hotels.....

[vendingpartsguy]

Hello all.

I have a question for anyone looking to get into hotel locations or is currently servicing a few hotels.

What do you offer the hotel market that your competitors dont?

I have a few ideas that would give me an upper hand over the competition, but wondering if there is anything I am missing before I start to petition for their business.

Wht do you do for your client?

Thanks

Nathan

[Nick SDL]

I do not have any machines in a hotel but my full time job is working in a hotel. The basic thing i know about hotel vending is, it is hard to get into, many of the bigger vendors have these accounts, they will want a decent commission. Your going to need more than one machine to get into a decent hotel, not a small highway motel. the hotel i work in has 6 total machines, 5-soda one snack. The quality of equipment is going to also have to be very nice, at least the ones in the main areas are. Hotels like to have a higher standard when it comes to what comes through the door. I believe as long as you have the equipment it will be like every other location.

[AngryChris]

Here are a few things to keep in mind... I am going to discourage you from getting any hotel locations unless they are great locations (ie. LOTS AND LOTS OF OCCUPANCY!!!)

1) MANY hotels do not have full occupancy but these hotels want equipment (at least soda machines) on every floor. This means that your stales could eat away at all of your profits at certain locations, unless you convince the hotel of reducing the amount of equipment inside (which may be hard to do if their current vendor hasn't don so).

2) MANY hotels want a pretty high commission. You can offset this by charging pretty high prices (ie. $2.00 for bottle of soda, $1.00 for can, $1.25 for candy bars, $.75 for small bags of chips, etc...) but then your sales might not be as good... but this may be a nominal point compared to the others.

3) If the hotel is located right next to a bunch of fast-food locations or grocery stores, this can really hurt your sales. How many times have you seen a hotel within walking distance to a fast-food place... countless times? If people can walk to a restaurant or convenience store and get some snacks for cheaper with more variety, they just might do that.

4) The investment can be huge. At a decent location, it is best to get a glassfront soda machine. This will maximize your variety to keep people from passing up the limited selections they would get from a regular soda machine... but a new glassfront can cost you $5,000+ If they want much better/newer equipment than you have available (ie. credit card capable which may be very important due to people using their credit cards when they travel) then you pretty much need late model equipment which could lead to a $10,000-$20,000 investment at a decent hotel.

I don't recommend hotels unless the place is prime location and you can get some insight on the sales before hand. A hotel may bring in as much as a business account but the hotel may cost SIGNIFICANTLY more money... so unless you plan on going after the big boys and dealing with the big vendors, I wouldn't bother a whole lot, but that's just my 2 cents.

[vendingpartsguy]

Thanks!

All good points to consider.

the hotel I am looking at would be a total of 4 snack and 4 pop. A larger hotel with pools and waterslides, a casino, spa, event centre, etc.

I have been playing detective and have been watching the machines over a 2 week period for how much product moves out of them. The main snack machine on the main floor gets emptied about once every 2 weeks (45 select glassfront. the others are still 1/4 full.

Pricing in the machines are 1.00 for chips 1.50 for candy and 2.25 for pop.with some other items priced higher IE jerky and such.

Just for a eyeopener, our local ciniplex theatres sell 20 OZ (591ML here in canada) bottles for $4.00!!!!! I have no idea who would pay that for a pop but the machines are always getting filled!

[AngryChris]

Have you made sure that they are filled up completely full? I could put 2 items in every selection of a slow account and watch the machines get low every 2 weeks and put 2 in every row again... why? Because if the sales are too slow, you don't want to overfill and have them go 8 weeks and have your stales eat your profits. I could not care less about what kind of perks a hotel has, I care about sales volume and that is all that should matter to a vendor. Next time you notice that it's full, you need to take a deeper look and maybe even go as far as to write down how many items are in each selection and then check it a week later and see how many items sold.. you could easily get a very accurate measurement off of this and you might be shocked to find out that it's not as good as you expect.

You may have already done this.... but it's important for people to know how deceiving it can be monitoring vending machine sales without actually taking a better look inside. Any glassfront could give you very accurate sales records if you watch it every day.

I just don't want to see you invest a huge sum of money for an account that is a turd .

[kiwi]

Thanks!

All good points to consider.

the hotel I am looking at would be a total of 4 snack and 4 pop. A larger hotel with pools and waterslides, a casino, spa, event centre, etc.

I have been playing detective and have been watching the machines over a 2 week period for how much product moves out of them. The main snack machine on the main floor gets emptied about once every 2 weeks (45 select glassfront. the others are still 1/4 full.

Pricing in the machines are 1.00 for chips 1.50 for candy and 2.25 for pop.with some other items priced higher IE jerky and such.

