How much would you pay?

[SMS]

There's a guy on craigslist selling a redbull drink vending machine and it's location. It is located within a frat house with 60-70 members. The deal between the seller and the frat is $5/month regardless of sales and it can be the same for whoever takes over ownership of the machine. He's selling because he's moving out of state. Asking $1500. How much would some of you guys offer, of you would be interested at all?

Thanks for the help

[dogcow]

what are the sales, my gut feeling says its not worth it.

[shepherdsflock]

If it's like the other red bull machines I've seen for sale, it only sells red bull. The ones I've seen around here I think are only three or four selections. I'm with docow, I'd want to see some verification of sales for the last year or at least six months.

[AngryChris]

I saw a machine that was advertising redbull and was actually a DN 276E which I was going to buy for $500 but someone got to it before I could. As shepherd mentioned though, if it's the more common redbull labeled machine with 3 or 4 selections, I would get verification on the sales. In fact, I would pass on the offer entirely, but that's me.

[mission vending]

If it was me I'd take a pass. Niche market machines have little actual value. In this case the location MIGHT give it some value. I can't think of a better potential location than a frat house. Get some sales numbers to see if it is doing enough business to be worthwhile. Even so unless it doing great sales I can't envision going over 500 in a best case scenario.

[dogcow]

Mission have u ever had machines in a frat house

I have an "in" but nevrer really considered it, do they do well?

Even w 70 members they aren't going to be there all the time usually there's just a handful that live there

[AngryChris]

Mission have u ever had machines in a frat house

I have an "in" but nevrer really considered it, do they do well?

Even w 70 members they aren't going to be there all the time usually there's just a handful that live there

I have NOT ever had a frat house, nor am I mission, but I have done a few colleges and universities in the past. I can tell you that while soda sales are "okay" to say the best, the most common type of beverage that you will see scattered across the floors will usually contain alcohol. Unless these kids ALL have a HUGE fascination with mixing redbull with liquor or if they are ALL HUGE redbull fans, I don't see this place doing very well. With a combined total of about 6 years of vending experience, I think I have had requests for redbull maybe 5 times. Point: it's really not that big of a deal to people who don't consume it ALL the time.

[SMS]

Thanks for all the info everyone. I'm attempting to get sales info from him, but it seems that he did the whole thing under the table, stocking it when he needs to just to make a dime and not exactly keeping record of sales. Now, regardless of the sales, does anyone think that it might be worth it simply due to the ease of operation? i.e. It sells so little that it only needs to be restocked monthly and would take a while to begin making money, but the low amount of work involved from that point on makes it worth it? Feel free to smack me down if I'm missing some very important considerations, I'm new to most of this and the thought of restocking a 3 selection machine appeals to me in contrast to a snack or soda machine.

Thanks again, all great info.

[dogcow]

Thanks for all the info everyone. I'm attempting to get sales info from him, but it seems that he did the whole thing under the table, stocking it when he needs to just to make a dime and not exactly keeping record of sales. Now, regardless of the sales, does anyone think that it might be worth it simply due to the ease of operation? i.e. It sells so little that it only needs to be restocked monthly and would take a while to begin making money, but the low amount of work involved from that point on makes it worth it? Feel free to smack me down if I'm missing some very important considerations, I'm new to most of this and the thought of restocking a 3 selection machine appeals to me in contrast to a snack or soda machine.

Thanks again, all great info.

even under the table he should know how much hes making

the short answer is, no i do not think its a good idea, even if its low hassle.

the longer answer : no because even if its low hassle you will take a LONG time to get a return

on your investment, and then what? you have this machine that isnt really worth anything.

for the same price you could get a soda+snack or a few soda machines and palce them out

at low volume accts and then have some decent assets to sell if you needed.

basically you need to look at the "opportunity cost" which is a fancy way to say is there something

better you can be doing with the money, if the answer is yes then you should not do it.

[Walta]

Be careful most schools have a contract for the whole campus.

Is this in a privately owned building?

Walta

[SMS]

Yeah it is a building off campus. Thanks for all the great info everyone.

[mission vending]

Mission have u ever had machines in a frat house

I have an "in" but nevrer really considered it, do they do well?

Even w 70 members they aren't going to be there all the time usually there's just a handful that live there

No, no frat house experience. Like angrychris mentioned I am aware of the trend of college age kids to mix Red Bull with their liquor. That's why I thought for the right price that in a frat house the Red Bull machine might actually make a few bucks.