another route value thread

[eaglesfan1203]

Hey guys. I've been looking into full line vending for a couple years. I mostly watch over CL for decent routes or locatioNs. I have yet to pull tHe trigger because I havent seen the right one for me and I also just haven't had the time. Now I have seemed to find a good starter route for me. It's one location. 4 machines. 2 snack and 2 drink. I have seen the machines but don't remember the make or model of them. The one drink machine is a glass front and holds a lot of different drinks. These machines are in a blue collar factory. They grossed $8100 the first quarter of this year. They get serviced twice a week. I've been to the location before with him and I saw the cash being pulled and aslo a lot of activity at the machines in the hour I was there. I trust his numbers. He is asking $10,500. Seems fair to me. You agree? Also is this too much for me for my initial leap into full line? this location is 5 minutes away from my house which is a bonus.Thanks in advance for replies

Also this company is adding another location about 10 miles away that will have 50 employees that is mine if I want.

[moondog]

Hey guys. I've been looking into full line vending for a couple years. I mostly watch over CL for decent routes or locatioNs. I have yet to pull tHe trigger because I havent seen the right one for me and I also just haven't had the time. Now I have seemed to find a good starter route for me. It's one location. 4 machines. 2 snack and 2 drink. I have seen the machines but don't remember the make or model of them. The one drink machine is a glass front and holds a lot of different drinks. These machines are in a blue collar factory. They grossed $8100 the first quarter of this year. They get serviced twice a week. I've been to the location before with him and I saw the cash being pulled and aslo a lot of activity at the machines in the hour I was there. I trust his numbers. He is asking $10,500. Seems fair to me. You agree? Also is this too much for me for my initial leap into full line? this location is 5 minutes away from my house which is a bonus.Thanks in advance for replies

Also this company is adding another location about 10 miles away that will have 50 employees that is mine if I want.

I'd jump on it and look for more space in there to add a couple more machines to reduce that service cycle.  Any account that does better than 2K a month is a keeper and you've made the right approach by diligently monitoring CL.  Being patient should definitely payoff for you here.

[WhiteRoom]

That's a very reasonable price and would be a great location to have.  Clearly your vending business will be greatly at risk for quite a while as one location will make up all (and even after you add other locations, nearly all) of your revenue.  Not a deal breaker by any stretch.

 

I will say that depending on what it is that the customer wants, don't PLAN on reducing the service cycle like moondog says.  Obvioulsy is should be a goal of yours, but if they are married to the glass front with lots of selections, you will have a hard time doing that.  I have two glassfronts at similar locations.  These locations each gross about a third of your one location and have a snack machine as well.  So, the glass fronts are doing say $2000 a quarter in these locations for comparison sake.  At that rate, they are already at the edge of a 7 day service cycle.  I can go 8 or 9 days and that is it.  There is simply only so much product you can stuff in those machines.  You may be able to go with multiple facings of popular items and rely on a large can machine (which is what I assume the other drink machine is) for the really popular stuff.  That's not an option I have.  Basically, I just wanted to point out that you may not be able to lengthen the service cycle at the volume they are running.

 

Just as an aside, I paid roughly the same price as what you are looking at for two glass fronts and two snacks doing about 2/3 of the volume, and I thought that was a pretty good deal.  So, the price is definately right.  Just be prepared to be spending a lot of time on this baby.  And get someone up to speed on backing you up or you may never vacation again!

[moondog]

That's a very reasonable price and would be a great location to have.  Clearly your vending business will be greatly at risk for quite a while as one location will make up all (and even after you add other locations, nearly all) of your revenue.  Not a deal breaker by any stretch.

 

I will say that depending on what it is that the customer wants, don't PLAN on reducing the service cycle like moondog says.  Obvioulsy is should be a goal of yours, but if they are married to the glass front with lots of selections, you will have a hard time doing that.  I have two glassfronts at similar locations.  These locations each gross about a third of your one location and have a snack machine as well.  So, the glass fronts are doing say $2000 a quarter in these locations for comparison sake.  At that rate, they are already at the edge of a 7 day service cycle.  I can go 8 or 9 days and that is it.  There is simply only so much product you can stuff in those machines.  You may be able to go with multiple facings of popular items and rely on a large can machine (which is what I assume the other drink machine is) for the really popular stuff.  That's not an option I have.  Basically, I just wanted to point out that you may not be able to lengthen the service cycle at the volume they are running.

 

Just as an aside, I paid roughly the same price as what you are looking at for two glass fronts and two snacks doing about 2/3 of the volume, and I thought that was a pretty good deal.  So, the price is definately right.  Just be prepared to be spending a lot of time on this baby.  And get someone up to speed on backing you up or you may never vacation again!

Yep the glass fronts don't hold much but are handy for bottles.  Given that this a blue collar location, you can do things like swapping out a 500 can capacity for a big Royal 804 which can hold 240 Cokes in one selection.  You won't know what's possible until you run it for about a month but you should be able to configure your equipment for once a week service given that it's doing about $600 a week.

[AngryChris]

Yep the glass fronts don't hold much but are handy for bottles.  Given that this a blue collar location, you can do things like swapping out a 500 can capacity for a big Royal 804 which can hold 240 Cokes in one selection.  You won't know what's possible until you run it for about a month but you should be able to configure your equipment for once a week service given that it's doing about $600 a week.

 

If you're talking about cans then you are right Moondog.  Glassfronts don't hold what a big stacker can hold.  However, a glassfront will hold more bottles than a standard-sized Royal.

[moondog]

If you're talking about cans then you are right Moondog.  Glassfronts don't hold what a big stacker can hold.  However, a glassfront will hold more bottles than a standard-sized Royal.

I agree Chris - it's a crying shame to load up a Royal with bottles as they hold a lot more cans.  In this case I'd designate the glass front for Gatorade, water etc.  The 400 capacity should be fine for that stuff.  But the main product, 12 oz Coke cans should go in the stacker as those guys will probably go through more of those than everything else combined.

[AngryChris]

I agree Chris - it's a crying shame to load up a Royal with bottles as they hold a lot more cans. In this case I'd designate the glass front for Gatorade, water etc. The 400 capacity should be fine for that stuff. But the main product, 12 oz Coke cans should go in the stacker as those guys will probably go through more of those than everything else combined.

Given the choice, I'd only vend cans. I just topped off a royal 650 today. I probably pulled $75 out of it but it still looked pretty full. It's amazing how much a stack vendor can hold.