Having no experience with vending machines, my mind was a vacuum - a black void that needed to be filled. [color=#0000ff][i]How big are these machines? How much space do they take up? What rack systems are available? Are they freestanding? Are they heavy?[/i][/color]
I have - of course - walked past gumball machines thousands of times. But I never paid them much attention. I hadn't put money into one in decades (except for my recent test purchase - and even then I paid little attention
I wondered, [i][color=#0000cd]Exactly which LEGO pieces would I sell in these capsules?[/color][/i]
The answer was obvious: [u]minifigs[/u]. Figs are among the most valuable LEGO parts. The cheapest, most common fig sells for $5 at these shows. Online Harry Potter, Star Wars, and the like sell for $10 to $20 per fig.
[url="http://www.BrickFair.com"]BrickFair[/url] already has vendors selling minifigures. One vendor has his own "build-a-fig" system, where kids pick the head, hair, torso
I own and operate BrickFair ([url="http://www.BrickFair.com"]www.BrickFair.com[/url]), an annual LEGO fan convention held each August in Virginia, just outside Washington DC.
Each year I try to add a little something new and fun for the public. I recently realized I had no such thing this year. I do have a long list of tasks, things to buy, things to build, web pages to create, and debug. But none of this will be noticed by the public; it's all to help me pack faster, ship more safely, etc
When I lost my job last summer, I knew it was coming. My whole company knew that 90% of us would lose our jobs about 2 years before it actually happened. Such is the life of corporate buyouts.
We originally purchased a vending route for me to have something to do while I was looking for a new job. Vending was not what I saw myself doing with my life. I was almost finished with my bachelor's degree in Organizational Management, had experience supervising over 60 people in a call center, and sa
This has been a great week for Reed Co Vending. We have picked up 4 confirmed locations this week and hopefully will close a fifth tomorrow.
If we were having to purchase these machines, I would be very scared about expanding this fast, but with our third party operator contract we have with Coke, they are providing the machines for us.
The catch is we have to purchase our product from Coca Cola, and at a slightly higher price point than being able to purchase them in bulk at Sam's Club. B
I have posted very little about my business on this forum. Numbers and things. I've certainly talked a great deal about working it though. With the help of Andy and this forum, I am finally getting close to being cash flow positive. While I have made money all along, you just can never seem to get ahead. There is always something you need to purchase.
About August of last year I decided to try a different approach to my purchasing habits. I wasn't buying enough product to get any discounts
Anyone who knows me know that when I go for something, I go all out. This can be the bane of my existence sometimes, but today.... TODAY.... it has paid off.
A lot of vendors make a big to-do about OCS. When I was researching getting into OCS, I thought back to my corporate days and how many different places we had to order from to get office supplies, coffee supplies, cleaning supplies, etc.
So I thought why stop at office coffee?
Now we have a full color catalog with almost 250 items
This week I concentrated on building and polishing the brand-spankin'-new website [url="http://reedcovending.com"]reedcovending.com[/url]. And for building it myself, it's not so bad.
This step didn't make it into my list of things to do last week, but for some reason it stayed in the front of my mind until I finished it. That monster had been hanging over my head since I secured the domain back in August. I guess I was just scared of starting that project.
Now, the pretty, shiny new webs
When it comes to obtaining a new location don't be tempted to install any old machine.
My preference is a fully glass fronted machine for maximum product exposure.
From my experience soda sales can be increased as much as 30% by using a glass fronted machine.
Bill acceptors are also a must to maximise sales.
Locations with high turnover deserve greater care & attention.
When the machines start looking jaded my advice is to rotate a newer tidier machine to that location.
Always, always,
I can and will find you locations for youre snack / Beverage machines. I am experienced and know what im doing. If the location does not work out then I will be more than happy to replace it for you free of charge.
Im keeping this short and sweet because we will need to talk via phone to dicsuss the details. I am a people person and a very honest person that does not mind doing the leg work if im paid well.
This year we are focusing on growing our full line business. In an attempt to do so, here are the steps we are taking to acheive this goal:
1. Utilizing Manta.com to identify businesses in our area that has the employee count we want to target. We will be focusing on companies that have employee counts from 100 to 250. While it would be wonderful to go after businesses bigger than that, in this area, the largest competitor has a pretty strong hold on the larger companies. Five Star Vending, l
Most of you don't know this yet, but when I get started in something, I have to jump into it whole-heartedly. Hence, a blog on a forum that I joined just a few days ago.
