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Whats your end goal with your vending business?


hutchdavidson

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What are you looking to ultimately accomplish?

How many heads? 200? 300? 500? 1000? Then hold steady at a certain size?

How many locations ultimately?

Or are you using bulk vending to springboard into other vending, or something else altogether?

Based on what Ive seen I think I would like around 300 heads.

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I think your kinda out if left field with this one.  You could have 500 charity heads at 5 bucks a month and only gross 2500.  Or have 70 good rack locations and gross around six grand.  Rather than focus on head count focus on gross sales. 

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Probably 200 locations. Along the way I can tweek them into doubles, triples, maybe even some racks. It will take me about 10 years to get to were I want to be, at that point I will be 3 years out from retirement from my Fire Department and be all set up with my vending route to supplement retirement :D. I want my route to last me 20+ years thats why I am buying only new quality equipment(NW60's). 

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I think your kinda out if left field with this one.  You could have 500 charity heads at 5 bucks a month and only gross 2500.  Or have 70 good rack locations and gross around six grand.  Rather than focus on head count focus on gross sales. 

I was assuming $15/head ave.

But not assuming that, whats everyones ultimate gross they are looking for on a monthly basis?

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That seems like a very large amount of heads. How do you manage it all? Are you by yourself?

actually thats not all that many for full time vending...I manage it all by myself, I service on average of 6 to 8 weeks all commission locations. made up of several combinations of machines...some singles a few doubles buncha triples (not 1 machine) and lots of racks
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At what point do you reach critical-mass to be able to jump from part-time to full-time vending?  While I'm working a job, I'm afraid that I will grow too much that I won't be able to service my routes in a timely manner.  But once I quit my job, I'm afraid my routes won't be big enough to support me and my family, and still grow the business.

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Well, you can have it both ways, I have a friend who I have help me service when needed. It's great for him because he can make some side money, great for me because if I'm too busy he can keep the route from going into disarray. Naturally paying someone else to service locations eats up most of the profits, but you have to think big picture - think of it like a franchise - by only keeping a fraction of the profit that each location makes, McDonald's has been able to grow explosively.

For me the goal is to use the money the vending route makes to invest in real estate. I'm pretty damn close now.

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At what point do you reach critical-mass to be able to jump from part-time to full-time vending?  While I'm working a job, I'm afraid that I will grow too much that I won't be able to service my routes in a timely manner.  But once I quit my job, I'm afraid my routes won't be big enough to support me and my family, and still grow the business.

I've put alot of thought into this and the solution for me is get to about 200 locations then save money until i can at least double up and at the same time pay a few bills a couple months ahead.  Then when i'm about 3 months from being ready to leave expand to around 400 locations then spend the last couple of weeks pulling and relocating poor performers. And at this point i would feel comfortable walking away from my cushy state job with pension.  not to mention i have a large lump sum i'll be walking away with, hopefully i dont have to use it though and can roll it over into an ira.  Yall feel free to point out any holes in this plan or better suggestions.

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Personally I think the number of heads or locations is irrelevant; it's the profit margin and stability that count. 200 heads could be a nightmare if you constantly had to move machines, or some of them were not very profitable, or some locations constantly complained and hassled you about product selection, commission %, etc. Also I can't say this too many times: consider diversifying! Vending is great but you should never keep all of your eggs in one basket. What if something happens that dramatically affects your business? Suppose there is some incident where the plastic they make the caps out of is found to contain lead from China, and for a while people are scared to let their kids buy the toys? Or the price of candy increases too much and it's no longer profitable to sell at 25 cents but people are too stubborn to pay 50 cents? What if a large vending company sweeps in and steals a lot of your spots and jeopardizes your income? Why not take some of that vending income and invest it elsewhere so you have an empire, not just one little vending nation? You could use some of the income to invest in IPOs or local start-up businesses, buy tax liens, save up for down payments on income properties, or the down payments to start other types of businesses, etc etc etc... Just a thought!

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