Larman Posted September 18, 2008 Share Posted September 18, 2008 Last week I posted on a route that I purchased for $1k. The route consisted on 10 machines and 10 locations. Well yesterday I went along with the owner and visited each stop. To be honest I was unimpressed with the locations. 4 were small retail locations with no foot traffic and one or two employees. 3 were in supermarket break rooms but in each of the break rooms there was two other charity triple head machines. The remaining stops were in a auto repair shop, car wash and bar. These may prove to be good stops but my spidy senses till me different. I will give it a few months and see. I have no one to blame for me for not asking the right questions. Lesson learned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tedk Posted September 18, 2008 Share Posted September 18, 2008 On the bright side this is a relatively small error. At $100.00 a machine you didn't get a great deal but you didn't pay an outrageous amount either. If any of the locations pan out this deal is ok. If not re-locate. Screwing up early and small is not the worst thing in the world. You will recover easily from this. The main thing is you learned something at a small cost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guile Posted September 18, 2008 Share Posted September 18, 2008 Well, as Tedk said, it could have been worse. Your still doing better then I am since you have all your machines placed:) Good luck man. g Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alyssamma Posted September 18, 2008 Share Posted September 18, 2008 I've actually been fighting with this for some time. How do you verify the money that a seller says he collects? Does anyone have any good ideas about this? I've shadowed people I bought routes from, but since there is no way to know when the machines were last serviced, there is no way to tell their monthly average. Ditto if you empty them and then come back at some point in the future. What would stop someone from putting money into the machines so it looks like they are taking more than they are are? Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larman Posted September 18, 2008 Author Share Posted September 18, 2008 I guess there is no full proof way to insure that the sellers claims or acccurate. I think if i buy another route I will place 1/2 down and then after a set period of time pay the rest in order to verify that the numbers are correct. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jax Snacks Posted September 18, 2008 Share Posted September 18, 2008 That is why I try to offer only the asset value of any "route". If most or all of the locations are crap, then you still have the equipment to sell off and get your money back if you so desire. Most vendors will misrepresent the quality of their locations when trying to sell (or dump) their "route". If they don't have any records to verify income or if they refuse to let you tour the locations, then buyer beware! Always low-ball the seller, in this business he will rarely have a competing bid and will eventually realize that his options are limited and will sell to you at the lower realistic price. Don't worry about offending him, he needs to be educated about the true market value of his stuff. Trust no one in vending and locators even less! Jax Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beer980 Posted September 18, 2008 Share Posted September 18, 2008 Don't these sellers have written records for their routes? Sure you can doctor them up but at least it is something. I record what I collect from each slot from each location. The date is there and if I switched product plus when I placed the machine. The specific machine is also listed and if I located it or a locator did it. The guy I just bought a machine from was not sure how many machine he had on location, he thought about 35. He wants out so I said have you tried to sell the route? Yes but people don't want to pay anything for it is what he said. Well maybe if you have something on paper it would help is what I was thinking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alyssamma Posted September 18, 2008 Share Posted September 18, 2008 Beer, most people I've dealt with for buying a route are totally clueless. I called a guy last night I found on CL. He said he didn't know how much the machines made - he just stopped by to collect money when he needed some Another guy I actually bought a 7 location route from for $850. It also had 4 machines, about $150 in candy and a bunch of spare parts. One of the extra machines was at a location that kicked him out because he wasn't servicing it. He was supposed to get the machine and give it to us but he never did. So, eventually we just asked him for the address so we could get it ourselves. Guess what...the machine had $55 in quarters in it. He didn't even care enough to get the cash! This has been my experience... Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joebob051977 Posted September 18, 2008 Share Posted September 18, 2008 Discussing an owner financing option is a good way to find out how much faith someone has in their route. If they aren't willing to finance it with you then perhaps they are asking too much for their route. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shvend Posted October 6, 2008 Share Posted October 6, 2008 Well beieve it or not sounds like you have some decent locations. I know they are not going to make you rich. But if you average $13.00 a head you have done pretty good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmuseStar Vending Co Posted October 7, 2008 Share Posted October 7, 2008 Never judge a book by it's cover. I wish you the very best of luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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