Large offices with a large variety of snack

[jerrybrecko]

I was never big on a large variety of snacks but I also don't have any really large locationseither. But I always figured if they wanted peanut m&ms and all we sold was regular m&ms that they would just buy the regular ones. I always keep my variety small sticking to best sellers rather than trying to please everyone. The only reason being to try to control products from expiring.

Someone has been telling me to sell all these different brand chips and snacks and it could double sales. He even told me in some locations he has 2 snack machines to hold all his varieties.

Just wanted to know what everyone else thought.

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[CajunCandy]

Imagine eating a hamburger and fries three times a day, seven days a week would you not get tired of eating it? Same with a snack machine, variety in a machine will improve sales in machine. 

[jerrybrecko]

So how do you control expirations. That's the main reason I stick to best sellers only

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[mojorhino]

Remember the story of Goldie Locks & the 3 Bears. . .

 

The size of the machine you place at a location should be just the right size to accommodate the number of employees that work there & actually use the machine. 

 

I have some sites that have no snack machine, some that have 3 wide machines, 4 wide machines & 5 wide machines.  Before placing the machine I determine how many employees and or customers will actually use the machine & then make a judgement call based on how well I think the machine will do. 

 

For example:

• I have a bank that has 30+ employees that has a 4 wide machine (I could not justify putting in a larger machine based on the fact that it is a white collar location & none of the banks customers have access to the machine)
• I have a Tire store that has about 10 employees that does better than the bank because the employees are blue collar & buy more snacks plus the snack machine is in their waiting area so the customers waiting for their vehicles to be fixed can use it. At this location I placed a 5 wide snack machine & it does really well.
• I have a bank that has 30+ employees which are mostly older women & the snack machine does not do very well there at all.  Here I placed a 3 wide snack machine.  The soda machine does very well there (Older women seem to really love their diet soda I have 5 selections of diet & they rarely go out of date)

You should almost always have your best sellers (e.g. Peanut M&M's, Snickers, ButterFinger, Twix, Cheezits etc. . .) in stock but you sometimes need to run out of them occasionally (I do it intentionally every so often) to get your slower moving items to sell.

[TKK]

Did you say cheezits are one of your top sellers?

[mojorhino]

Cheezit's are definitely my best selling cracker/chip in all of my snack machines.  They are also consistently on the top sellers list that Vistar puts out by region.   I also get & sell Hot Cheezit's & White Cheddar Cheezit's to change it up occasionally.

[mojorhino]

So how do you control expirations. That's the main reason I stick to best sellers only

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How many machines do you have placed?

 

How many employees are at each location?

 

What kind of locations are they?

[jerrybrecko]

I've been in the business for 8 years but haven't signed a new customer in 7. Im getting back into now. I have 3 locations now but had a lot more before. The each have soda and snack. 2 have 65 1.has 85. They are in elementary school faculty rooms.

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In the past I had soda machines only in community swimming pools. I only had 2 blue collar location that I remember that did good but not great. But come to think about it, they only had employees working 3 hours per day so I guess it did really good.

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[Sparta_Automation]

Cheez-its actually sell pretty good for me as well.

[TKK]

Man we are really way off here...

Mt dew is my worst seller which alot of people say they sell it, and cheez its go stale, no one buys them. Atleast here

[CajunCandy]

I have three places that will eat cheez-it first, then everything else.

 

Mt dew in a snack machine, never tried it. lol!

[mojorhino]

Man we are really way off here...

Mt dew is my worst seller which alot of people say they sell it, and cheez its go stale, no one buys them. Atleast here

I can't remember exactly but Cheezits have something like a 6 month to 1 year date code on them.

What size bags do you put in your machines & how much do you you sell them for?

[AngryChris]

Cheezits are definitely a solid performer here in Ohio.  I buy them from the grocery store for myself at times!  TKK, I am pretty sure that your region is unlike the vast majority of the rest of the U.S. in terms of best sellers, pricing, etc....

[AngryChris]

As for the guy telling you that you could double your sales... I don't believe that about any office location.

 

First, let me say this:  I now have TWO locations with around 10 employees that gross about $50+/week.  I have also seen LARGE office buildings (1200+ people) with 100% white-collar workers that will gross $1200/week.  The office actually did pretty decent but that's because all 4 floors had a 4 or 5-wide snack machine and a glassfront soda machine.  If not for that, the account would have done more like $900/week.

 

With that said, let me tell you this... if you were to buy the equipment for that location, it would have cost you roughly $40,000+ to replace everything that was there (4 new glassfronts, 1 new food machine, 1 used ice cream, and 4 nice (used) snack machines).  For $40,000+ worth of equipment (the glassfronts were leased), $1200/week is TERRIBLE.  That doesn't even consider that the bottles were selling for $1.00 at the time.  I would NEVER invest that much money in a location like that.

