GringoGordo Posted October 27, 2013 Share Posted October 27, 2013 Hello, I am afraid I am too new to bulk vending to call myself a newbie. I am considering starting a bulk vending route and would like some advice. I am the director of a nonprofit organization that supports orphanages in South America. We provide support to about 15 orphanages. We are always looking for ways to support the orphanages and I thought of starting a a bulk vending business. In reading through the forum and other sources it seems that many people put stickers on their machines and pay $1 a month to a charity. If we were to put adorable pictures of orphans on stickers and state that 8 cents of every quarter, or some significant amount, would go to helping orphanages, and then when we serviced the machines gave an update to the business owners what we were doing with the money from our bulk business do you think; 1. That would give us a significant advantage over others in finding good locations? I am pretty sure that in our small town where we are well known it would but a town of 20,000 can only support so many machines so we would need to find success beyond our little town to raise the money I would like to raise. 2. Our business plan might encourage more people to buy from us? The other question I have is this. I spend all my extra time away from my paying job running our non-profit organization and do not have time to run a vending business. Do you think it is possible that 1 and 2 above would give us enough of an advantage that we could hire someone we trust and say that they needed to give us 5 cents of every quarter and they could keep the rest that they could make enough that it was worth their while? Or alternatively if we found locations and had quality machines that were easy to service we could have volunteers that would each service the same 5 machines a month that that might work? Thanks for you help in advance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
musser Posted October 27, 2013 Share Posted October 27, 2013 Bulk vending is a very hands on business. Your plan will not work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redfleet32 Posted October 27, 2013 Share Posted October 27, 2013 Gringo Send me a private message and I will give you all the info you need regarding a charity route as that is what I run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GringoGordo Posted October 27, 2013 Author Share Posted October 27, 2013 Do you think that giving someone a large enough percentage to make it worth his while will not work? It seems to me that if some people can pay a 20-30% commission and still make it work that maybe someone paying not $1 per month but 20% commission might be able to make it work as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
musser Posted October 27, 2013 Share Posted October 27, 2013 Volunteers all mean well but quickly lose interest. You would be far better off finding a local vendor to operate the program under contract. But there is a lot of risk involved. You would need someone established so you could check references, full background, bank and credit. Except only an absolutely clean apicant with a 750+ credit score. There are Far more con artists in this business than. Honest people. Be very careful. If you find someone to do this draw a good contract requiring $2m operating liability and $1m auto. Also get a written guarantee the operator will place a certain number of machines say 100 to start and then a growth target for the future. There is more to this business than you suspect. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Makes Cents Posted October 27, 2013 Share Posted October 27, 2013 Hello, I am afraid I am too new to bulk vending to call myself a newbie.I am considering starting a bulk vending route and would like some advice. I am the director of a nonprofit organization that supports orphanages in South America. We provide support to about 15 orphanages. ;We are always looking for ways to support the orphanages and I thought of starting a a bulk vending business. In reading through the forum and other sources it seems that many people put stickers on their machines and pay $1 a month to a charity. If we were to put adorable pictures of orphans on stickers and state that 8 cents of every quarter, or some significant amount, would go to helping orphanages, and then when we serviced the machines gave an update to the business owners what we were doing with the money from our bulk business do you think; 1. That would give us a significant advantage over others in finding good locations? I am pretty sure that in our small town where we are well known it would but a town of 20,000 can only support so many machines so we would need to find success beyond our little town to raise the money I would like to raise. 2. Our business plan might encourage more people to buy from us? The other question I have is this. I spend all my extra time away from my paying job running our non-profit organization and do not have time to run a vending business. Do you think it is possible that 1 and 2 above would give us enough of an advantage that we could hire someone we trust and say that they needed to give us 5 cents of every quarter and they could keep the rest that they could make enough that it was worth their while? Or alternatively if we found locations and had quality machines that were easy to service we could have volunteers that would each service the same 5 machines a month that that might work? Thanks for you help in advance. Instead of running a route which requires investment in machines and is labor intensive, why not establish a national vending sticker donation program for your nonprofit. You would provide stickers representing your non profit to vendors who would pay you each month a set donation. It seems like much less work and investment. Printing stickers in bulk would be your main upfront cost, you could advertise on this forum and other venues free of charge. The amount you could raise might surprise you.Vendors like myself are always looking for new charities to support as the major charities start to saturate locations making it harder for vendors to get into new locations. I have two charities I use and still run into saturated areas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farmer_John Posted October 28, 2013 Share Posted October 28, 2013 As long as you're not doing "dump and runs" in locations where commision paying vendors have worked hard to create relationships, then go on with your bad selves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GringoGordo Posted October 31, 2013 Author Share Posted October 31, 2013 Farmer John, What do you mean by dump and run? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Posted October 31, 2013 Share Posted October 31, 2013 Farmer John, What do you mean by dump and run? He means placing your machines in locations without getting permission from the location owner to do it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mission vending Posted October 31, 2013 Share Posted October 31, 2013 He means placing your machines in locations without getting permission from the location owner to do it. Also known as slamming Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farmer_John Posted October 31, 2013 Share Posted October 31, 2013 thanks guys. Didn't mean to leave it hanging. In my view, most "charity" routes end once the stickers are bought. a lot of these machines once planted never pass revenues on to the charity. And where my tolerance ends is when I get a service call to a location from my office (I have covered a territory 2 states wide and being they were Texas and Oklahoma) pulling in and finding it was an empty charity head, did not make myself or my office people really happy. I've actually called these scabs and pulled their machines. Then again, I've also had a 48" ICE crain nicked out of a Big Lots in Tulsa...I hope I find those guys someday... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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