Where do you get your nerds gum balls?

[daggermouth]

The cheapest I have found on the net is about $.07 a gum ball delivered. Anybody able to get them cheaper? Where?

Anybody use them for 25 cent vends? Are sales usually higher for these versus your standard dubble bubble?

I appreciate your help.

[bulkjake]

I get them from Amazon or from OK Manufacturing depending on their current price. I use them only when competition is using DB in the same location.

[Lake Cities Vending]

I've been wonder the same. Do the Nerds or Better brand of gumballs increase sales? I still get mine at Sam's.

[treadmill]

Nerds sell better than reg. gimballs. I get mine from A&A. Since I drive for a living I can plan a trip to the east coast and pick them. When I do that I beleive cost is around .045 per gumball. Now of course that is without the cost of fuel which is usually covered by my trucking company.

[sherlock]

I've been wonder the same. Do the Nerds or Better brand of gumballs increase sales? I still get mine at Sam's.

I'd love to hear some experiences with this too.

I have often considered going to the more expensive gum, but always hesitated because I have never heard anything solid about the increase in cost being justified.

Sure the flavor may last longer and the gum chew a little longer without getting hard, but all of that is irrelevant if you are selling only a little more of those than you would of DB.

The more expensive GB's would have to sell almost twice as much to make it worth it given the product cost comparison.

I wonder if my trying to sell expensive higher quality GB's out of my 25cent machine wouldn't be the equivelant of McDonalds trying to put prime rib in their McRibs.

Like people who eat at McDonalds, customers only expect so much from a gumball machine, especially for 25cents.

A better gumball my not make them buy twice as many, just as most people wouldn't eat twice as many McRibs just because they started using prime rib.

At some point in our quest to provide top-quality products, we need to avoid sliding towards diminishing returns.

You don't see the full-line guys putting gourmet chocolates in their machines...they pretty much stick to Hershey.

Again...I am not saying those gourmet GB's aren't worth the money....because I don't know.

That is my question: Have vendors who use both Double Bubble and gourmet GB's like Nerds notice enough of an increase in sales over the different types of gum to justify the extra cost?

[shepherdsflock]

I have one place that sells Nerds gumballs pretty well at 50 cents. It equals out to about the same profit margin as DB gumballs at 25 cents. I've got at a laundromat that sells DB gumballs like crazy, I've got two heads selling them at that location. I'm thinking about picking up a 50 cent coin mech and tossing in some Nerds gumballs in one of the heads just to see how they do head to head against the DB gumballs. I figure one of two things would happen: either my DB sales would remain steady and the Nerds wouldn't sell at 50 cents, or the Nerds would grab about 25 percent of the sales from my DB head and offer a nice little boost in cashflow.

[sherlock]

I have one place that sells Nerds gumballs pretty well at 50 cents. It equals out to about the same profit margin as DB gumballs at 25 cents. I've got at a laundromat that sells DB gumballs like crazy, I've got two heads selling them at that location. I'm thinking about picking up a 50 cent coin mech and tossing in some Nerds gumballs in one of the heads just to see how they do head to head against the DB gumballs. I figure one of two things would happen: either my DB sales would remain steady and the Nerds wouldn't sell at 50 cents, or the Nerds would grab about 25 percent of the sales from my DB head and offer a nice little boost in cashflow.

Great info. Thanks.

Please let us know how it goes if you do decide to do the head-to-head Nerds-vs-DB at that laundry.

That would be really helpful.

[shepherdsflock]

Will do. It might be a while before I do it. I have other priorities that I need to take care of first before I start experimenting.

[Nate9303]

I've got nerds gum and DB gum in the same rack. The nerds gum always outsells the DB gumballs but I'm not sure I'm picking up any sales I wouldn't get if I only carried One type of Gumball.

[shepherdsflock]

I've got nerds gum and DB gum in the same rack. The nerds gum always outsells the DB gumballs but I'm not sure I'm picking up any sales I wouldn't get if I only carried One type of Gumball.

Are you selling them at the same price? I wouldn't be at all surprised if Nerds outsold DB at the same price. I'm curious to see if the Nerds gumballs can compete at 50 cents against the DB gumballs at 25 cents.

[Nate9303]

Are you selling them at the same price? I wouldn't be at all surprised if Nerds outsold DB at the same price. I'm curious to see if the Nerds gumballs can compete at 50 cents against the DB gumballs at 25 cents.

Same price for the two. The funny thing is that the nerds gum will only sell about 20% more than the double bubble gum.

[sherlock]

Thanks for that info Nate9303.

At the same price point, I would have guessed the nerds would be doing a lot better.

Do you plan to keep offering the two side-by-side?

[bulkjake]

To answer the second part of your question:

My entire route (105 locations at the time) used entirely Nerds gum balls. I began slowly switching them out to DB. I did not see enough drop in sales to justify the extra cost with shipping for Nerds. Some locations actually increased in sales with DB. The funny part is, I stopped using labels for gum balls... I wrote a thread on this I will try and find it.

[treadmill]

I wouldn't pay .50 for a gumball. Just sayin.

[Nate9303]

Thanks for that info Nate9303.

At the same price point, I would have guessed the nerds would be doing a lot better.

Do you plan to keep offering the two side-by-side?

I'm thinking of replacing them with bouncy balls. I'll take my leftovers and sell them in one of my other racks. I think I doubled up (at the time) out of necessity. I got the location and wanted to fill it as soon as possible and that was what I had.

[sherlock]

I'm thinking of replacing them with bouncy balls. I'll take my leftovers and sell them in one of my other racks. I think I doubled up (at the time) out of necessity. I got the location and wanted to fill it as soon as possible and that was what I had.

I see.

Well, I am glad you did it...you have given me some info I have been wanting to learn for a while now.

To answer the second part of your question:

My entire route (105 locations at the time) used entirely Nerds gum balls. I began slowly switching them out to DB. I did not see enough drop in sales to justify the extra cost with shipping for Nerds. Some locations actually increased in sales with DB. The funny part is, I stopped using labels for gum balls... I wrote a thread on this I will try and find it.

Thanks bulkjake.

I appreciate the info.

Been wanting to learn about real-world results for a while and thanks to you and Nate9303, I'm learning that maybe I was right to hesitate pulling the trigger on some gourmet GB's.

[musser]

I have some stops that do better with nerds but not that many. But then again I use Carousel ( Ford) gum that always outsells concord 2:1, but to get Carousel gum you either need to order a lot or be close to Chicago (Lincolnshire to be exact) so you can pick it up.

I know that some folks do well with seedlings, I even know a couple of guys that buy several straight flavors and make their own "mix".

I made the mistake of ordering 1430 assorted from A&A once, oldest product I ever saw, terrible, the gum was like Jaw Breakers.

[allsnax]

I had stops where I used nerds and they did good at first but then sales started dropping. I eventually switched most out to fruitstand and sales increased and stayed steady.

[bulkjake]

Here is the original thread I stared...

[sherlock]

Here is the original thread I stared...

http://vendiscuss.ne...page__hl__nerds

Wow! I missed that thread altogether.

THANKS for the link!