tkaman2

ya I am in the same boat, I have made back my initial locating fee but if they're going to promise to relocate machines that perform poorly, I would appreciate if they did that, even if its a slower rate - at least one or two a month would be better than just putting me off.

I had good initial results with Midwest, out of 41 machines I have 2 that are kicked out and 12 that are only making $1-5 a month that I've requested to be relocated per their guarantee. They were pretty quick at finding the initial locations but now they email me about once a month and say they weren't able to find any more locations for me... in the Seattle area? I find that hard to believe. They're dragging their feet and I'm going to have to pay another locator company if I ever want to get my slow machines relocated I guess. Hope you don't have to get any relocated because I have a feeling you'll find out the same thing that I did, they only find paid locations.

Hi, I have been looking at picking up some used DI machines off Craigs List but I'm not sure they will be worth their cost. I have 25 tripples on location and they average around $15 per machine (range from $2.50 - $35) every 4 weeks. If I have locations that just have a single head machine selling breath-freshening gum will that make it worth the trip to service the machine? A couple of my thoughts... either service is less frequently then 4 weeks, or, just place a DI machine at my existing locations which have tripple head machines (most of which don't sell gum already) provided its ok with the business. Anyone who currently has DI machines, how do they do compared to locations with say a tripple head machine or a Terminator or similar multi-selection machine? Do you look forward to servicing them or do you dread servicing them? And the finale to my mult-part question, if you could buy 19 of them for $20 each could you possibly lose? It sounds too good to be true, but if the machines only make $5 a month then I'm thinking it might be more work then its worth even though the machines cost next to nothing. Thanks for your oppinions! Dave

Hi, I am looking at getting some more machines, I currently have 16 U-Turn terminators on site doing fairly well. I am just curious if the trend is for a machine to do the best when its new, then sales dwindle slowly? or do you see a slight slowdown the first month after placing it then see sales steady out? On most of my current 16 machines I saw highest sales after the first week, then the following two weeks sales have gone down slightly. I hope they will eventually steady out or just fluctuate within a certain range. Thanks for the input, it will help me decide if I want to expand my current route or stick with my current machines. Thanks! Dave

ya I suppose when I get to the point where I have to go through 10,000 coins at a time I probably won't be so excited to find one or two silver quarters, I will be excited that I have 10,000 coins to go through! can't wait to have that problem ;-)

Hey I just wanted to see if anyone has had this happen. I went to my first location that had been placed for a week as of last Friday (Sept 5) and collected my quarters. I was counting them tonight and one quarter made a strange sound compared to the others. I thought it was canadian, but when I looked at it I saw the year was 1944. It is a silver Washington Quarter! 90% silver. The value as of Oct 1997 was about $2.42. What a surprise. How often does this happen? I'm gonna look closely now before I deposit money :-)

I am currently using Midwest and they are going slower then they said, but they are giving me 4 locations at a time and then none for a week. I placed 4 machines this morning and it was hard to do without taking time off my full time job. I ended up taking 1/2 day off. The first location they found me made $15.50 in the first week. That is better than I thought. Hopefully the majority of their locations will do that well. We'll see though. If they find 4 locations per week I will be happy. So far the locations seem to be decent. They have a good number of employees at least. They got me in a Red Robin restaurant, but its in the kitchen/break room. I would like to be right out front with their other video games. I'm going to see if I can request some locations for customers because I have toy items I would like to put in but I don't think they will do well in an employee break room. Maybe bouncy balls, but probably not spongebob and spiderman temporary tattoos :-)

I have my first 5 machines placed in break rooms. I just placed 4 this morning and the other one I placed last Friday in a grocery store break room with 110 employees. I collected $15.50 today. Not bad for 1 week. It is an 8 selection U-Turn Terminator. Despite what others say, it took me 5 minutes to completely service the machine. Faster than I thought it would be. I am excited to see how my 4 new locations do. One is in a hotel employee lunch room (60 employees), one is in a fancy salon and spa (90 employees), one is in a Red Robin kitchen (112 employees - there is an article about a machine in an olive garden kitchen that did really good so I am cautiously optimistic about this location), and the fourth one is at a lawn care/landscaping company with 35 employees. Its in the office/break room where all the techs go at the beginning and end of the day so I am doubtful how well this location will do. Maybe though. Always optimistic :-) It will do better there then it would in my garage.

