spdydre Posted October 27, 2013 Share Posted October 27, 2013 Just got an email from a potential account and the guy said his wife is demanding only stainless steel and glass machines. LoL think ill pass on this one. What crazy requests have you guys gotten from customers or potential customers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moondog Posted October 27, 2013 Share Posted October 27, 2013 Just got an email from a potential account and the guy said his wife is demanding only stainless steel and glass machines. LoL think ill pass on this one. What crazy requests have you guys gotten from customers or potential customers? She wants a Micro Mart which would be fine if they had 200 employees who all made 75k plus a year - I'm guessing they don't Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spdydre Posted October 27, 2013 Author Share Posted October 27, 2013 yep 30 employees! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted October 27, 2013 Share Posted October 27, 2013 A lot of customers refuse to accept the fact that their location is small... they believe that having high incomes means they deserve high-value equipment. If they are willing to buy the equipment and let me stock it and make the profits, I will let them get all of the stainless steel vending machines they want (if they can get them lol). It also amazes me how customers always know more than vending than I do. "Can you put more healthy stuff in the machine?" No... you guys don't buy enough as it is. "That's because there isn't enough healthy stuff. We would buy more if you had more healthy stuff." Healthy? Like what? I have some granola bars, nuts, trail mix, animal crackers, pretzels, and some various other items." "We would like fresh sandwiches." I can't put fresh food in a snack machine. I would have to spend a lot of money on another machine for that. "Yeah but if you sell food, you will make more money!" Okay lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CajunCandy Posted October 28, 2013 Share Posted October 28, 2013 Or can you put some apples in the machine, I'm on a diet! LOL! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mission vending Posted October 28, 2013 Share Posted October 28, 2013 You know those fundraiser candy bars? I had one of my customers want me to put them in my machine and give her the money so she wouldn't have to deal with the hassle of keeping track of the money herself for her kids school fundraiser. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SeaTurtle Vending Posted October 28, 2013 Share Posted October 28, 2013 Mission, that is awesome! Definitely one of the funnier requests. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snack dude Posted October 28, 2013 Share Posted October 28, 2013 You know those fundraiser candy bars? I had one of my customers want me to put them in my machine and give her the money so she wouldn't have to deal with the hassle of keeping track of the money herself for her kids school fundraiser. Ding Ding We have a winner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QualitySelectionsJ Posted October 28, 2013 Share Posted October 28, 2013 Beer. I think he was kidding though... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snack dude Posted October 28, 2013 Share Posted October 28, 2013 I get the beer thing all the time, the funny part is everybody who says it thinks they are the only one to think of it. I had a customer a few years ago that when I got the account insisted that everybody in the building was health conscious and only wanted healthy snacks. First week I stock the machine with the usual granola trail mix baked chips stuff except for a row of snickers and M&M peanut ( my two biggest sellers). Come back in three days the snickers and M&Ms are sold out everything else is at full par. I inform the contact that I am going to give it another week and if it looks like that I would keep a few things in the machine but I was going to phase in some other stuff. She insisted that I take out the snickers and M&Ms, I refused Wonder what ever happened to those people? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amigo Posted October 28, 2013 Share Posted October 28, 2013 Healthy does not sell!!! If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around, does it make a sound? If a Snickers or "Non Healthy" food product (accidentally) comes out of a vending machine...does it count? Tomorrow I will eat healthy. Stainless Steel??? Are they nuts??? Years ago White Castle had cigarette machines in their stores and the only thing they would accept was stainless steel. National Vendors did make them and I believe they were an exclusive item for White Castle. However, they made enough money to warrant the cost. Give the account a can of stainless spray paint and tell them that is the best you can do. I love the calls when you get a new person in charge of the vending and they want all new equipment and they say, "If you can't do it I am sure there is a vendor that will." I just had that happen earlier this summer and I was tickled that I was able to say sorry, you just are not making enough money for me to replace your equipment, let me know when you have a new vendor lined up and I will pick our equipment up. We still have the location. They did call around but all