Making an Old Route Profitable

[MrKentuckian]

OK, so most of you know that my minor son & I acquired a bulk vending route of 35 machines around the 1st of April. Again, as most of you know, this was a very neglected route that we have been working hard to turn around these past few months. We have done about everything but remove poor performing machines from businesses. We have temporarily taken out machines to clean them and make "ant proof", changed up products and replaced from gum ball heads to bulk vending heads, and removed from a couple of businesses for newer and better (we hope) locations. I'd say out of the 21 machines that were located at the time of our purchase, only 4 locations brought in $9-$10+ each month. We have subscribed to vend-trak software program to keep track of everything and reports are showing no light at the end of the tunnel. We are finding some new profitable locations from time to time and have discovered that our best products are plain M&M's, dry roasted peanuts & cashews, and most recently pastel hospitality butter mints at our 2 bar/restaurant locations (no chain restaurants). We are doing our best to "weeding out" chewing gum and gum balls because they do not sell here except for gum balls at my eye doctor friend's office located in a Wal-Mart (gum balls & peanut M&M here).

 

I am asking for guidance from seasoned bulk vendors as to what steps we'll need to take.

 

I think my answer is to start fresh in search for better locations and, once obtained, move machines out of poor performing locations to new location because $2-$4 a month is a waste of our time. Our reasonable goal would be $10+ per machine (all double-head) per location.

 

Products:

Reese's Pieces (do OK but not great)

M&M (Great)

Peanut M&M (OK)

Dry Roasted Peanuts (Great...may need to clean machine quarterly but worth the risk)

Cashews (Weeding out to peanuts because only 30% ROI)

Skittles (OK but not great)

Chewing Gum tabs (only do well at bar locations)

Gum Balls (not good except for one location mentioned above)

Trail Mix (tried once at a healthy conscious doctor's office & failed so they have peanut M&M)

Pastel Butter Mints (verdict is still out but seems to do well at restaurant/bar locations)

 

Thanks for listening and we welcome all advice.  By the way, our machines are 35 double-head V-Line, 1 single-head; 1 triple-head Amerivend (trying to find just the right location for this one).

 

 

 

 

[Makes Cents]

Here is what I would do.

1- Streamline your inventory. Establish a standard product menu of no more than 6-7 or so best selling bulk candy items. Here is an example: M&Mpeanut, Skittles, Mike & Ike, Hot Tamale, Reeses Pieces, 1" Gumballs.

2-Establish a minimum sales amount you'll accept per location. If your machines produce less, try and do a product change to increase sales. If that dosent work, relocate. If my doubles make less than $12 per month, I relocate. Start relocating first with the lowest performers.

3- I would get rid of Vendtrak. That money can purchase one location per month from a locator if your not locating yourself. You can download a route sheet from the download section of the forum for use in Excell and they have the info you need.

4- Use whatever net the route is making to buy new locations.

5- When route is dialed in, use route net to buy used machines at a good price to locate.

[jerry1973]

I agree with everything that Makes Cents said, and I believe he gave very good advise. Do you live in an urban area or a rural one? The more population you have to work with, obviously the more opportunity that you have.

 

I would also agree with you that $2-$4 per month out of any vending machine is a complete waste of time, and probably a loss of money with stale product. I would aim for a bare minimum of $10 per machine and try to use as much long lasting candy (or toys/stickers/temp tattoos) as possible, that way you could service every 8 weeks or more instead of every 4, maximizing your collections per gallon of fuel and time.

 

Then if all you can find are $10 per month stops, you will just have to find more of them. It would take longer to get your money back, but still would eventually make money. Eventually you will get a location that will be far above average, and that will help to bring your average up, and bring encouragement to you, pushing you to find more.

 

I recently posted of my best bulk performer, its a tall gas pump style gumball machine that last friday took in $202 (before a 10% commission) for 30 days. I would only service it every 8 weeks, but it would simply run out of product before then. That huge stop brings up my averages across the board and makes me want to go full throttle after every account that I can find that is similar.

[shepherdsflock]

5- When route is dialed in, use route net to buy used machines at a good price to locate.

 

Definitely this!

 

I would also add, that whatever equipment you buy with your earnings, try to get some machines that can sell toys. You're missing out on some great earnings by staying strictly with candy.

[GagesVending]

Maybe toys is the way to go in some of those locations.  If it didn't require buying more machines, I would suggest selling peppermint patties and Hershey's Nuggets, but you can't sell them out of bulk machines and I'm sure the last thing you want to do is spend more money on equipment.  

 

I'm sure that not all of your locations would benefit from selling toys, but for some of those (you mentioned restaurants and the eye doctor's office inside Walmart).  Those should do great with toys!  If the machine is placed near the entry of the eye doctor's office, you might even get some Walmart customer traffic too, so I'd try a larger set-up there with toys.