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Cans vs. bottles


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Single price or multi price. You have one or the other. Same as automatic or stick. Look back and read how many vendors refer to the single price can vender. And yes a multi price machine can be setup to sell only cans or cans and bottles with different pricing on each selection. 

 

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  • 1 month later...
On 7/30/2017 at 8:49 PM, AngryChris said:

Bev, I literally got both of those descriptions from AM equipment sales's website.  Those are literally the same model numbers you posted but the variations I posted were produced as multiprice machines, meaning, although they could be adapted as you say to sell other products (such as 16.9 oz bottles among other things), they were mostly designed to vend 12 oz cans... but these models are multiprice so you can use different pricing.  I'm just making a point that not all can machines are single price.  The majority of the "can" machines out there were produced both as single price AND multi price.  The royal merlin 2000 series for example were some of the first can vendors to come with drop sensors and they were all multi price as far as I know, but they came out before vending 20 oz bottles was a real thing.  So.. hopefully you'll understand what I am trying to say here regarding this dsicussion.

Here's where you are making a mistake.  You are assuming that I am trying to say that a SINGLE PRICE machine is CONVERTED into a multi price machine.  I never said that!!! a can machine is NOT synonymous with single price machine.  Ask these dealers as well as the national companies this question instead: "Are there multi price can machines?"  I'm positive they will say YES.  There are multi price CAN machines that were designed primarily to vend CANS.  For example, the USI serpentine can vendors were multi price and ONLY vended 12 oz cans and nothing else.  A 501T could have been PRODUCED off the assembly line as either a single price OR a multi price.  A royal 552 was a can vendor that was multi price.  A DN 276 was a can machine that could have been produced as a single price or multi price machine.

But to your advice.. getting a multi price 501T is not much better than getting a single price 501T since both machines are old and can only really sell 12 oz cans without losing a lot of capacity, although it is slightly better.

The 501T is a great machine for cans. The multiprice versions are great for selling Monsters along with cheap 12oz cans. 

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  • 4 months later...
  • 2 months later...

I believe bottles work better as they can be opened and closed. Can someone make a recommendation for a bottle machine under 2k? It should accept credit card. And, are there any in this price range which will allow me to monitor inventory remotely?

ty

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Welcome.

The best machine out there is the Dixie Narco 501E. They can be found refurbished for under 1200 all day, and occasionally under 900.

For credit card and remote monitoring, the machine needs to support the MDB and DEX protocols. Most machines built within the last 20 years, including the aforementioned 501E, supports these. Once you buy the machine, you would buy a credit card reader and telemetry modem. Typically, these would be sold as a set by a separate company, like USATech, as the credit card processing and telemetry (which allows remote inventory monitoring) use the same modem and internet connection. Plan to spend 300 upfront for the equipment and 8 dollars a month + percentage of credit card sales.

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2 minutes ago, orsd said:

Welcome.

The best machine out there is the Dixie Narco 501E. They can be found refurbished for under 1200 all day, and occasionally under 900.

For credit card and remote monitoring, the machine needs to support the MDB and DEX protocols. Most machines built within the last 20 years, including the aforementioned 501E, supports these. Once you buy the machine, you would buy a credit card reader and telemetry modem. Typically, these would be sold as a set by a separate company, like USATech, as the credit card processing and telemetry (which allows remote inventory monitoring) use the same modem and internet connection. Plan to spend 300 upfront for the equipment and 8 dollars a month + percentage of credit card sales.

thanks so much for taking the time to respond. this is a great response

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There is noyhing wrong with going with bottles but keep in mind that bottles are expensive, usually need to be bought from a distributor or directly from the bottler (the bottler requires a minimum to deliver), and bottles don't last lomg before they reach their expiration dates.  So, if you don't have an account that does at least $100/week out of a bottle machine alone, you could have troubles with expired product.  You can mitigate this with more accounts but the point is that you can lose a lot of money from trying to sell bottles in slower accounts.  With cans, practically none of those issues apply.  The "downside" to cans is that a lot of vendors get better margins-per-unit on bottles than cans but that's not always the case.  In addition, a lot of customers want bottles.  I used to get bottles for about 67 cents per bottle 7 years ago and sold them for $1.25.  Now they are about 90 cents and sell for $1.50 and people complain about the price.

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  • 2 weeks later...
2 hours ago, Corvus Corax said:

Be aware most 16.9 bottles expiration is only a month out. Big concern for diet stuff.

All bottles have a 3 month shelf life.

This is where it pays to have a good relationship with your local grocery store. The one month dates are because your local store or coke reps aren’t doing their jobs right.

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7 minutes ago, orsd said:

All bottles have a 3 month shelf life.

