Questions from a new vendor

[Grantamato]

Hello, I'm a new vendor. I am 17 and currently have one bulk candy machine in my parents hair salon which is doing ok. I just bought a full sized snack machine for $250 and fixed it up a little bit so it looks at most 5 years old. I have good looking business cards and have given them out to a few businesses already. I need all the tips I can get so I can succeed in this business. 

How do you reach the managers in businesses if you can't find them? 

What is best to say to them about my vending?

Is it proper to ask an owner to buy their machine and maintain it if you notice they are lacking maintenance? 

Commission?

Is it worth putting credit card transactions on the machine?

Would you recommend putting machines in police stations or town buildings?

Is there a way to reach many managers using bulk email?

Best methods of advertising?

Also, best place to buy a cheap trailer?

Feel free, please, to pick and choose whatever questions you would like to answer. And please offer tips if you have any.

 

[Poplady1]

There are several books on amazon about starting a vending business.  You would probably learn from purchasing one of those.  Get the online free magazine "Automatic Merchandiser"  You can read current and past issues online.

Check out the NAMA site.  https://www.namanow.org/

 

[moondog]

10 hours ago, Grantamato said:

Hello, I'm a new vendor. I am 17 and currently have one bulk candy machine in my parents hair salon which is doing ok. I just bought a full sized snack machine for $250 and fixed it up a little bit so it looks at most 5 years old. I have good looking business cards and have given them out to a few businesses already. I need all the tips I can get so I can succeed in this business. 

How do you reach the managers in businesses if you can't find them? 

What is best to say to them about my vending?

Is it proper to ask an owner to buy their machine and maintain it if you notice they are lacking maintenance? 

Commission?

Is it worth putting credit card transactions on the machine?

Would you recommend putting machines in police stations or town buildings?

Is there a way to reach many managers using bulk email?

Best methods of advertising?

Also, best place to buy a cheap trailer?

Feel free, please, to pick and choose whatever questions you would like to answer. And please offer tips if you have any.

 

Solo snack machines are always a hurdle as you can't normally move enough product through just one machine to avoid a lot of stales.  To begin, lean more toward can soda sales as you won't have an expired product issue and soda machines usually heavily outperform snack machines.  Credit card readers are normally best for white collar accounts or accounts with younger people and they ain't cheap.  Most multipriced soda machines will accept a card reader with little problem but that $250 snack machine will probably require a $400 upgrade to do credit cards (you need something that's already Mdb compatible for CC readers and most older snack machines just won't have it)  Try Northern Tool for cheap trailers but most of us hire out our machine moves.  It takes a lot of specialized equipment to properly move machines and you'll find that your money is better spent on more machines than investing in machine moving equipment.

[Southeast Treats]

Good for you!  Always glad to see someone off to a good start at a young age!  Let me take a stab at some of your questions:

An unmaintained machine may belong to another vendor, not the location.  It may represent an opportunity to you if you can provide better service, but don't count on being able to buy the existing machine.  Aside from the owner not wanting to sell, you may be buying more problems than you can handle.

Try to avoid commissions when possible, don't make it a selling point unless the customer brings it up.  In an office or workplace, you are providing them with a service at no cost to them.   Some larger locations have become conditioned to receive commissions, but try to limit it to about 5% of sales if you must.  A retail location (car wash, garage waiting room, etc) is a business allowing you to co-market to their customers in addition to their staff.  I will offer them a commission if they ask, usually no more than 10% of sales.  Bulk operators and game operators offer as much as 50% so some locations may expect that from you as well, you need to explain that your expenses are much higher since you buy and maintain a retail inventory.

Police stations are not always a good location, as the majority of the staff is only there for short times when not out patrolling.  In a larger department there may be enough demand but smaller agencies usually won't have a lot of sales.  City buildings in general can be hard to get into and not always good locations, so I would advise not spending too much time on those until you are more experienced.

Your best advertising is yourself.  Take your business card and maybe print a single page flyer to leave with potential customers, and stop into locations that you think have potential.  To reach managers you have to win over the "gatekeepers" first, be nice to everyone you meet.  You never know who has influence on the decision you are asking about.  Since you can't sell your experience, sell your "hustle"; you will work hard to give them good service!

Have a small website and make sure it mentions multiple keywords and the names of areas you want to serve; you want to pop up when someone searches for vending in your area.  As you grow, referrals will also become a big part of your sales.

Read back thru this forum, there are a lot of good threads about sales and strategy that can help you out.