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Snack box update


bhumphrey829

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We use our own box that is roughly the sixe of the Sheridan wood grain box, but has a sleeker design,  I pack about 20 candy items in the "candy" row of our snack tray.  As summer approaches, most will change over to non-chocolate candy, such as Twizzlers, Skittles, Reese's Pieces. etc.  We will continue to pack Snackers, M&M's, Butterfinger and Baby Ruth through the summer.  M&M's can handle the heat and Butterfinger and Baby Ruth are synthetic chocolate (as opposed to milk chocolate) because they won't turn "white" when they melt in the heat.  Snickers is the best selling candy bar and we sell them faster than they can melt...LOL.  All of our chips are LSS, though I've been getting away from Frito-Lay products due to horrible shelf life.  I try to avoid using chips that have 8 week or less shelf life.  It's a tightrope walk trying to balance high sales and low throw-away.

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4 hours ago, bhumphrey829 said:

And how often to service your boxes?  I have mine on either a 2 week or 4 week cycle.   Do you sell any pastries at all?

12 - 13 business day cycle, so with weekends in there, roughly every 3 weeks.  We do put out pastry trays, but only at select customers.  The customer must be a higher volume account with very low shortage.  My route drivers are pretty picky with pastry trays.  All pastry trays are a 20 count box that my route driver packs.  The problem with pastries is the low margin.  They run at a higher cost and have little shelf life, only good for 1, maybe 2 turns.  What part of Texas do you serve?  Do you hit the bigger metropolitan areas or try to stay in the smaller towns?

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6 hours ago, flintflash said:

12 - 13 business day cycle, so with weekends in there, roughly every 3 weeks.  We do put out pastry trays, but only at select customers.  The customer must be a higher volume account with very low shortage.  My route drivers are pretty picky with pastry trays.  All pastry trays are a 20 count box that my route driver packs.  The problem with pastries is the low margin.  They run at a higher cost and have little shelf life, only good for 1, maybe 2 turns.  What part of Texas do you serve?  Do you hit the bigger metropolitan areas or try to stay in the smaller towns?

The town I live in is 80,000 I have another town that i'm in that's 96,000, the rest of them are between 1,500 and 15,000.  Still trying to decide how far out I want to go.  Right now my longest drive to get to a town i'm in is 48 miles. 

So do you put 20 candy items in boxes that have a higher shortage?  I put more candy in my boxes I took out today so we will see how that goes.  I think I will cut down on my pastries and add more candy.  Like I said earlier, I put 40 items in my bigger boxes and 20 in my small boxes.  I always start out with small boxes so I can see what type of location it's going to be then I try to upgrade it, but I have some that are good for the small boxes, but not sure how the bigger boxes would work there. 

So here is a break down of a typical 40 item box I put out.  Please let me know what changes you would make.

10 cookies

12 chips

8 candy bars

2 cheez-it

2 gardettos

3 crackers ( I wrap 2 packages together)

3 peanuts or kar's

 

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16 hours ago, bhumphrey829 said:

The town I live in is 80,000 I have another town that i'm in that's 96,000, the rest of them are between 1,500 and 15,000.  Still trying to decide how far out I want to go.  Right now my longest drive to get to a town i'm in is 48 miles. 

So do you put 20 candy items in boxes that have a higher shortage?  I put more candy in my boxes I took out today so we will see how that goes.  I think I will cut down on my pastries and add more candy.  Like I said earlier, I put 40 items in my bigger boxes and 20 in my small boxes.  I always start out with small boxes so I can see what type of location it's going to be then I try to upgrade it, but I have some that are good for the small boxes, but not sure how the bigger boxes would work there. 

So here is a break down of a typical 40 item box I put out.  Please let me know what changes you would make.

10 cookies

12 chips

8 candy bars

2 cheez-it

2 gardettos

3 crackers ( I wrap 2 packages together)

3 peanuts or kar's

 

Wow!  You're located in a nice little "honey-hole".  Those are a couple of nice cities to have plus surrounding small towns.  Should be able to provide you with ample growth.  There's no reason you couldn't have as many as 500-600 accounts in that (possibly 1000, if you scour the area hard enough).

My candy row right now consists of 2 Butterfinger, 2 Baby Ruth, 2 Nestle Crunch (changing to Skittles), 2 M&M Peanut, 2 M&M Plain, 4 Snickers, 2 Combos, 2 Twix (changing to  Sour Jacks), and 2 Pay Day (changing to Reese's Pieces).  Your mix is very good, 12 chips is great, since I have found that chips out sell most everything else (except Snickers).  I pack 12 chips as well.  Which crackers are you packing?  Lances?  If so, I would stop wrapping 2 together.  I have never done that, and still move a fair amount of them.  Yes, I know the cost is quite low, but we are delivering the product to the customers which is the "convenience" of our service.  The customers realize this.  No reason to hike up your Box Cost by turning a .20 cracker into a .40 cracker.  Crackers aren't huge sellers and could be easily replaced by a granola bar or another snack item (fruit snacks are great) for less than .40.  You want to calculate your Box Cost somewhere between 34 - 37% of your total Retail Cost of your box.  For example:  you are at $1.25 now and pack 40 items in the snack tray.  Your Total Retail Cost (value of your box if every item were sold) is $50.  Therefore, your Box Cost (actual cost of inventory in your snack tray) should float somewhere between $17 - $18.50.  I sit down every month and figure out my menu based on my Box Cost.  If I want to run more candy items, I try to reduce my inventory cost somewhere else. Maybe I find a deal on a chip item or replace a .40 cent snack item with a .32 cent snack item.  If I want to cut back on my Box Cost a little, I may swap a candy item for granola bar or something like that.  You don't want to go too inexpensive, else the customers will stop buying.  AND, of course, you don't want to go too expensive and lose your margins.  Look at it like this:  you could pack 40 items at .25 each - GREAT margins, but you will only sell a few (low usage) OR you could pack 40 premium items at .75 each - HIGH sales, but very low margin.  It's a major balancing act to carry a nice variety without tipping one way or another.  I have seen too many competitors go out of business because they try to go way too cheap, thinking it will increase margins and sell less causing them to bring in LESS money.  And I've seen some that refuse to raise prices (essentially running a too expensive box) and sell A LOT but make no money because there is no margins left.  Keep doing what you're doing.  I think you're on the right track.  :) 

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Weekly update:  Only ran  3 days this week due to being sick.  235 locations;  Grossed $1,216.00,  Avg. $19.00 per box theft ran 9%, serviced 64 boxes. 

