mcvendingservicesjax Posted October 1, 2013 Share Posted October 1, 2013 Just got a new location. Office building with 150 employees. No commission discussed. I'm a small fish in a big pond. This would be my 3rd location. It's just me and my father-in-law. I have a full time job and he's retired. We take no money out of the vending business and grow it when we have the funds to purchase equipment. Our 1st location is an office with 40 employees. We are using a Royal 650 and AP 111. Our second location is a private school with 250 students. Royal 650 and AMS 39 with a chiller located in the cafeteria. I would like equipment suggestions for the new office with 150 employees. I like the Royal 650 and I'm familiar with it. I like the AMS 39, but I think it's kind of too big with too many choices. I'm not opposed to trying different machines. I just don't know what's out there that's reliable and relatively easy to maintain. I don't have contracts with any of my locations. I do pay the school 10% of sales. All the locations have been people I know so it's just been a hand shake agreement. Any advise would be appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Golfdogs Posted October 1, 2013 Share Posted October 1, 2013 Just got a new location. Office building with 150 employees. No commission discussed. I'm a small fish in a big pond. This would be my 3rd location. It's just me and my father-in-law. I have a full time job and he's retired. We take no money out of the vending business and grow it when we have the funds to purchase equipment. Our 1st location is an office with 40 employees. We are using a Royal 650 and AP 111. Our second location is a private school with 250 students. Royal 650 and AMS 39 with a chiller located in the cafeteria. I would like equipment suggestions for the new office with 150 employees. I like the Royal 650 and I'm familiar with it. I like the AMS 39, but I think it's kind of too big with too many choices. I'm not opposed to trying different machines. I just don't know what's out there that's reliable and relatively easy to maintain. I don't have contracts with any of my locations. I do pay the school 10% of sales. All the locations have been people I know so it's just been a hand shake agreement. Any advise would be appreciated. I too, use the Royal 650. Beside the occasional busted knuckle, I really like these machines. Very versitile and good capacity. Stick with what you know there. I am not familiar with the AMS machines. I have National, AP and USI snacks. I like the AP 113. With 150 folks at the location, you will need a big machine and this one would handle it. Good luck! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcvendingservicesjax Posted October 1, 2013 Author Share Posted October 1, 2013 So I went to the location and took some measurements. The width of the space where the vending machines go is 76 inches. There are 2 dedicated 110 circuits. I'm leaning towards going with a refurbished royal 650 and refurbished AP 122. The Royal 650 with an upgraded Conlux coin mech and bill validator is 1800.00 and the AP 122 with upgraded Conlux coin mech and bill validator along with the sensit system is 2095.00. My office is 2 buildings away from this location, so I'll be able to check up on and service this location with ease. Do I need to start having accounts sign a contract? Does anyone have a contract I can use? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted October 1, 2013 Share Posted October 1, 2013 So I went to the location and took some measurements. The width of the space where the vending machines go is 76 inches. There are 2 dedicated 110 circuits. I'm leaning towards going with a refurbished royal 650 and refurbished AP 122. The Royal 650 with an upgraded Conlux coin mech and bill validator is 1800.00 and the AP 122 with upgraded Conlux coin mech and bill validator along with the sensit system is 2095.00. My office is 2 buildings away from this location, so I'll be able to check up on and service this location with ease. Do I need to start having accounts sign a contract? Does anyone have a contract I can use? Those are some nice locations. I do believe the AP 122 would be using the golden-eye drop sensor and not sensit (sensit is for AMS). Regardless, I would say that your combination would work fine. However, for 150 employees (if they ALL have access), I would go with a 5-wide snack simply for the extra selections. If space is a problem though, you definitely want to have enough soda too. I believe I also have a Royal 650 but I don't care for Royals myself (bad luck with them). I think your best bet would be to put in a regular size soda machine that's no bigger than a 501e or equivalent size, and go with a 5-wide if you can make it all fit. Since you said you already have an AP 111, the AP 122 isn't far off in terms of parts so it makes sense to stick with another AP unit (that way you can probably purchase extra motors/spirals for either machine if they are interchangeable). Going with the Royal-650 may be a great choice for you because that's all you have in your inventory. It would be GREAT to have identical equipment on every location because you only need ONE spare board, ONE spare coin mech, ONE spare bill acceptor, and maybe a few spare motors for every soda machine you have. You could easily carry these spares with you in case any machine messes up and quickly fix it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Golfdogs Posted October 2, 2013 Share Posted October 2, 2013 So I went to the location and took some measurements. The width of the space where the vending machines go is 76 inches. There are 2 dedicated 110 circuits. I'm leaning towards going with a refurbished royal 650 and refurbished AP 122. The Royal 650 with an upgraded Conlux coin mech and bill validator is 1800.00 and the AP 122 with upgraded Conlux coin mech and bill validator along with the sensit system is 2095.00. My office is 2 buildings away from this location, so I'll be able to check up on and service this location with