rather than the soda machine unfortunately. That's why we may only do 4 or 5 cases in the soda machine since we're already there to fill that snack machine. Even a five wide is pretty empty when it hits $100 and the best sellers are usually long gone. If they would just make bigger snack machines, we could all extend our service cycles and you movers would really have to earn your money hauling those monsters around Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 For most of us, the service cycle is dictated by the snack machine rather than the soda machine unfortunately. That's why we may only do 4 or 5 cases in thew soda machine since we're already there to fill that snack machine. Even a five wide is pretty empty when it hits $100 and the best sellers are usually long gone. If they would just make bigger snack machines, we could all extend our service cycles and you movers would really have to earn your money hauling those monsters around Lol!! The USI mercato 7000 or whatever it is called is a monster! Speaking of bigger machines... It might be worth it to add a "7ty tray" to an AP 7600. VE sells them. Take out one of the candy trays and add another snack tray. Now you'll have something like 20 chip/snack selections, 5 pastry selections, and about 15 candy. That would work well for me because I have accounts that sell waayyy more chips than candy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moondog Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 Lol!! The USI mercato 7000 or whatever it is called is a monster! Speaking of bigger machines... It might be worth it to add a "7ty tray" to an AP 7600. VE sells them. Take out one of the candy trays and add another snack tray. Now you'll have something like 20 chip/snack selections, 5 pastry selections, and about 15 candy. That would work well for me because I have accounts that sell waayyy more chips than candy. Yep, me too - I've already sacrificed one 7600 to spread the snack trays around in lieu of that extra candy tray. Now I'm left with a machine with all candy trays but I got it cheap because it was all dented so I'll just use it for parts and it was a lot cheaper than buying those VE extra trays - probably saved me $400. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orsd Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 Yep, me too - I've already sacrificed one 7600 to spread the snack trays around in lieu of that extra candy tray. Now I'm left with a machine with all candy trays but I got it cheap because it was all dented so I'll just use it for parts and it was a lot cheaper than buying those VE extra trays - probably saved me $400. Moondog, are you alright? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moondog Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 Moondog, are you alright? I'm fine - if you saw that AP7600 I partsed out you'd realize that there's not enough Bondo to fix it, I think it got dropped off the back of somebody's truck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwi Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 If they would just make bigger snack machines, we could all extend our service cycles and you movers would really have to earn your money hauling those monsters around They do... it's called a Merchant 6 (Model 181) 6 x Shelf Configuration - 48 Selections 7 x Shelf Configuration - 60 Selections It weighs over 600lbs so you would definitely need a mover... unless you want me to send the wife over to help you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwi Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 The USI mercato 7000 or whatever it is called is a monster! I think USI has ceased production of the 7000 model... it was around 650lbs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwi Posted March 28, 2015 Share Posted March 28, 2015 The question was how many soda machines could be loaded in 8 hr day. Didn't say anything about filling snacks. etc When I ran a route (1986 to 1992) that included Cup drop Soda, Cn Pop, snacks, Coffee, coldfood, Ice cream, etc. I ran about 75 cases of soda a day and serviced 40 vendors. Didn't have to drive very far. About a 10 mile radius. 15 cases per machine is only a little over 13 machines. That isn't unrealistic.It don't include loading or shopping I would have to agree with you Roger... here in the land Down Under where vending operates a lot different to the way Uncle Sam does it! (must be because we are upside down) Coke operate their own vending equipment here & even though they also do coffee & snack vending they have different contractors that fill/service each machine. To give you an example if they had a site that had: 1x drink machine, 1x snack machine & 1x coffee machine... coke would send 3x different contractors or employees in to service this account. So their soda contractors would only service their soda machines... therefor can easily do the numbers that Roger is referring too. Their vehicles are setup to be able to load & carry 4x pallets of cans at a time. They also use to have contractors that would only do cans & different contractors that would do bottles only. I think this is starting to change now & they do have a few that do both but some still only do cans. The can vendors are usually only stackers so you can imagine how fast they are & how many trays the are loading into each machine. I have heard stories where their contractors would refuse to work unless they had more than 1x pallet of product that needed to be delivered in a day... their minimum was 2x pallets! They get paid a tray rate so you can understand their reason for this. So... getting back to the question... yes it can be done but it is unrealistic in today's vending environment because you would also need to service snack machines. Unless you only did sites that didn't warrant a snack machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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