shepherdsflock Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 If you were just starting out and could buy either a can or bottle machine, which would you choose? There's a guy who has two can machines on location and wants to sell them to me, but I'm wondering if it's a good way to start. What are the pros and cons of cans vs. bottles? Obviously the can machines are probably a little cheaper to buy and stock, but do bottled drinks sell better or have a better profit than cans? What should I consider in making my decision? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogcow Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 bottle machines are more versitile because you can vend many different shaped packages. for example you may want to vend cans but also monster energy drink or gatorade. with can machines u can vend cans and 16.9oz water and it does not vend the water very well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leetvend Posted April 12, 2012 Share Posted April 12, 2012 Personally I do not have any can machines. I figured since I am just starting I would rather start smarter. While I think can machines have a place in this business (in a small construction company's shop or something like that). The vast majority of people I have talked to have said they like bottles better. They are much more convenient. The bottle machines I purchased can also vend cans (monster's, red bull, standard cans and so on) but I do not think the older can machines can vend bottles. So you have to think about which you want. Would you rather spend more for a machine that can do more? or spend the minimum to get a standard can machine. As I said earlier it all depends on where the machine is going. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post mission vending Posted April 12, 2012 Popular Post Share Posted April 12, 2012 If you were just starting out and could buy either a can or bottle machine, which would you choose? There's a guy who has two can machines on location and wants to sell them to me, but I'm wondering if it's a good way to start. What are the pros and cons of cans vs. bottles? Obviously the can machines are probably a little cheaper to buy and stock, but do bottled drinks sell better or have a better profit than cans? What should I consider in making my decision? If I was starting out again I would buy machines that are capable of vending bottles or cans, but with only a couple of machines I would stick with cans for the time being. The reason being that you can get all kinds of flavors at multiple sources, not so much with the bottles. The bottles also have a dramatically shorter shelf life so until you have multiple machines out generating revenue expiration dates could become an issue that you will have to deal with. Once you have enough sales volume that expiration dates are no longer a issue then its time to consider the changeover to bottles and if its worth it for you. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post NinnJinn Posted April 13, 2012 Popular Post Share Posted April 13, 2012 Personally I think it kinda depends on where the machine is going to be. I started out with an outdoor can machine. 70-80 vends a week. Hit walmart, or cvs during their sales and stock up. When I started going with bottle machines, I put one next to my can machine. Can sales dropped by 5-6vends a week, but the bottle machine was doing about 20-25 vends a week vs can machine still doing around 60 vends a week faithfully unless there was snow on the ground.. Like Mission said, cans have a very nice shelf life over bottles. As for cans, my observations, I was looking at a shelf life of a couple months, where as for bottles I was looking at 4-5 weeks!!! If you want the standard 20oz bottles, you are going to have to go with the bottler, And in my area, they aren't cheap. When I got out of vending, Coke products were 78cents/ 20oz bottle and pepsi products were running 82cents/20oz bottle Plus, bottlers in my area wouldn't full fill an order unless I ordered a minimum of 10 cases, or $200-$250 worth of product. Unless you have several machines, your wasted product (expired) will put you in the hole/red pretty quick!!! Best of luck!! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shepherdsflock Posted April 13, 2012 Author Share Posted April 13, 2012 NinnJinn, you make a pretty good argument in favor of the can machine. I'm only planning on buying two, plus two snack machines, and it might be a year or two before I make enough off those machines to invest in more. So, maybe the can machines aren't such a bad idea. If I'm looking at a 10 case minimum order, I probably would have a lot of product expiring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sbishop Posted April 13, 2012 Share Posted April 13, 2012 cans last a lot longer than bottles. I have a few bottle locations that I wish were cans. IF the price is right on the machine on loc I would buy them 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted April 13, 2012 Share Posted April 13, 2012 I STRONGLY believe in getting bottle machines but putting cans inside of them. The shelf-life of cans are up to 10 months for regular soda and 4 months for diet soda. The shelf-life on bottles are about 3 months regardless. Also, for the prices you can get them for, cans seem to ALWAYS have better margins for me than bottles. I have a few can machines out there (and when I say can machines, I mean they ONLY vend cans) but probably 75% of my machines vend anything up to a 20 oz bottle. Having the bottle machines will also allow you to pull your equipment in the future if the location is slow, convert it to bottles, and land a larger account that wants bottles. You can find decent working bottle machines for $500 quite often. