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are you doing full line vending full time or side job?


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It's good to see your waste is really low.  I had struggled with chips AND pastries until I grew my route enough and got a cube van.  Now I hold full cases of pretty much everything so I rarely need to go to Sam's Club more than 2x a week (for product OR fuel!) and full cases generally have far better expiration dates than variety packs.

 

Managing your products out of a car in a way that things don't expire is tough to do.. and like orsd said.. you have to be careful about not leaving things at the bottom of a machine where they will expire!!

Yep, most of that 2% comes from the combo packs.  I have many accounts that won't buy the hot stuff so I have to fill those empty columns with something but I can't afford to buy full cases of the slow movers.

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Yep, most of that 2% comes from the combo packs. I have many accounts that won't buy the hot stuff so I have to fill those empty columns with something but I can't afford to buy full cases of the slow movers.

I barely sell Frito's or cheetos so I buy variety packs just for those. I go through maybe 100+ bags of lays in a week though. Obviously, demographics plays a role in that but I can relate to you. It was actually a big deal to me when I bought my first 104-ct case of chili cheese Frito's from MerchantsMart lol. I sold them before they expired too!

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13 accounts, 22 machines part time on top of my 48-hour job and recently took a third job which I only do a couple of days a month... still unsure why I did that!   :wacko:  Does well for me at this pace, but looking to quit vending at the end of the year and scale back to just one job.

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I'm just a bulk guy, but reading through Chris' excellent post I keyed on the dolly.  Bulk doesn't require near as much transport room as full-line, but I've had this little gem for a couple of years and it was worth every penny. The only negative thing I could possibly say is I wish it was just 3-4 inches taller when extended.  I'm 6'00" and it does make you slump at the shoulders just enough to be uncomfortable.  

 

On the other hand, if it was taller that would just place more weight on the frame which brings me back to the fact that's it's built like a tank.  I've tested it's 100lb max rating on multiple occasions (and probably surpassed it more than once) and I don't leave home without it now.  It'll be worth triple it's price tag to you if you're working with cases of pop out of a small vehicle.  

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I'm just a bulk guy, but reading through Chris' excellent post I keyed on the dolly.  Bulk doesn't require near as much transport room as full-line, but I've had this little gem for a couple of years and it was worth every penny. The only negative thing I could possibly say is I wish it was just 3-4 inches taller when extended.  I'm 6'00" and it does make you slump at the shoulders just enough to be uncomfortable.  

 

On the other hand, if it was taller that would just place more weight on the frame which brings me back to the fact that's it's built like a tank.  I've tested it's 100lb max rating on multiple occasions (and probably surpassed it more than once) and I don't leave home without it now.  It'll be worth triple it's price tag to you if you're working with cases of pop out of a small vehicle.  

You hit it on the head with the hand truck.  That's the biggest hurdle that people working out of a standard car have is fitting that hand truck in someplace.  unfortunately, we usually load at least 150 lbs of soda so the one you're using wouldn't work as well but still better than nothing.  hauling cases of soda one at a time must take forever out of a sedan.

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My dolly is not convertible but the show is narrow. I can haul 4 cases of bottles easily or about 8 cases of cans. I'm only limited on the wheel bearings and the height of the dolly. It's rated for 300 lbs.

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I'm still part time but growing.  Been doing this on some level for 10+ years.  Currently with 27 locations, 50 machines.  Takes me about 22 hours/week currently.  Most accounts can be serviced once per week ... have a couple that are twice a week and several that are every other week.

 

I own a 1992 Isuzu 14' box truck, with a lift gate (super handy for moving machines around) ... came with the business when I bought out a guy who was retiring.  And I also have a 2000 Chevy Astro van, fitted out for vending, from another small route that I bought (another guy who was retiring). 

 

One piece of advice I would offer is to keep your route radius as tight as possible.  If you can limit the amount of time you're driving around, you'll increase your net profits a lot over the long haul.  I'm very cautious about buying a new account, even if it's a steal financially ... if it does not fit into my current route, travel wise, it better be a very high grossing account.

 

To me the biggest "risk" of this whole thing is staying healthy ... if I was to get hurt and couldn't work for several weeks, I'd have a problem.  I have a couple buddies who can help sporadically but not for several weeks in a row.  It's hard to have someone adequately trained to do the entire route if they only do it once or twice a year (on my vacation times).  

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  • 1 month later...

I have around 65 machines with 60 locations I do vending full time and love it, It usually takes me three full days to work my accounts, I use a 6x12 trailer, I used to work at Frito lay an worked 65-70 hours a week so I bought this vending route last year so I could have more time at home with kids n watch them grow up,

So for I've growed it about 40% since last year do it's been great

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Great reading here... I only 3 machines 2 locations just testing it, my 9-5 which pays pretty decent and i highly doubt it i will quit my job over vending, but never know..

 

I'm looking to have about 10-15 more machines within few months and take it from there..

