sruments Posted November 18, 2013 Share Posted November 18, 2013 I am looking to buy some Seaga machines through Healthy You. I met with a friends father last night who is in the business to seek some advice. He told me that there is no opportunity in healthy vending and practically begged me to not but any Seaga machines. I am trying to do my due diligence to see if there really is an opportunity to make money in healthy vending but am concerned about buying machines that are going to cause me headaches down the road. Should I stay away from healthy and Seaga machines ? Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZVendor Posted November 18, 2013 Share Posted November 18, 2013 Welcome to the forum. You have found a great spot for good, solid advice from many experienced vendors. Please review my comments on the vendingchat.com forum that I posted for you. You will get even more good advice here as this is a very busy forum. Please take time to search this forum for posts that will help you understand the business better. There are volumes posted here of really good advice from a variety of perspectives. The following is my copy and pasted post from the other site: Thank you for seeking more advice on this subject and not blindly falling for a sales pitch or an idea that appeals to you. Your friend's father is correct and you should heed his advice. It sounds like he knows what he's talking about. Healthy vending is a segment of vending that is seeing more traction in the industry, but it is still not what the end user, the person dropping coins into your machines, wants to buy from that machine. Therefore you will have lower sales than industry standards (which are a bunch of empty numbers anyway). Requests from accounts for healthy products have come and gone for several decades now. Prior to the government getting into everyone's business and dictating that healthy products should be in all schools, those location requests would be met to some extent by the vending operator, who always found that the "healthy" products wouldn't sell and eventually they would be pulled in favor of what the people really wanted to buy. Turn to the 21st century and with all of the government blathering about obesity in America (they are correct) many school districts have thrown out the standard profitable vending products in favor of Kale chips and diet soda and waters. This product lineup, however, won't draw customers to your machine, nor will fancy graphics plastered on the door of the machine, beyond the initial curiosity. This is not what the school children want to eat, nor what their parents buy for them to eat at home. This is a case of trying to force guidelines down the throats of an unwanting public, other than the cow-towing school administrators. There is a healthy eating trend in America today that didn't exist years ago. More healthy products are available now than ever before. But to put them in a vending machine at much higher pricing than standard candy and chips to sell to an unwanting public, is a disaster in the making for the vending operator. I will add that generally the machines sold to you for this venture will be from substandard manufacturers, many of them imported. Seaga, though assembled in the US, is a substandard brand of machine. Their technical support and written manuals are terrible, with many parts not available for replacement for whatever reason. Their parts prices are also more than average compared to other US manufacturers. The fact that you're interested in several of these machines must mean you have been in contact with or been to a biz op seminar where this "opportunity" has been presented to you. I can say that you will generally not get all that is promised to you by these biz op scammers and you will pay much more than the machine is worth. If you want to target the healthy side of vending yourself, you can purchase your own good, used snack machines made by AP or National or USI or AMS, put your own healthy graphics on them and go get the healthy vending locations yourself. You will save most of your money doing it this way and learn more about the business than you ever will handing your money to a salesman. Thank your for looking into this more and not throwing your money away yet. You should thank your friend's father for his advice and perhaps ask for some guidance in how to get into vending yourself. I'll bet it will be something along the lines of "start with a couple of can soda accounts, get your feet wet, then decide if you still want to do vending. It can be hard work and not very profitable, but by growing slowly you can build yourself a business." Good advice, if you ask me. Hey, you did! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moondog Posted November 18, 2013 Share Posted November 18, 2013 I am looking to buy some Seaga machines through Healthy You. I met with a friends father last night who is in the business to seek some advice. He told me that there is no opportunity in healthy vending and practically begged me to not but any Seaga machines. I am trying to do my due diligence to see if there really is an opportunity to make money in healthy vending but am concerned about buying machines that are going to cause me headaches down the road. Should I stay away from healthy and Seaga machines ? Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks. Your friend's father is right. Healthy You sounds like a Biz Op which exists by selling low end equipment at twice their value. Seaga machines are made in China (assembled here with Chinese parts) and not well regarded by any experienced vendors that I know of. Whether healthy vending ever becomes popular is questionable but it's not where you want to be right now. People hung up on healthy eating don't patronize vending machines - even the "healthy " machines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RJT Posted November 20, 2013 Share Posted November 20, 2013 "Run Forrest run" DO NOT fall into this trap. If you are really interested in vending stick around here and read and learn what it really is all about and then decide if it is for you. Vending is a fun business but it also is work that takes time to build. Glad you found this forum before making a BIG mistake, many dont. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Discount Vending Store Posted January 29, 2014 Share Posted January 29, 2014 Notifications sure if you've already made the huge mistake and purchased from Healthy You but I've heard too many horror stories about these expensive machines and poor customer service from Healthy You which is the same as 1-800 Vending. The machines are nice but just way too expensive when you can buy a nice refurbished oned for half or a third of the price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orsd Posted January 30, 2014 Share Posted January 30, 2014 Nice?!?!?! How bout piece of crap even when refurbed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.