But be that as it may, vending is something I take very seriously because it supports me, my husband, and my mother-in-law. Hopefully, it will soon support us in the style to which we would like to grow accustomed.
This blog will provide me the opportunity to share some of the failures, and hopefully some of the successes
I am now rebuilding the expense portion of my app. I had a simple dated list for people to enter each item purchased, and decided that wasn't good enough. I have redesigned and rebuilt that portion of my database, making it more complex, (for me,) but more logical, flexible, and powerful, and just need to redesign the interface.
Records will now be entered as receipts. You will enter the supplier, all products/services supplied, taxes (if any), and shipping (if any).
You will have 2 vie
And after my first demo, I have made some changes to the route building portion of my software.
The updates are:
Locations are now filtered out of the drop down list, and the map, after they have been added to the route. (Still available for other routes.)
A map was added showing the locations in each route.
Buttons have been added to move locations up and down in the list.
Delete is now an icon, and verification before deleting has been added.
Here is a quick demo of the updates runn
Here is the first demo video for VIKDR.
It may be a little small here, so you might want to watch it at Youtube, at least medium size. I recommend playing it at 720p.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANFCDm1KT90&context=C36effdcADOEgsToPDskLZSrYnVcbYLi-JcgqMLpjQ
In my quest to remove all my triples this is replacing an 1800 triple in a busy beach restaurant, too bad the owner will not allow toys or this would be a double. The owner wanted brown to match the trim in the restaurant. The front is covered in a prismatic tape I got at O'Riley's Auto Parts. And yeah this is one of them nasty melted skiitles and M&M machines that I post ed pics of a while back.
heres a picture of what I had described in a previous entry only spent about 20 minutes on it and it seem to work fine. Got a couple ideas for cheap paint booth's when I have more time and money. Frame would be 2x2's with vizquene (not sure of spelling) as the sheathing and 3 box fans would have a paint station and a drying shelf.
Just got back to working out all these A&A's, gonna try to get at least 4 done a week. Already got enough locations for a dozen or so, some new locations some swapping out triples. These 3 are a darker red or what I like to call Alabama Crimson, they need another coat of paint then cleared. Got another 5 sanded and ready for priming.
This was a slower week. I tried to take a little more time for the family and other (non-business related) critical matters and as a result didn't do much apart from servicing a few routes. No new placements to report as I did little to no legwork this week.
I did speak with the Coke rep and am all set up and ready to go - I just need to send them a list of locations. Unlike Pepsi which wanted to review every location and only provide newer bottle vendors Coke is willing to try any location I
Finally heard back from Pepsi this week. My machines are now on order and should arrive within 2-3 weeks. Once they get here Pepsi will deliver them to my office and I will be responsible for moving them on location. Metro Vending sent me several extra locations (15 total I think - our contract was for 10) though a few of them appear to be duds. I've also located a few spots myself for 3PO machines (I'm out of cash to buy my own machines at the moment). I'm looking forward to getting these soda
I set up my first two soda machines this week (as discussed in previous posts). I don't think either of them are going to be top-performing locations but that's OK. My plan is to buy older used or refurb machines for slower locations and stock them with cans - then use my 3PO contracts with Coke and Pepsi for the better locations since they will supply newer and nicer looking equipment. The first machine I got is a single-price can machine - I placed it at an electrician office (10 employees on
Plodded along this week. Placed another honor box and hired a friend to place more for me at $20 each (he got one already).
Still waiting on the mover to move my new 4-wide snack machine and soda machine into place, that is supposed to happen this upcoming Monday.
I'm riding along with the previous owner visitng all the new honor box locations. It's taking longer than I hoped because the boxes take a while to fill (I have to sort through each box to remove the large number of stales the pr
I have been updating on Facebook, but then I realized I should be updating here, for all my peeps. (I remember when they only sold peeps around Easter.)
I took time off, right before my wife's surgery. This was so I could help her out, and I have. Since she was unable to put any weight on her foot for 2 weeks, (and being all doped up on Percocet,) it was best if somebody was around to help her out with everything. (Don't want her to end up on one of those "fallen and can't get up" ads.)
