Full time job, part-time income?

[borman2006]

Hello there,

I’m a new member who is looking to get an advice from seasoned professionals of the bulk candy vending business. When I initially started looking into this business opportunity, I was very encouraged. I’m a full time computer professional and am looking for a Plan “B” solution in case our current “recovering” and “middle-class killing” economy would eventually leave me unemployed and competing for a handful of jobs with thousands of other middle-aged professionals.

  My interest in this business opportunity grew considerably when I recently discovered Antoine Cameron’s quick read “How to Start a Vending Business“. In his book Antoine claimed to have had 312 locations, which were producing ~$77K in yearly income. This sounded impressive especially considering him spending 24 hours a month managing it.   Antoine made a task of purchasing and placing 100 machines in the first year sound so easy. While using a combination of Craigslist/Ebay ($50-$60 per Triple Header machine) and placement service ($40-$50 a placement), I arrived at $90-$110 per placement in total, an investment Antoine said could be reclaimed within the first 6-8 months of the placement. It sounded like a no brainer.   After reading your posts on this wonderful and VERY useful forum though, I got a bit discouraged. It seemed that in his book Antoine listed his gross revenue and the actual income couldn’t have been more than $40K a year. Also, his estimate of spending only 24 hours a month on 312 locations seemed to be a bit underinflated. And this is coming from a book-writing self-proclaimed “guru”.   I’ve also seen calculations/projections from a guy on this forum, who attracted this task fairly aggressively and arrived to approximately the same ~300 locations and $70+ in revenue after 7 years of very active (not part-time) work.   It sounded more like a full time job with a part-time income, because I’m sure that a vending man that works full time for a company makes at least $20 an hour with no hassle of tending to books, risking his own capital, and brainstorming about business development.     So, my questions to “seen it all” vending experts on this wonderful forum are:

 

  ·         Is this the best you can do in the bulk candy business?

 

·         Are my assumptions about servicing 300 locations being a full time job actually correct?     Please share your success story if you can.     Thank you in advance!!!

 

 

[VendingExperts]

Well, 300 machines divided by 24 hours equals 12.5 machines per hour.

Considering that it only takes 5-10 mins to service each machine. I would say this is possible.

However, that time would not include travel time.

IMO I think you could easily service 30 to 40 machines in a day. Therefore it would take you 7.5-10 days to service 300 machines a month.

$77,000 divided by 300 machines equals $21.39 per machine per month.

I personally have experienced no less than $25/month for my machines. However, many on this forum would argue that is higher than average and it is only a matter of time until I have a location dip below that average,and that the conventional average is more around $15-$20. Although, some find locations that do well over that.

But again, I would say that $77,000 is possible with 300 machines if they are all good locations. But that would most likely be gross.

$77,000 divided by 90-120 days equals $642-$856 per day.

$642-$856 divided by say 12 hour days equals $53.50-$71.34 per hour.

Again this is most likely gross.

I believe this is very plausible!

Bulk vending I wouldn't say is "easy" work, but I definitely feel you receive what you put into it, and if you dedicate yourself to building a profitable route, you will reap the benefits!

This is true for any sales or commission job, work hard and and get paid well. I would say that building a six figure a year route is very doable, but you are going to have to work at it.

My initial goal is to build to 100 locations.

My ultimate goal would be to build 600 locations. I most likely will branch into other vending machine set ups before then that would provide me equal income building quality over quantity.

(Disclaimer the above figures are rough figures and only meant as a guide)

[VendingExperts]

By the way... Welcome to TVF! Read and learn what you can and build an empire of your own!

[jerry1973]

borman2006, welcome to the forum! One thing that has not been mentioned in this thread is the fact that all machines dont have to be serviced every month. If you stay clear of product that has very limited life (chocolate mainly) then you can stretch your service intervals out to 8+ weeks. Then you are looking at something a lot more doable (300 machines / 8 weeks = ~37 machines per week). Since it takes only around 5 minutes to service an average bulk machine + maybe 5 minutes to visit with the location, you can service a location in usually less than 10 minutes once you become organized and familiar with the location/machines. So 37 machines per week x 10 minutes = 370 minutes per week / 60 = 6.16 hours per week. Now that is not accounting for travel time which will eat up a lot more time than the actual servicing of the machines. Try to stick with product with long shelf life and try to get your locations as close together as possible for maximum efficiency.

 

There is a lot of potential in the numbers, however just like with anything else, there will be problems that arise here and there that will interfere with your plans on paper. Good luck in your venture