Just for a eyeopener, our local ciniplex theatres sell 20 OZ (591ML here in canada) bottles for $4.00!!!!! I have no idea who would pay that for a pop but the machines are always getting filled!

What type of drink machines are they? You can access the external program on some models. The password is usually 4-2-3-1 which gives you access to how many units have sold & how much cash has been taken. You can scroll thru each selections also unless they have changed the password. I usually do this with machines on public sites that I am thinking of approching to see if they are worth while or not. I just go in 1 week & note sales then go back the following week & note again. This will give you an exact figure the machines are doin.

[vendingpartsguy]

Yes the machine I have been watching more closely than the others was completely full. I do appreciate you asking as some may not actually think about this, and yes I do NOT want a turd account, already have one!

I am going to keep watching over the next 2-3 weeks to see if things fluctuate. As well as see how close the selections come to being outdated before the row is finished or replenished.

Thanks all.

Also do any of you offer cashless??? We are a bit on the slow side up here in Canada to implement as there is just now the capabilities emerging to go that way. (sometimes we are forgotten up here!)

[AngryChris]

Yes the machine I have been watching more closely than the others was completely full. I do appreciate you asking as some may not actually think about this, and yes I do NOT want a turd account, already have one!

I am going to keep watching over the next 2-3 weeks to see if things fluctuate. As well as see how close the selections come to being outdated before the row is finished or replenished.

Thanks all.

Also do any of you offer cashless??? We are a bit on the slow side up here in Canada to implement as there is just now the capabilities emerging to go that way. (sometimes we are forgotten up here!)

I can't give you a reliable answer due to the differences in credit card processing between american and canadian credit processing companies (assuming their is a difference, or a difference in regulation for that matter).

Generally, the companies I have checked into charge around 20-25 cents per transaction and a 1% fee for the processing. A soda at $2.50 may cost $3.00'ish for a regular consumer when using the credit card.

I don't think this is a problem at a hotel location because they are probably spending the crap out of their credit card anyway and I don't think they would care about paying an extra 50 cents. The problem arises when a customer wants to only pay $.50 for a bag of chips and end up paying close to $.80 for that same bag.

Now... I wouldn't go totally cashless but having a credit card reader would be beneficial at a good hotel location if you ask me.

[Poplady1]

Hello all.

I have a question for anyone looking to get into hotel locations or is currently servicing a few hotels.

What do you offer the hotel market that your competitors dont?

I have a few ideas that would give me an upper hand over the competition, but wondering if there is anything I am missing before I start to petition for their business.

Wht do you do for your client?

Thanks

Nathan

Hotels fall into vending categories. Independent vendors like the Comfort Inns, Best Western and Days Inn set ups if they can get their machines inside near the office area. Normally a multi-price drink machine and a snack works well. Most of these hotels want comission around 20% to 25%. If you are interested in a hotel just go to the front desk to ask for the manager. Then ask if he is happy with the current vendor. Just have a conversation with him about what might improve the vending area for him. Then ask if you can get a proposal to him. Once you deliver your proposal you can check back with him within a week. Hotel accounts often want sundries in their machines too.

On the larger multi-floor hotels the vendors always make more money on the vending area used by the hotel employees. Sometimes that is handled by a different vending company too. You want to be sure to give that area the best pricing and the hotel will not want any commission for that area. Then if you want to try to get the whole account you would offer machines on the first 4 floors. After that you would place a drink on every other floor if they really demand it. Hotel pricing is high because travelers "have money" and they don't want to leave the hotel for a drink or a snack. Also you can have some break in problems at hotels if you put machines on every floor. Counting cars doesn't work on a hotel account because everyone is gone during the day returning in the evening.

Hotel accounts can be very good but you really need to know how to approach them, talk about your product variety and your excellent service. You also need to know how to turn down an account wanting machines in the back area. If there are microwaves in each room you can put in Popcorn and other food selections. If they don't have microwaves, don't bother. If they give away breakfast with pastry, don't stock pastry. Just common sense stuff. Many vendors just set up hotel accounts like any other account when you do need to offer what travelers are looking for in the vending machines.

They love things they can take back to the room for dinner. Cup of soup, popcorn, Mac/Cheese, etc. Use that bottom shelf for micro stuff. You can buy the attachment at vendors exchange to drop those containers. Hope this helps.

Poplady

[jasonkw]

The hotel market can be a hit or a miss. I've had hotels with 12 machines that make almost nothing - less than a bottle per machine sold per day. I've also had hotels where it makes $60 a day in one machine.

Seeing you are in Canada, you can likely charge $2.50 or so for a 20oz bottle, $1.75 for chocolate, and $1.50 for chips. The prices are way higher than anything you can charge in the US.

- Jason