ease. Do I need to start having accounts sign a contract? Does anyone have a contract I can use? I have 32 accounts and NO contracts. The best contract is to give them great service so they won't kick you out. As Mission says, "keep them full, keep them clean and keep them working." Do this, and you will grow long-term relationships that don't need contracts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris in bc Posted October 2, 2013 Share Posted October 2, 2013 The royals are the best. I used them at accounts that vend 1000 cans per month. You just can't beat a royal! I used crane national 5 wides. I spec them this way; 1) LED lights 2) clean glass 3) 13 count chip coils 4) 18-24 count candy coils 5) 6th tray contains cookies with all 2o count coils 6) 7th tray from Vendors exchange is used for vending gum and mints-well worth the investment-especially at schools and car stealerships 7) all my newest machines in the last 15 months have vendors exchange UCB ( universal control boards) some locations have 2 four wide snack machines beside each other. In fact I will be removing a Crane merchant 6 wide ( model 181)and placing 2x crane national 4 wide snack vendors. One snack for chips and the other snack vendor for choc bars and those larger 85 gram bags of chips. I always ask my locations If I can place 2 pop machines-one for cans and one for bottles! More revenue per stop! Vendors exchange is great to deal with-they have a lot of "innovative" parts for vendors that make you lots of money! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris in bc Posted October 2, 2013 Share Posted October 2, 2013 Oh yeah-do not run your business with out these-this is a pic of a black frozen food product pusher-this "product pusher" does not crack or fly off the ends of the coils. Expensive but worth it! http://www.dsvendinginc.com/p-6998-d440215-ap-product-pusher.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QualitySelectionsJ Posted October 3, 2013 Share Posted October 3, 2013 The 5 wide Nationals have a very good rep. Dixie Narco is another option if you want to try something new (besides Royal). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcvendingservicesjax Posted October 3, 2013 Author Share Posted October 3, 2013 I've decided to go with the AP 122 refurbished and I'm going to buy a new drink machine. I'm considering the Royal 650 live display and the Vendo 721. Does anyone have any opinions regarding these machines. I'm also considering using a credit card reader for both machines. Anybody have an opinion about that? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted October 4, 2013 Share Posted October 4, 2013 I've decided to go with the AP 122 refurbished and I'm going to buy a new drink machine. I'm considering the Royal 650 live display and the Vendo 721. Does anyone have any opinions regarding these machines. I'm also considering using a credit card reader for both machines. Anybody have an opinion about that? Thanks. I absolutely love my Vendo 721. It holds something in the realm of 28 bottles in each column which is AWESOME when you are low (but not sold out) on product and you can still fit an entire case in the column. It also uses a drop-sensor which is awesome. I don't think you need shims or anything. The machine can vend just about anything just by changing the programming. I think you are supposed to change the cams but the drop sensor solves that anyway. As for the credit card reader... My rule is that a machine must gross over $150/week to justify a reader. In an office, it may be a great idea because a lot of office personnel seem to like to use their cards so they don't have to carry cash. It's a little tricky to get the first one installed due to a learning curve but it is important to get the RECEPTION checked out before you invest in a reader. Make sure that you get a good wireless signal, unless you have a reader that connects directly to the internet via an ethernet cable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZVendor Posted October 4, 2013 Share Posted October 4, 2013 it is important to get the RECEPTION checked out before you invest in a reader. This only works if you know who the cellular provider for your card reader supplier is. Then if your cell phone is with that provider you can find out ahead of time. Otherwise you won't be able to tell the signal strength until you mock up the card reader in the machine and get the RSSI reading off of it. You can get high gain antennas and external antennas to use in weak signal areas, but there are some places where the card reader just won't get a signal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moondog Posted October 4, 2013 Share Posted October 4, 2013 I absolutely love my Vendo 721. It holds something in the realm of 28 bottles in each column which is AWESOME when you are low (but not sold out) on product and you can still fit an entire case in the column. It also uses a drop-sensor which is awesome. I don't think you need shims or anything. The machine can vend just about anything just by changing the programming. I think you are supposed to change the cams but the drop sensor solves that anyway. As for the credit card reader... My rule is that a machine must gross over $150/week to justify a reader. In an office, it may be a great idea because a lot of office personnel seem to like to use their cards so they don't have to carry cash. It's a little tricky to get the first one installed due to a learning curve but it is important to get the RECEPTION checked out before you invest in a reader. Make sure that you get a good wireless signal, unless you have a reader that connects directly to the internet via an ethernet cable. Yep, I read a review on the 721. Apparently Vendo is using a vend system identical to the Royal Merlin IV - about time they wised up. Just load it and program it for can depth. There is one quick adjustment for can/bottle width but that's it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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