zjtaylor Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 So I've run the full route I purchased a few months ago and I have two problems: 1. a lot of very lackluster locations 2. long distance and time commitment for rate of return I have a bunch of locations where my initial collection after no service for 3 months has been between 25c - 5.00$. I'm beginning to wonder why I'm wasting my time with any location where any single collection is less than 20$. What I want to know is what is everyone's criteria for pulling a location? Do you have a minimum collection per location? I think I'm going to leave it alone for 1 or 2 more cycles and get an average collection. I think I'm going to start a minimum 20$ collection after 2 months or it gets pulled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuikVend Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 The locations bringing in less than $5 after 3 months sound like they need to be pulled for sure. I try everything I can to make a location work out. Product changes,equipment changes and extending the service cycle. After all of that, if I can't pull $15-20 after 3-4 months is not going to be worth my time due to the cost to service and expired/stale product. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Determined Posted January 21, 2017 Share Posted January 21, 2017 It's all your personal preference. I'm having the same issues as you with the route I built. Some locations just aren't worth my time. I'm going to leave the slow performers in the town i live because there convenient. A lot of the others will be turned into racks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rebelwithoutaclue Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 I am doing this part time and I have a few toy machines that are not far away from my house. One takes in approx. 10-12 bucks a month of which I give a 30 percent commission. I don't pull it out because I can service it once every 2-3 months . I am not scoping out other locations and they haven't said anything about pulling it out I did pull out a machine that pulled in abut the same amount beause the guy was a pain in the golpher Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AMD Snacks Posted January 22, 2017 Share Posted January 22, 2017 6 hours ago, zjtaylor said: Do you have a minimum collection per location? I figure there's only so long you can extend a cycle before the candy goes bad. That, and the fact that some of my longer cycle locations have had issues..i.e. a week after a service, management didn't want the machine, got shoved in a closet for months, making no sales..or business shut down, didn't bother to call my machines got locked inside. For that reason I don't like going more than maybe 3 or 4 months for a cycle. And if after 3 or 4 months, unless it's super convenient, I pull a location if it's pulling less than $20. I mean $10 every 4 months is only $30 a year from that machine.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlindVending Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 On Saturday, January 21, 2017 at 8:36 PM, AMD Snacks said: I figure there's only so long you can extend a cycle before the candy goes bad. That, and the fact that some of my longer cycle locations have had issues..i.e. a week after a service, management didn't want the machine, got shoved in a closet for months, making no sales..or business shut down, didn't bother to call my machines got locked inside. For that reason I don't like going more than maybe 3 or 4 months for a cycle. And if after 3 or 4 months, unless it's super convenient, I pull a location if it's pulling less than $20. I mean $10 every 4 months is only $30 a year from that machine.. Bingo. Assuming you paid $50-60 for the machine that's 2 years almost to breakeven. Not worth getting out of the car for this account Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Mage Posted January 23, 2017 Share Posted January 23, 2017 What you want to do is to constantly make your routes more efficient. First you get locations, then you adjust and improve those locations, and then you remove the duds. As you grow, you keep adding locations that will end up being a mix of great, good, and bad locations, but you keep cutting out the bottom performing locations, your average will keep inching up. But where those numbers fall will be a very personal thing. If you have plenty of time, and few locations, you will most likely keep lower producing locations, while as your time becomes harder to come by, more of those lower producing locations will drop by the wayside. Eventually what you think of as a good location will become an average location, then an under-performing location. List your locations best to worse, and the income they have produced over the same time-frame, and then just see how it would affect you by subtracting out the bottom 10%. But look beyond income, and take into account the time to hit that location. A location that takes 20 minutes to get to is valued differently than one that takes 5 to get to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deee_z Posted January 25, 2017 Share Posted January 25, 2017 I have gotten quite a few duds over the last year. Waiting to find someone who will get some winners! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F J Vending Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 All of my locations are fairly close, in my opinion, Its only 20 miles from my furthest stops and I live in the middle so I really don't consider cost of service. I keep a spreadsheet that projects how much is in each machine based on historical sales. I typically wait for a machine to show $25-$30 before servicing it. Some are monthly some are every 6 months. I also only refill with enough candy that will get me to my next service so I have a very low amount of spoilage. I never pull a machine if I don't have somewhere else to put it unless there is an issue with spoilage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zjtaylor Posted January 30, 2017 Author Share Posted January 30, 2017 23 minutes ago, F J Vending said: All of my locations are fairly close, in my opinion, Its only 20 miles from my furthest stops and I live in the middle so I really don't consider cost of service. I keep a spreadsheet that projects how much is in each machine based on historical sales. I typically wait for a machine to show $25-$30 before servicing it. Some are monthly some are every 6 months. I also only refill with enough candy that will get me to my next service so I have a very low amount of spoilage. I never pull a machine if I don't have somewhere else to put it unless there is an issue with spoilage. That's interesting. What are you using for the projection formula? Are you seeing a lot of consistency between the projected amount and the actual collection? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F J Vending Posted January 30, 2017 Share Posted January 30, 2017 1 hour ago, zjtaylor said: That's interesting. What are you using for the projection formula? Are you seeing a lot of consistency between the projected amount and the actual collection? My spreadsheet has a row with each location. It has the date the machine was placed, last service date and total sales ( running total that I update after each collection). Then I calculate " Days in Service" = Last Service Date - Date Machine was placed "Days Since Last Service" = Current date - Last Service Date "Daily Sales" = Total Sales / Days in Service "Amount Waiting" = Daily Sales * days Since Last Service "Monthly Average" = Daily sales * 365 / 12 Obviously the first few collections will be off but for the most part after about 6 months it its fairly accurate. Occassionally I will have some that I get misleading amounts because of something specific to the location or a machine issue. I have learned over time that I typically see a dip in sales Jan-Mar (healthy new years resolutions) and in Nov(Halloween) My most accurate location - has been on site for 22 years and is within $5 servicing every 2 months Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.