Retirement Communities

[Chard]

Has anyone had any decent accounts in retirement communities?

[AZVendor]

Those can be very slow accounts depending on where tne machines are located. You can't count on the tennants to be your customers so it's important to have the machines where there is easy access for both employees and tenants. I have also seen employee breakrooms that barely used the machines because the employees usually get free food from the cafeteria.

[AngryChris]

There are several retirement communities in my area and they all look like horrible locations.  From my research, here are just a few reasons why these locations are probably bad.

 

1)  The demographics are horrible.  Older people don't drink a whole lot of soda or even bottled water.  They prefer tap water, tea, coffee, or something else that doesn't come from a vending machine.

 

2)  Their income is limited so they don't spend much on "convenience" such as vending machines, even if they can afford it.

 

3)  There is a limited number of employees working here.  You simply cannot rely on their sales.  They might have a refrigerator in some shack somewhere and they simply don't need a vending machine.

 

4)  If it's the nursing-home type of retirement community, you may have more employees but they only check on residents periodically.  It's nothing like a nursing home.  The residents can come and go as they please and the employees probably stop at other places to get some sort of refreshments.  The employees may not even know there are vending machines in the community.

[Chard]

That is what I suspected.

Thank you!

[psk007]

I currently have one that has 95 tenants and the machines are located on the main floor. They buy soda like crazy and love the candy. I have had this stop over two years and it grosses over 850.00 a month. It's all where the machines will be placed to get the right amount of traffic. Everyone has to go right by my machines to get to the elevator so that really helps.

[allen watson]

The seniors at one of my accounts like to slam Monster's late in the afternoon. And we are not talking about the low carb or sugar free ones either.

 

Following are some tips I've learned:

 

1. Put a good variety of candy that doesn't have nuts or requires teeth to chew.

2. Remind them it's the year 2014, not 1950.

3. When they tell you they used to buy candy bars for a nickel that were twice as big, believe them because they did.

4. Always take the time to stop and talk to them and tell them some horror stories about how expensive stuff is now-a-days.

5. Remember, if you are lucky, that could be you in a few years.

[Rexlex]

I've got a Coke machine in one doing about 2 cases/week. It's in a small employee break room and I know someone else has a soda/snack machine on another level. There are 60 employees at this site.

[moondog]

The seniors at one of my accounts like to slam Monster's late in the afternoon. And we are not talking about the low carb or sugar free ones either.

 

Following are some tips I've learned:

 

1. Put a good variety of candy that doesn't have nuts or requires teeth to chew.

2. Remind them it's the year 2014, not 1950.

3. When they tell you they used to buy candy bars for a nickel that were twice as big, believe them because they did.

4. Always take the time to stop and talk to them and tell them some horror stories about how expensive stuff is now-a-days.

5. Remember, if you are lucky, that could be you in a few years.

One of my accounts told me that Monsters make a good Vodka mixer - maybe that's what they're using it for