 

My point is that, even if you provide an absolutely amazing deal (about 40 selections of soda and 40 selections of snacks PER FLOOR) and STILL barely break $1.00/person per WEEK.  Don't buy into anyone telling you that you can double your money at an office location that easily.

 

HOWEVER... I have always tried to move product around and add/remove selections to see what sells the best.  You might be hurting yourself by not offering the RIGHT kind of variety.  In my area, peanut M&M's outsell regular M&M's by 4:1 or more.  I understand your problem -- you don't have enough demand to stock up on a lot of variety AND keep your product from expiring.  All you can really do is get more accounts.  I'm at a point now where I can easily buy boxes of almost anything and get it out of my inventory within a week (and sell it before it expires) but I still buy variety packs for two reasons.  They already have a variety so I don't have to spend $400 in candy at one time when I only need $100 for the day... and because the variety packs are a better deal at Sam's Club.  I even know bigger vendors that will stock-pile up on variety packs and make their drivers deal with them.  It may end up not saving you much money if you have to pay drivers to open up variety packs all the time, but it sure is a good deal for a small vendor.

 

Forget about the office location and the idea of doubling your money, but focus on increasing sales a little by offering better items.  I would rather have 10 bags of chips expire while also selling 100 other bags of chips that sell well..... compared to selling 50 items with long shelf life.  That's my opinion though.  I don't think there's any vendor here that doesn't have some expired product at some point.

[jerrybrecko]

As for the guy telling you that you could double your sales... I don't believe that about any office location.

 

First, let me say this:  I now have TWO locations with around 10 employees that gross about $50+/week.  I have also seen LARGE office buildings (1200+ people) with 100% white-collar workers that will gross $1200/week.  The office actually did pretty decent but that's because all 4 floors had a 4 or 5-wide snack machine and a glassfront soda machine.  If not for that, the account would have done more like $900/week.

 

With that said, let me tell you this... if you were to buy the equipment for that location, it would have cost you roughly $40,000+ to replace everything that was there (4 new glassfronts, 1 new food machine, 1 used ice cream, and 4 nice (used) snack machines).  For $40,000+ worth of equipment (the glassfronts were leased), $1200/week is TERRIBLE.  That doesn't even consider that the bottles were selling for $1.00 at the time.  I would NEVER invest that much money in a location like that.

 

My point is that, even if you provide an absolutely amazing deal (about 40 selections of soda and 40 selections of snacks PER FLOOR) and STILL barely break $1.00/person per WEEK.  Don't buy into anyone telling you that you can double your money at an office location that easily.

 

HOWEVER... I have always tried to move product around and add/remove selections to see what sells the best.  You might be hurting yourself by not offering the RIGHT kind of variety.  In my area, peanut M&M's outsell regular M&M's by 4:1 or more.  I understand your problem -- you don't have enough demand to stock up on a lot of variety AND keep your product from expiring.  All you can really do is get more accounts.  I'm at a point now where I can easily buy boxes of almost anything and get it out of my inventory within a week (and sell it before it expires) but I still buy variety packs for two reasons.  They already have a variety so I don't have to spend $400 in candy at one time when I only need $100 for the day... and because the variety packs are a better deal at Sam's Club.  I even know bigger vendors that will stock-pile up on variety packs and make their drivers deal with them.  It may end up not saving you much money if you have to pay drivers to open up variety packs all the time, but it sure is a good deal for a small vendor.

 

Forget about the office location and the idea of doubling your money, but focus on increasing sales a little by offering better items.  I would rather have 10 bags of chips expire while also selling 100 other bags of chips that sell well..... compared to selling 50 items with long shelf life.  That's my opinion though.  I don't think there's any vendor here that doesn't have some expired product at some point.

well said

thanks

[dogcow]

the simple short answer is you limit your stales by 

increasing the number of locations.

 

if you have a major stale problem you should try to put out 10 or 20 honor boxes

which will work as a stopgap solution. you will make money and it will

keep your stales down to almost zero while allowing you to provide a nice

selection.

 

Also finding a good "dump location" . RJT turned me on to this. basically try to 

find a location where the sales volume is good enough so you can rotate all the short

dated items there. I have a 24/7 laundromat that is like that, since there is no attendant 

nobody complains about the selection so i can put just about anything there and it will

sell . This is where i dump dud items and short dated stuff from other slower locations.

 

hotels and laundries are good dump spots since usually the owners dont actually give a

crap whats in the machine they just want $ in many cases there is nobody there to even

complain to.

 

p. m&m is a long date item you should not worry about those going stale

if u are having stales of candy then u need to find a better location ur place is a huge dud

candy should not go bad even at the worst loc.

[jerrybrecko]

Good idea and advice thanks

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