I also just wanted to clarify something for those of you who keep up with my updates, that my normal work week consists of 4 days of running routes.  I take one day a week and get new locations.

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What size of area do you live in to have that many locations?  Most of the towns around me have a population of less than 15,000, so I think it might be difficult growing that big.

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Having two towns that large (80,000 and 90,000) could easily support a few hundred accounts, especially if there is a lot of industrial and retail areas.  I have a town of 15,000 near us that we have around 75 accounts just in that town.  If a town has a heavy commercial population, you can really put on the accounts.  :) 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On ‎6‎/‎16‎/‎2017 at 4:43 PM, bhumphrey829 said:

Weekly update:  239 locations  Grossed $1,990.00  Avg  $24.00 per box  Theft ran 2%  serviced 87 boxes

Holy smokes!  Only 2% short?  Nice Job!  You must be "putting the hammer down"!  $24 box average is an EXCELLENT average!  :) 

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8 hours ago, flintflash said:

Holy smokes!  Only 2% short?  Nice Job!  You must be "putting the hammer down"!  $24 box average is an EXCELLENT average!  :) 

The 2% is kind of leading in a way, I had one box that was supposed to have $50.00 and there was $103.00 and another that was overpaid by $18.00 that helps offset the accounts that were short quite a bit lol.

 

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Weekly update:  I'm not doing updates for the next few weeks and here's why. I am in the processing of putting together "hard routes".  For the nearly 2 years I have been doing this, I have always done "floating" routes and it has worked, but it was really a pain having to figure out a route every day.  Based on the advice of someone on here that's a lot more knowledgeable than I am and has been doing this a lot longer, I am now assigning each location to a permanent route.  In doing so it's causing me to service locations that are not ready to be serviced, driving down my total numbers so my figures aren't true figures right now.  I will start updating again once I get through one cycle of these permanent routes

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3 hours ago, bhumphrey829 said:

Weekly update:  I'm not doing updates for the next few weeks and here's why. I am in the processing of putting together "hard routes".  For the nearly 2 years I have been doing this, I have always done "floating" routes and it has worked, but it was really a pain having to figure out a route every day.  Based on the advice of someone on here that's a lot more knowledgeable than I am and has been doing this a lot longer, I am now assigning each location to a permanent route.  In doing so it's causing me to service locations that are not ready to be serviced, driving down my total numbers so my figures aren't true figures right now.  I will start updating again once I get through one cycle of these permanent routes

Once the Hard Routes settle in, you will be MUCH happier.  Plus you will see where you need to concentrate sales for route building in the future. :)

 

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4 hours ago, bhumphrey829 said:

Weekly update:  I'm not doing updates for the next few weeks and here's why. I am in the processing of putting together "hard routes".  For the nearly 2 years I have been doing this, I have always done "floating" routes and it has worked, but it was really a pain having to figure out a route every day.  Based on the advice of someone on here that's a lot more knowledgeable than I am and has been doing this a lot longer, I am now assigning each location to a permanent route.  In doing so it's causing me to service locations that are not ready to be serviced, driving down my total numbers so my figures aren't true figures right now.  I will start updating again once I get through one cycle of these permanent routes

I thought you already were on those!  A lot less stressful and saves more money sand time.  

I use Google maps to separate routes,  then use Garmin to drive them.

 

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Hey Rodney, no I did not have hard routes, in certain towns that weren't around here they were basically hard routes, but i would add different locations, depending on what was due according to the service due date.  Then i would arrange the route in that order.  I just finished  my first week of "hard routes", and I can tell it's going to be a lot easier once get over the growing pains lol. 

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Its a ton easier.  For bulk I have a West side,  60 and 120 day cycle.  Same said of town,  just the slower locations in the 120.

I do that with every route so that I pick up max revenue and still stay sane.  Lol

I use Google maps to post all my locations, them add them to the route for that area and my GPS. Garmin lets you add as many as you want,  but breaks them up.

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I have all of my locations in my garmin gps.  I make my routes out on vend trak and put them in the order I want them, then use my gps just to get to the location until I learn where it's at.  I'm always opened to suggestions and have used so many suggestions from guys on here that has really changed my business, which is why I love this site so much

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 yes sir,  mine as well. I'm switching to Vendsoft  though.  Having an app will eliminate paperwork.  Customer service and communication are better than I've seen to date. 

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Once you get the "hard routes" established, route building will be SO MUCH easier for you.  You'll be able to target areas that need sales, and if you overbuild an area, it's simple enough to break off and start forming a new route.  And Rodney, as far as the "eliminate paperwork" , believe it or not, we've been using account cards since I  started back in the early '90s.  We cash each account out through a program (one we designed years ago) and maintain history in our computer, but I still like being able to look at an account card for information.....LOL, this old dog is set in his ways. :)  

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Oh i get it.  Some people like paper.  I hate paperwork. If my driver can put all the info in,  I can look at the numbers any time. 

Everyone has a different way of doing things.  Whatever works best for them. 

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