our competition was 10 to 25 cents higher on everything and they told them they would be on a six month trial for cold food and at the end of six months if a profit wasn't be made then the food machine would be pulled. Thanks for hard nosed competition. We did clean all the existing equipment, converted lighting to led's and put new tuff fronts on. Their biggest complaint was that the food machine was shutting off frequently and service had to be called to reset it. When we pulled the machines out to clean, we found that they had cold food, soda, microwave ( on a drop cord) and refrigerator all on the same circuit. We insisted they get the cold food on a separate circuit, which they did and wondrously, our problems ceased. But, they know more than we do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mission vending Posted October 28, 2013 Share Posted October 28, 2013 But, they know more than we do. Yep, isn't it amazing that a office manager knows all about how to run a vending business? ..... They must have a vending management class as one of the courses in office manager school. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amigo Posted October 28, 2013 Share Posted October 28, 2013 I forgot one thing, years ago we had a couple of can machines that had beer in them. What we did was install a key switch connected to the beer button and the owner/manager had control and could turn the beer on at quitting time. The location provided the beer and we refunded the money from the beer purchases when we filled the machine as they were all single price machines at that time. We even rented a couple of machines to local taverns so people could buy beer instead of waiting in line on busy nights. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snack dude Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 anyone who has ever used a vending machine knows more than we do. you know you are doing it all wrong, Here is my theory for any place that claims to be healthy. People walk into the vending area and they look around and if there are other people around they look t the snack machine and say "I dont really want anything" and walk out. If no one is around they buy the snickers put it in the drawer of their desk and sneek little bites when no one is looking....LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted October 29, 2013 Share Posted October 29, 2013 I offer to sell my accounts to customers who try to tell me how to run my business. I have an account that only has space for a combo machine but it does about $1500/year in sales and profits close to $700/year. One guy kept telling me that, assuming I made $100/week in sales, I could easily profit $50-$60/week and profit $3,000 in one year. I offered to sell hem the account (USI GF-12 + CB-300 slave) for $1,000 and told him that, with his numbers, it would be paid off in 4 months. He never brought the topic up again. It was a good deal too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sprint54fan Posted October 31, 2013 Share Posted October 31, 2013 You know those fundraiser candy bars? I had one of my customers want me to put them in my machine and give her the money so she wouldn't have to deal with the hassle of keeping track of the money herself for her kids school fundraiser. I had this exact same request at a farming office once! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RJT Posted November 2, 2013 Share Posted November 2, 2013 It is funny to think from NC to Canada and back we all face very similar issues and problems that have been discussed in this thread. 40 person account wanting cold food and coffee machine Can you put in buttermilk? "We want healthy" when I ask like what they don’t have a clue. Guy calls me at 2am (yes 2am) telling me they are out of sporks and he can’t eat the pinto beans his wife packed in his lunch. I like this one "if it was cheaper you would sell more. Customer says, "You prices are high, I can buy a case of those (whatever) for such and such price." Typical small accounts wanting way more equipment than needed. I had a hotel wanting snack machines on every floor with eight floors. Said it was a corporate requirement. I told him maybe corporate should get into the vending business. We want new equipment request Had a plumbing supply ask if I could do a cold food machine "the guys in the morning really would like something to eat". Got any free samples? With a serious look and voice I tell them I have ordered free samples two weeks in a row and they still haven’t sent any yet. I then tell them I will request them again. We want salads request. I make an effort to put something different in all my machines weekly yet you always get that one person to say "can you put in anything different". 10 selections of candy and somebody will ask if you can put in something you don’t have. Once a week someone always says "I bet you are making a killing". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snack dude Posted November 2, 2013 Share Posted November 2, 2013 just look at them deadpan as hell and say "Free samples, I havent seen that one, is it new?" OR " I have lots of samples on the truck they just arent free" OR "They give me free samples once a week and yesterday was the day" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted November 3, 2013 Share Posted November 3, 2013 I tell my customers that they can have free samples if they bribe me. That usually puts a stop to it. I had a customer request that I remove a mountain dew selection (best seller at this account) and replace it with mellow yellow zero in a bottle because he's a diabetic and he prefers mellow yellow. I told him I have never seen it in a bottle. He then goes "Yeah I would end up buying the mountain dew anyway." So... why did you make such a request? I had an account that I was servicing AS A FAVOR. The candy bars were being sold for 75 cents. A lady told me it was "highway robbery" to sell them "that high." I asked her what she thought a reasonable price was. She said 50 cents would be fair. It's a good thing that about 80% of their sales were from canned soda for 75 cents. Years ago I had gotten a request for diet cherry vanilla dr. pepper. The lady acted like they would kick us out if she didn't get it. No distributors sold it in our area (if it even existed). I had a lady call me about having a vending service in her landscaping company. I asked how many employees she had. She said something in the figure of "anywhere from 2-5." How would you not know better than 2-5? Regardless, I told her that it did not warrant any kind of vending machine. She THEN said that there were a lot of customers that go through the property. I asked how many customers each day. She then said 2-3 on average. I told her that still does not warrant a vending machine because those customers are only there to pick up mulch and drive over to speedway for their grub/beverages. Finally, she lets me know that she doesn't actually want a vending service, she just wants me to let her use MY machine so that THEY can stock it themselves and collect the money. I offered to sell her one, but she didn't want to buy it... she wanted to rent it. She wanted a machine that could do OUTSIDE and she wanted cheap rent ($250/year or less). I finally told her that I don't rent out equipment and ended the conversation. I had a customer tell me that I would be a millionaire if I had installed an ice cream machine in their 20-employee location. There was a convenience store within a 2 minute walk of this place. The exact same person requested diet dr. pepper and didn't drink any of it. You would think that if people REALLY BELIEVED you could make TONS of money from an ice cream machine, they would buy their own and install it next to mine. I even told her she could do that if she wanted. I had a customer ask if I could put fresh food in a snack machine. The same customer asked if I could install another soda machine AND a cold food machine at the location that currently had 1 snack and 1 soda machine. The account has 20 employees. I had a customer ask if I could change all of my chips to the baked versions. I asked her what her favorite baked chip was and she told me that she doesn't like baked chips. I had a customer ask if I could put 4 different varieties of grandma's cookies in a 4-wide vending machine. Surprisingly, they buy them out every week (10-employee location doing about $50/week). But the best request that I have EVER gotten was not "odd" per say, but the customer's reaction was priceless. A customer asked me if I could give him a free bag of Grippo's BBQ chips. I told him that he could only do that if he bribed me with 50 cents. He made sure I knew that he was a very poor college student (this was on a college campus) and he didn't have money and he was starving. I told him that was okay, I would trade him several bags of chips for his shoes. He got upset and emotional and asked me "HOW MUCH DO THEY COST YOU? HOW MUCH DO THEY COST YOU?" (the chips, that is). I told him I wasn't sure and before I could come up with another smart-golpher response, he started crying and walked away. That same guy never asked for a free item again, but I saw him buying stuff out of the machine at least once each week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyinchville Posted November 21, 2013 Share Posted November 21, 2013 HI, Had a site ask me for reasonable prices and good service....B&^%*& Please ! ;-) OK I was just kidding of course.... Actually, I did have a site ask me to put in nothing but healthy food once.....I told them I did have some "healthy" stuff on the truck but I did have to put in "regular" snacks as well to make $$.....I did go on to say I would stock whatever sells so if they want healthy show me good sales on the healthy items and I will put more and more healthy stuff in....The machine ultimately went to a "regular" mix of our standard (i.e. non healthy) mix of snack foods and makes decent $$ that way. Andrew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snack dude Posted November 21, 2013 Share Posted November 21, 2013 had a a guy once tell me that if I gave him a soda a candy bar and a bag of chips that he would set me up with this hot single mom he knew that was needing some companionship. I told him I already had a hot mom at home...... The guy stomps off, Supervisor comes around the corner and ask me "did that guy just offer to hook you up with sex for free snacks" I replied "I believe he did" Never saw the guy again...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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