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Hospital Location..what commission if any should be offered?


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We have a smaller hospital here in my town. They have a glass front, a small snack fullsize snack machine, and a can soda machine.

Pepsi owns and fills all three machines. Yes Pepsi..they call it Pepsi Food Services..

 

Anyways, some background..this stop was ran by a local vendor but the Pepsi people bought his locations out. We have had a gumball machine at the hospital for years now.. today a real nice dressed guy came out and spoke with me and told me if I wanted to bring in another machine or a bigger machine with more selections Im welcome to.. he gave me his card and he is a big shot at the hospital. I told him we do snack and soda also and we began talking. He said the hospital was VERY happy with the last vendor cause he always dealt with a handshake and was a local all around guy. He said once pepsi bought them out they came in with a big long contract and all and they prefer to not be in a contract..they prefer doing business the old fashion way with a gentlemans handshake. I assured him we can supply the same machines they have but with more choices..he said hes very interested in getting us in but he has to talk with his boss. He said the only issue we may have is they have to look at the contract with pepsi and see how hard or soon it is to end the contract.

 

Pepsi has the following prices:

Chips LSS bags - .85

Candy, crackers - .85

Pastrys - 1.25

 

Can Soda - .75

Bottle Soda - 1.50

Water - 1.25

Gaterade - 1.50

Juice - 1.25

Energy Drinks - 2.25

 

I think I can match their prices no issues..but my question is.. should I offer a commission as I know Pepsi is offering one. What should I offer? I have to turn in a information packet to this guy next week so he can show his boss..

 

Thanks!

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Where are you located? Is your area run by an independent Pepsi bottler?

 

For me the pricing seems a bit low. With all the price increases, candy by now should be at least $1. Frito-Lay is increasing their pricing too fairly soon, so keep that in mind. 85 cent candy is long gone for me, and I don't pay commission at the $1 price either.

 

I've looked at other vendors and some are pushing $1.25 chips/$1.50 candy and $2.25 20oz (granted, that's in more touristy places, but even at regular workplaces I think prices should be pretty much at $1 minimum for LSS and candy.

Just my thoughts. Your market situation might be different though, although I can't see any vendor getting candy bars cheap enough to make any decent profit at 85 cents. The Sam's near me is at about 61 cents for bars, and Vistar is at 66 cents.

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Since the guy you talked with was so friendly maybe he can tell you what commission rate they are getting from Pepsi.  You also need to tell him that since Pepsi produces the beverages that they can offer higher commissions than other vendors who don't produce the product.  In any event you will need to offer a commission and it could range anywhere from 5% up to something ridiculous like 40% that Pepsi can pay on soda.  It might help if you could know what they got from the previous vendor and try to match that.  Other than this I agree with jasonkw that the prices are too low.  You don't want to lock yourself in to low prices and then find it difficult to raise them later.

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What most people don't realize in Pepsi contracts is we they pay commissions it is based on whatever amount of cases they put in their contract, generally 3 cases per week, if they do not hit that volume they get no commission. I worked for Pepsi for 18 years and wrote these contracts and most of the customers sign because they don't realize that is is actually really hard to hit that number in an average size business. I now have my own vending company and use this as a tool to get new accounts, most potential customers tend to dump Pepsi when they realize the are not actually getting paid.

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