tikoblack Posted August 3, 2012 Share Posted August 3, 2012 My wife decided to give vending a try after my 10 year hiatus of the change hustle. We recently purchased 7 UTurn 8 selection Terminators. We just placed our 5th machine today. So far we have 1.) Restaurant 2.) Tax/credit establishment 3.) Payday Loans 4.) Womens Beauty and Day Spa 5.) Barbershop 6.) Pull a Part (will place our sixth in the morning) My wife and I have a goal to place machines in a total of 100 locations. I can feel the excitement in my veins LOL. Our goal is to do something meaningful together and use our gains to have fun. I don't have a clue as to what a 100 location route would produce, being that I operated in soda and chip before. This site is AWESOME!!!! AND TOTALLY ROCKS!!!!!!!!!! Thank you all for the shares of information. Look forward to laughing all the way to the bank and also sharing are victories as we start our quest for abundance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mission vending Posted August 3, 2012 Share Posted August 3, 2012 My wife decided to give vending a try after my 10 year hiatus of the change hustle. We recently purchased 7 UTurn 8 selection Terminators. We just placed our 5th machine today. So far we have 1.) Restaurant 2.) Tax/credit establishment 3.) Payday Loans 4.) Womens Beauty and Day Spa 5.) Barbershop 6.) Pull a Part (will place our sixth in the morning) My wife and I have a goal to place machines in a total of 100 locations. I can feel the excitement in my veins LOL. Our goal is to do something meaningful together and use our gains to have fun. I don't have a clue as to what a 100 location route would produce, being that I operated in soda and chip before. This site is AWESOME!!!! AND TOTALLY ROCKS!!!!!!!!!! Thank you all for the shares of information. Look forward to laughing all the way to the bank and also sharing are victories as we start our quest for abundance. Glad you found this place. I'd suggest reading up on the older threads, especially equipment reviews so you can determine if the U-turn business model will continue to work for you http://vendiscuss.net/index.php?/topic/12754-more-proof-y-u-want-to-stay-away-from-terminators/ http://vendiscuss.net/index.php?/topic/12499-regarding-u-turns-at-what-point/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronsidney Posted August 3, 2012 Share Posted August 3, 2012 where are you located?? if that restaurant is busy you will see it will do more than the others combined..gotta stick with restaurants on a small route of just 100 machines..i don't like uturns, i think they are a biz op machine,i don't like any candy period but hey we all have our opinions... wish you the best and if i can help let me know,,love chatting about vending.. ron www.blazingquarters.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PerformaVending Posted August 3, 2012 Share Posted August 3, 2012 Welcome aboard! I don't have a real high opinion of U-Turns, but if they work for you, I wish you the best of luck! If you run into trouble, odds are good somebody here knows just what to do. Again, welcome, and good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tikoblack Posted August 3, 2012 Author Share Posted August 3, 2012 I'm located in Georgia. What are some of the problems that you all have experienced with uturns? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PerformaVending Posted August 3, 2012 Share Posted August 3, 2012 I'm located in Georgia. What are some of the problems that you all have experienced with uturns? U-Turns are notoriously difficult to service and locate. While they have a commanding presence and product capacity, it's overkill for most locations. The added downside is that tracking and maintaining 8 products is more difficult than say, 2 or 3. With candy, you can have some serious losses due to spoilage. To add another mark against them, their coin mechanisms aren't very good compared to other mechanisms in the industry. Coin collection can be difficult as the coin trays are difficult to "stick" in one place. In the end, carousel style machines are just too "big" for most locations, especially for a candy route. For more details, search anything by "JLM" as he's gone through a real nightmare with U-Turns of all varieties. If they work for you, I applaud your success! Good luck on your vending endeavor! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tikoblack Posted August 3, 2012 Author Share Posted August 3, 2012 Thanks for the feedback. I totally understand your concerns. I agree, the eight product mix if not distributed properly can cause spoilage. We've developed a system of both selection and measuring of products so that we can come out on top. As for the coin mechs, We haven't had an issue. I like the fact that the vendor have eight opportunities to get the consumer to spend 25 cents. The only downside that i see with the Uturns are the price. Wegot a great deal on them so we couldn't turn pass it up. Thanks for sharing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PerformaVending Posted August 3, 2012 Share Posted August 3, 2012 Thanks for the feedback. I totally understand your concerns. I agree, the eight product mix if not distributed properly can cause spoilage. We've developed a system of both selection and measuring of products so that we can come out on top. As for the coin mechs, We haven't had an issue. I like the fact that the vendor have eight opportunities to get the consumer to spend 25 cents. The only downside that i see with the Uturns are the price. Wegot a great deal on them so we couldn't turn pass it up. Thanks for sharing. Very interesting. As far as I know, you are one of a select few who can make U-Turns really "work". I'd be very interested to know more about your system, as are the other U-Turn operators I'm sure. I've always liked the looks of the machines, but their reputation precedes them in a bad way. Again, I wish you good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RGCV Posted August 3, 2012 Share Posted August 3, 2012 I read the subject line and thought this thread was about toilets. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tikoblack Posted August 3, 2012 Author Share Posted August 3, 2012 Wow, in Georgia just about every Wal-Mart has them in their break room. I'm thinking about putting an add out on Craigslist for every disgruntled Uturn cusyomer to call me lol. Now I must add that anyone that purchases these machines for $799.00 is just an idiot and deserves to 2.5 year to recoup their investment cost. But you cant go wrong when you can pick these up on Craigslist for $100.00 a pop. It takes me no more than 8 minutes to swap out my heads and collect. . If anyone on here wants to sell their UTurns, contact me @ callaverdor@gmail.com. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rdendy Posted August 3, 2012 Share Posted August 3, 2012 Welcome aboard and look forward to seeing you around in the forums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedvender Posted August 9, 2012 Share Posted August 9, 2012 I think 8 selection Uturn could work ok In a busy restaurant if you change to GB wheels and Modified them a little to sell toys out of them. Displays might be a little difficult but It should work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tikoblack Posted October 15, 2012 Author Share Posted October 15, 2012 Update, I've been back in da game for at least 2.5 months. We've placed a total of 15 machines as of this week. We've purchased over 19 machines with average prices from $100 (beat up but work) to $175.00 (excellent-like new) machines . Our first 9 machines brought in approximately $320 return for the month. Two machines alone brought in $150.00. The wife and I purchased an electronic coin counting machine and began a process for storing and quantifying profits. We are placing approximately 36 oz of candy in each container, We have calculated that we are paying an average .15 cents per ounce for 9 various products which equates to approximately $250.00 to fill 5 machines ($50 per 8 select machine). The profit margin is about 3 times the cost or more depending on the calibration we set each container to. All in all, I feel that we are on our way to a decent start. We spend a total of 10 hrs per week to scout for locations which amounts to 2 hrs per day. We are disciplined to this time due to my full time job. Our goal is to place 100 machines that could net at least $1,700 profit per month. Phase two of our plan is to extend our target market to the soda/chip combo sector by using the profits from the bulk candy (u turns) as a cash cow. We'd purchase 1 soda/chip machine every 60 days for a total of 6 stops per year without the need for financing. Please feel free to chime in and share your thoughts on our strategic goals, we are all ears. Thanks, Tiko Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
falls Posted October 15, 2012 Share Posted October 15, 2012 Phase two of our plan is to extend our target market to the soda/chip combo sector by using the profits from the bulk candy (u turns) as a cash cow. We'd purchase 1 soda/chip machine every 60 days for a total of 6 stops per year without the need for financing. Can I ask whether you mean a Combo machine, a drink and a snack machine, or either a drink or snack machine every 60 days? Contrary to popular opinion I like combo machines BUT they need to be full glassfronts to offer a decent drink/snack range, AND they need to be serviced very frequently to utilise the range offered - otherwise you need to double and triple up offerings in the machine which defeats the purpose. A Combo used with a single row of each product limits the number of each product severely (6 - 9 chips, c20 chocolates, 6-24 drinks depending on brand) Buying a pair of Drink and Snack machines is the safe option as far as far as maximising your options - both on one site or each on seperate sites BUT you will be severely hampered by the problem of 'stales' - products going out of date before you can sell them - until you have multiple snack machines (and consequently the ability to move stock from slow to fast moving locations). Buying a Drink or Snack machine when you have the money and a location for it is probably a safer way to go, but still has the problem of stales until you have multiple sites and/or extremely good inventory tracking. My suggestion would be to buy drink machines first (say 3) and site them. Once you find out how the drinks machines are going (or not going) offer to upgrade the site with a snack machine and buy one (or buy 2 or 3 ) at that time and co-locate with the existing 'good' drink account(s) as well as look for a snack location for the next placement in 60 days. Basically drinks have a much longer shelf life than snacks. My 2c Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mission vending Posted October 15, 2012 Share Posted October 15, 2012 As mentioned starting out the out of dates will be a significant issue. I would recommend either saving up and then buy or build a small route of 5-8 locations as quickly as possible. Another option would be to look at soda location with honor boxes as a interim step. We have a dedicated section for the honor box business model if you want more info about that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tikoblack Posted October 15, 2012 Author Share Posted October 15, 2012 Falls, I like the idea of purchasing the soda machines, monitoring the sales, and then upgrading with chips on a as needed basis. Thats a smart move. Mission, I didn't have a lot of luck with honor boxes in the past. I did well with mechanicals or soda machines. This is my first shot a bulk. So far so good. My plan to migrate to soda machines will start in the summer of 2013. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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