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mission vending Posted April 13, 2012 Share Posted April 13, 2012 I STRONGLY believe in getting bottle machines but putting cans inside of them. The shelf-life of cans are up to 10 months for regular soda and 4 months for diet soda. The shelf-life on bottles are about 3 months regardless. Also, for the prices you can get them for, cans seem to ALWAYS have better margins for me than bottles. I have a few can machines out there (and when I say can machines, I mean they ONLY vend cans) but probably 75% of my machines vend anything up to a 20 oz bottle. Having the bottle machines will also allow you to pull your equipment in the future if the location is slow, convert it to bottles, and land a larger account that wants bottles. You can find decent working bottle machines for $500 quite often. On a percentage basis, yes, but if you look at total $$ then bottles are better. Example: Can cost at .28, vend price at .75 = 37.3% COGS, in Texas .06 for sales tax backed out yields net profit of .41 per can Bottle cost at .68, vend price at 1.35 = 50.3% COGS, sales tax of .10 backed out yields net profit of .57 per bottle. Some locations will sell more cans than bottles and vice versa, just depends on your customers preferences. If you get multi price machines that can do bottles you can also consider offering can sodas, and a few selections with Gatorade, Water and Monster (also long expiration dates). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted April 13, 2012 Share Posted April 13, 2012 On a percentage basis, yes, but if you look at total $$ then bottles are better. Example: Can cost at .28, vend price at .75 = 37.3% COGS, in Texas .06 for sales tax backed out yields net profit of .41 per can Bottle cost at .68, vend price at 1.35 = 50.3% COGS, sales tax of .10 backed out yields net profit of .57 per bottle. Some locations will sell more cans than bottles and vice versa, just depends on your customers preferences. If you get multi price machines that can do bottles you can also consider offering can sodas, and a few selections with Gatorade, Water and Monster (also long expiration dates). Mission just secretly wants the new guys to buy bottles so they have to feel the same pain he feels when he has to pay for those bottles! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sbishop Posted April 14, 2012 Share Posted April 14, 2012 (edited) If you are only going to vend cans or only bottles, then you are going to limit ur opportunities. That is why so many people are saying buy bottle machines. Most of them can sell cans too. That said, I would buy a can machine for the right price Edited April 14, 2012 by sbishop Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post mission vending Posted April 14, 2012 Popular Post Share Posted April 14, 2012 Actually, no, that's not the case. By unit count my sodas are probably pretty close to 50/50 cans and bottles. Where the bottles get ahead of the cans is with the stuff that is not soda. The water, juice, Vitamin Water, Sobe and things like that. You can't offer these things with a single price machine or a machine that cannot be adapted to vend these items. Its not necessarily stuff that you want to be vending as a startup but you also need to look to the future and where you want to go with your business. If you want to grow into a larger company spending a little more to buy better equipment upfront (multi price bottle/can capable) that can be moved into larger accounts if needed will be a worthwhile investment. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogcow Posted April 14, 2012 Share Posted April 14, 2012 mission should this thread be sticky? it seems to come up from time to time. a lot of good info and perspectives here. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mission vending Posted April 15, 2012 Share Posted April 15, 2012 Your right, this has been one of the better discussions on this topic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poplady1 Posted April 20, 2012 Share Posted April 20, 2012 I am a multi-price person. As Mission says its the variety that will bring in better locations. Just my two cents. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cvbabcock Posted April 26, 2012 Share Posted April 26, 2012 16.9 Bottles can be bought at Sam's club in a 24 pack. I dont remeber the pricing but it comes out be about 50 cents a bottle. I just learned that on the 13th of Apirl. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poplady1 Posted April 27, 2012 Share Posted April 27, 2012 16.9 Bottles can be bought at Sam's club in a 24 pack. I dont remeber the pricing but it comes out be about 50 cents a bottle. I just learned that on the 13th of Apirl. 