That is a good idea. Even cheaper than vonage is the Magic Jack (www.magicjack.com) It costs $20 to buy the hardware (a usb device that you plug your phone cord into) and $19.95 per YEAR of phone service including nationwide long distance. I already own one that I don't use much. I think I will use it for my vending service number. It also emails you voicemails. Dave

Hi, I am fairly new to the vending business and I was wondering if people put a label with their business name and their phone number on it, like "for service or problems contact Joe at 123-123-1234" or something like that... or, do you just talk to your business contact at each location on your route each time you service it? I don't want to receive a hundred phone calls a month from employees telling me my machine took their quarter or they want some other product in my machines, but some comments or contacts might be needed, say if I need to remove my machine or it broke or what not. How does everyone else do it? I could easily print out a label with my website and/or my phone number on it. Thanks

I got my first machine placed this morning in a large grocery store chain employee's break room. This store has 110 employees and while I was installing the machine I had about 5-6 employees come in and make positive comments about the machine. I even had 1 product request so I will probably replace a slow moving product with Good N' Plenty :-) They have a soda machine but no snacks, so I think the 8 selection will be ideal for here that way I can (like Jay-Son says) have something for everyone. Plus the store is open 24 hours. I am excited to check on it in a week or so. I bought my machines from the manufacturer and paid more than I should have. I am looking at a break even point (including $55 per location through Midwest) somewhere around 9 months out if I get all really good locations. so realistically probably a year and a half. I won't make that mistake next time, I just wish I had found this board before. I know what machines I am going to order next, from the company that makes the DI machines, they have red metal three container machines (SuperPro) they quoted me $189 per machine with discounts starting at 5 machines. I will try to find some used ones I think. I did some tests to see how many vends per pound of candy I get on various settings and I compared that to what I pay for the candy to determine my settings. I also did the reality test to make sure that it was a reasonable amount of candy for a quarter. I only ended up using different settings than my owners manual for 3 out of 8 products I put in my first machine, and it was only off by 1 I believe. I will post tonight what my owners manual says for various products, I know PMMs are 7, I think I used 6. That should get me about $0.75 more per pound of PMMs. I used 2 for skittles and reeses pieces and they suggest 3 I remember. More settings to come! It is a bit difficult to service the machines, especially the lower level. I think I will get tired of that if a machine is only making $5-10 a month. It took me about 30 minutes to set up the machine. I was hoping it would be quicker but I can live with that I guess. 1 down 15 to go. Thanks everyone for the info! if anyone else has any comments or opinions I would love to hear from anyone who has experience with these machines.

Thanks for the recommendation about Midwest! I called them yesterday to place my 16 U-Turn Terminators and they called me today (after I paid 50% down and received a discount for mentioning this message board) and gave me my first two locations. They are set up for me to deliver the machine tomorrow! I am very excited. The two locations have great potential in my opinion. One is a hair styling salon with 90 employees and another is a grocery store with 110 employees.

What is the necessity for having an LLC vs a Sole Proprietorship? In Washington it costs $175 to form an LLC plus $15 for a master business license, or I can just get a Master Business License as a sole proprietorship for $15. Is an LLC necessary?

I have a similar question... I am going to place 16 machines in the coming month (hopefully) and previously I have been told that I have to have a business license for every city that I do business in. Most of them charge crazy fees if I am not a resident of that city. The city I live closest to, for example, charges almost $100 per year for non-residents. If I operate in 5 cities/towns that could be near $500 in business licenses per year. I am in Washington State. Oh ya, I also have to have a state business license which the renewal for is $59.

I got a case of 2000 for $79 shipped but they shipped with an order of machines so I'm not sure what shipping cost if you were to just order the balls. It was from u-turn vending in Idaho.