Vending will not be a side hustle, I don’t know why people think that it can be. This is a concept of purchasing expensive equipment just to be able to make money by selling inventory you as well have to buy. The question you need to ask yourself is how can you succeed? This is an extremely saturated industry, meaning everyone is doing it and all businesses pretty much have vending equipment in there. The only thing left to you will be the 2 and 3 man shops next to convenience stores. I would never recommend a noob buy an existing business, route or location simply because you don’t know enough about the business. What if you get kicked out? What brand of machines are these? How are you going to fix the machines if there is an issue? The only way you will succeed is persistence. When you do a sales pitch to a business and they tell you they don’t need your equipment is that the last time you contact said business? If you say yes then be prepared to hear all no’s.
At best you will create something of value just so you’ll sale it later to someone else. Do not be prepared to make any money for a long time. At best - no debt, work from home and no employees for 5 every dollars you make you could pay yourself a dollar. That’s 20 percent. Add vehicles, warehousing paying taxes, employees, etc. it’s more of you keeping 5 percent.