16.9 Bottles can be bought at Sam's club in a 24 pack. I dont remeber the pricing but it comes out be about 50 cents a bottle. I just learned that on the 13th of Apirl. 16.9 oz bottles can really help get good accounts that want lower pricing. If they have cans at .75, you can get them to go with bottles at 1.25 and have a great margin. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogcow Posted April 27, 2012 Share Posted April 27, 2012 16.9 oz bottles can really help get good accounts that want lower pricing. If they have cans at .75, you can get them to go with bottles at 1.25 and have a great margin. will those vend out of single price can machines? i vend water from the single cols currently, not sure if it would vend correctly from the doubles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ANDERSONVENDING Posted April 27, 2012 Share Posted April 27, 2012 will those vend out of single price can machines? i vend water from the single cols currently, not sure if it would vend correctly from the doubles Yes you can vend 16.9 bottles the same as water.I have an account that has all 16.9 bottles,as long as the machine is not serpentine machine.John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mission vending Posted April 27, 2012 Share Posted April 27, 2012 Yes you can vend 16.9 bottles the same as water.I have an account that has all 16.9 bottles,as long as the machine is not serpentine machine. John Might need to get some shims to get them to vend reliably but other than that should be no problem getting them to vend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbicfl Posted May 3, 2012 Share Posted May 3, 2012 Take the location over with the cans. Once you place bottles only, you will have to charge more per soda and your customers wont like it. There is a place for can machines and bottle. Since its already a can location , keep it that way for now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
loach33 Posted June 29, 2012 Share Posted June 29, 2012 Yes you can vend 16.9 bottles the same as water.I have an account that has all 16.9 bottles,as long as the machine is not serpentine machine. John 7up recently changed their 16.9 bottles. The shape changed a bit and the bottle is a bit more sturdy. It's great. They used to jam every now and then and stacking more than about 10-12 got dicey. Now I'll go 16 high or so with no problem I like cans for the profit margin, but bottles can bring you more overall profit. If a person is going to buy one drink a day and they buy a can vs. a bottle then you make less on that person. Absolutely choose a machine that can do it all, if you can. Variety is key. Those machines can vend about anything. I have 10 oz orange juice, 16.9 oz water, Monster, 20 oz gatorade, coke can, 24 oz Mountain Dew, 16.9 oz green tea, 16.9 oz 7up among others all in one location. Whole lot better than just the usual. They ask for it - they get it. Take the location over with the cans. Once you place bottles only, you will have to charge more per soda and your customers wont like it. There is a place for can machines and bottle. Since its already a can location , keep it that way for now. Agreed - if they have always had cans, they won't adjust too quickly to a bottle for twice the price. But, if you can use a bottle machine. Then use a couple selections to introduce a bottle. Especially in the summer, maybe try a gatorade. Grocery stores usually always have 8 packs for $5 (20oz). That's 62 cents per. You'll easily get $1.25 out of that bottle. See how it goes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bobomonkey702 Posted August 24, 2012 Share Posted August 24, 2012 I like this thread Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vending How Chris Posted September 18, 2012 Share Posted September 18, 2012 As some other users have said, there isn't a straight dichotomy between bottles and cans. Most can machines (Coke anyway) will also vend bottles. You just need to adjust the spacers inside and make sure the machine knows it's only vending one bottle (as opposed to two cans which take up the same space). This question is also completely location dependent. Some people only drink out of bottles and some people only out of cans. The key is to ask your customer which they prefer, and then give them their options. In my experience, non diet bottled soda lasts as long as can soda does, and the diets are about equivalent, so it's really based on preference and how the inventory fits with the rest of your business. Moving forward, however, its good to target locations which have a higher price point per customer and these necessitate the acquisition of speciality bottled sodas like your Fuzes, Snapples, and the like. Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMS Vending Posted December 6, 2012 Share Posted December 6, 2012 Where can I find a quick reference guide on machines stating if they will vend can or bottle? I realize i could google each model I see on classifieds but was hoping for guide I print out like for Narco machines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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