This is where it pays to have a good relationship with your local grocery store. The one month dates are because your local store or coke reps aren’t doing their jobs right.

My local Walmart will let me order the amount I need then coke and Pepsi delivers them on Tuesday or Saturday I can even get flavors that my local Walmart don’t carry and I always get them at Walmart’s cost instead of coke or Pepsi’s prices 

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  • 5 months later...

You have a lot less of a chance of bottles bursting in your machine and making a mess, that's for sure... I've had some of my cans explode in my machine and fry some of the vend motors

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  • 1 year later...
On 4/25/2018 at 8:28 AM, seth said:

I believe bottles work better as they can be opened and closed. Can someone make a recommendation for a bottle machine under 2k? It should accept credit card. And, are there any in this price range which will allow me to monitor inventory remotely?

ty

Vendo V21 series has been a known workhorse for all major bottlers.  V21 line has been in production since 2002 and is card reader compatible. Remote monitoring is going to require a VMS of some sort which will add cost.  If the vendor is from early 2000's, it can be easily updated by changing the EPROM chip. Cost for an EPROM is usually under $20.

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  • 7 months later...
On 5/11/2018 at 9:30 AM, Joe101us said:

My local Walmart will let me order the amount I need then coke and Pepsi delivers them on Tuesday or Saturday I can even get flavors that my local Walmart don’t carry and I always get them at Walmart’s cost instead of coke or Pepsi’s prices 

Who do you speak to at the store to get them to do that for you?

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  • 6 months later...
28 minutes ago, Snickers said:

Margins on cans are just not good. I think selling a can for $1 is too high but that's really where they need to be and where we took ours. 20 oz is $1.75 

Are cans expensive in your area?  If I went through a distributor, it would be about 40 cents for cans and my sales tax is about 5 cents @ 75 cent pricing.  Sure, it's less than bottles but I think I make it up in volume, plus I still get the bulk of my cans at sam's.

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We buy the cans from the bottlers. Pepsi is a little cheaper here than Coke. It’s a bit higher than buying them on sale prices at the store. It’s just so much more convenient to have it brought in. Retail grocery prices here have crept up to $8-$10 a case when not on sale. I see 12 packs for $5-$6 when not on sale. I think we are $9 a case delivered from the bottler. 
When it comes to pricing it for vend .75 seems not profitable enough and a dollar seems too high but anything in between really doesn’t make sense. Lol 

Even tho .75 would be doubling the cost the penny profit generated kind of sucks when looking at the costs of everything associated with business besides the product. Fuel,wages,etc.

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Unless you get bottles super cheap, or if cans just don't sell that well in your area, I think you are potentially making a mistake in your thought process.  If you made 38 cents on a can, and 60 cents on a bottle (just guessing), but you sold 3 cans for every 2 bottles, you'd be reasonably close with the profits.  I find that I often make better profits at can locations because the soda machine seems to go a little longer between service cycles.  I seem to collect quite a bit more because the snack machines are hit harder from the longer cycle.   I can collect more dollars with a better margin percentage.  Maybe this doesn't hold true for you but it's good for thought.

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I think every stop is somewhat different than the next. Some people will buy 2 cans to 1 bottle while others will buy just 1 regardless of cost/size etc. Some prefer bottles some prefer cans. Just as soon as you get it dialed in with flavors/sizes and frequency it will change. 

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No argument there.  Right now, my focus is getting as many vends as I can in a service cycle.  It pretty requires me to have card readers so I can monitor sales better.  More and more often, I'm breaking 2k in sales in a day, with 1k being minimum.  If I didn't have to load the truck myself, or do repairs, and if it was all pre kit, I could easily do 2k/day evey working day.  I don't see why any diver can't do at least 1500/day right now.  I hope you're somewhere in there because it would be a bigger problem than can margins if you aren't.

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We’re right there with some days more some less but we never hit 2k that’s outstanding! For us it’s all on scheduled route visits tho with the rolling warehouse. We have the card readers but don’t mess with the data. I’m just so used to doing it this way I’m not sure I could ever adapt to the advantages the telemetry can do. 

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  • 3 months later...

We have found that using bottles is the easiest for us. 16.9oz bottles give us the best profit but tend to have people want the 20oz more. A small detail but is overlooked is the durability of the bottles vs cans. Say an accident happens and you drop a case of cans, there is a good chance some will explode or be damaged which can cause vending issues. VS. dropping a case of bottles which maybe a few explode if any and minimal damage occurs. If you have any vending questions feel free to message us! We want to be more active in the community!

 

Zach Simpson

Quiet Corner Vending

Woodstock, CT

http://www.quietcornervending.com/

 

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