The Location Equation

[Nate9303]

I was hoping to gather you all's thoughts on what might make a location good or bad. I wonder what the perfect location equation might be.

You hear stuff like:

high traffic

trapped audience

places where quarters are used

Maybe each person could list their gravy location(s) and maybe say a few words as to what you believe makes it an awesome location.

I was thinking this information might be useful as we locate machines. It might help to steer us in the right direction...give a little foretaste of the feast to come.

[Nate9303]

My best location is a steel recycling plant.

Here's what I think makes it a good spot.

1. First of all it has over 300 employees.

2. It is open 16 hours a day.

3. It has drink, snack, and sandwich machines but no bulk candy machines.

4. I also think the success might have something to do with the abundance of blue collar workers. I think they are more likely to carry cash and less likely to bring food from home. (This is just my thoughts and observations)

I've placed two different machines at this location and they both have done over $50 a month. I need more places like this. Unfortunately they are hard to pitch. You can't just walk in and find the manager. I happened to know the owner of the place so I got lucky. I wonder how you might get in contact with the right folks at a plant like this?

[PerformaVending]

My best (usually, though it moves with the seasons, and has had a few "bad" weeks) is a single-head bouncy ball machine at a local mall, which can be seen in my gallery.

It's in a good spot for a number of reasons. First, it's in the "kid" area of the mall, near the karate center is, the community theater, youth services, a daycare, etc. It can be seen from pretty much every angle because of it's unusual dimensions. Kids love bouncy balls, and getting quarters is easy for little kids. Even poor families can spare a quarter.

The mall is air conditioned. A lot of families will visit the mall because they can lounge around in the air conditioning when it gets hot. This is a huge boon to the restaurants, stores, and my machines.

The mall has weekly events that always draw crowds. Crowds have kids- boom, quarters for me.

This is one location where a drop-through mech is an absolute must. I've pulled tons of pennies, nickles and dimes out of this thing.