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I'm just a bulk guy, but reading through Chris' excellent post I keyed on the dolly. Bulk doesn't require near as much transport room as full-line, but I've had this little gem for a couple of years and it was worth every penny. The only negative thing I could possibly say is I wish it was just 3-4 inches taller when extended. I'm 6'00" and it does make you slump at the shoulders just enough to be uncomfortable.

On the other hand, if it was taller that would just place more weight on the frame which brings me back to the fact that's it's built like a tank. I've tested it's 100lb max rating on multiple occasions (and probably surpassed it more than once) and I don't leave home without it now. It'll be worth triple it's price tag to you if you're working with cases of pop out of a small vehicle.

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I'm a full time ATM operator (30 terminals) but wanted to try full line vending as I mainly operate in hotels so I'm looking to piggyback off my established relationships. This is my first month vending but so far I have 4 machines in the field and 3 contracts signed I'm waiting on the machines to be delivered so I'm pretty excited as that's more business than I got my first year operating ATM's. I'm not sure how to look at the time commitment as the accounts I'm adding are already along routes I'm going so kind of just beefing up my number of stops. So far shopping and record keeping has been where the bulk of my time has been spent. 

 

The only thing I would add that I've found helpful is I run E-port on all my machines so I have inventory data while I'm at home. I have my supplies setup on shelves in the garage so I generally pack orders at home by account. I'm working out of a sedan so rather than needing to get to Twix bars which might be buried at the bottom of the snacks. All items going into the account get packed at home then I just take the containers I need into the account so no searching for products.

 

I've also found variety packs are fine thus far so I buy the variety packs and just mix the items as long as the coil is priced correct for the item. A couple of accounts seem to really like that the products are always changing because I let them put requests if they see something they want to be a fixed item in the machine. That's just my whopping 3 weeks worth of experience talking!       

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I'm a full time ATM operator (30 terminals) but wanted to try full line vending as I mainly operate in hotels so I'm looking to piggyback off my established relationships. This is my first month vending but so far I have 4 machines in the field and 3 contracts signed I'm waiting on the machines to be delivered so I'm pretty excited as that's more business than I got my first year operating ATM's. I'm not sure how to look at the time commitment as the accounts I'm adding are already along routes I'm going so kind of just beefing up my number of stops. So far shopping and record keeping has been where the bulk of my time has been spent. 

 

The only thing I would add that I've found helpful is I run E-port on all my machines so I have inventory data while I'm at home. I have my supplies setup on shelves in the garage so I generally pack orders at home by account. I'm working out of a sedan so rather than needing to get to Twix bars which might be buried at the bottom of the snacks. All items going into the account get packed at home then I just take the containers I need into the account so no searching for products.

 

I've also found variety packs are fine thus far so I buy the variety packs and just mix the items as long as the coil is priced correct for the item. A couple of accounts seem to really like that the products are always changing because I let them put requests if they see something they want to be a fixed item in the machine. That's just my whopping 3 weeks worth of experience talking!       

E-port is nice, I'm assuming the newer machines have it, or its just an add-on ?

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It's optional when you order the machine, adds $300 in cost and the device has a $7.95 monthly fee but it's also the credit card processor for the machine. As far as I know you can add it to existing machines but I haven't tried installing one myself.

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Yes it's an add on 300 to buy + 7 monthly fee + percent or 12 monthly fee + percent of sales to lease.

Note that this is only available on machines newer than the mid 90's when the MDB protocol became standard.

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Yes it's an add on 300 to buy + 7 monthly fee + percent or 12 monthly fee + percent of sales to lease.

Note that this is only available on machines newer than the mid 90's when the MDB protocol became standard.

That's too much, unless the machine does couple of hundred of $$ a week, until then I'll skip it..

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Nothing wrong with skipping it but keep in mind not everyone carries cash these days. Right now about 1/3 my sales are via credit card. If someone change they will typically use it over swiping there card so I look at the credit card portion as sales I would have lost without it. I just replaced one customers machine from a competitor who wouldn't give him a CC reader on the machine and my sales are double what his were.

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Nothing wrong with skipping it but keep in mind not everyone carries cash these days. Right now about 1/3 my sales are via credit card. If someone change they will typically use it over swiping there card so I look at the credit card portion as sales I would have lost without it. I just replaced one customers machine from a competitor who wouldn't give him a CC reader on the machine and my sales are double what his were.

Using CC now days its a great idea, in many occasion i wished the machines at my job would accept CC, as there is not a single bank within the walking distance, i just think the fees are a bit high, but worth it perhaps..

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Right or wrong I always think of myself as the average customer as I had both a corporate career and spent the last 8 years on the road so I've used a lot of vending machines in that time. For me I get frustrated when I hit a travel stop or hotel for a soda and the vending machine doesn't take credit cards. No matter how bad I might want that soda I don't want it bad enough to go wait on line for someone give me change of a $20 so most often I leave aggravated. I also like the inventory data since I'm not doing this full time I don't have a set fill cycle so it saves me from heading out to refill products too early. Hedging an extra day or two on a fill cycle is huge as I want the machine as close to minimum levels when I get there. If I had say 40 machines it might be less valuable as I'd be filling 5 days a week regardless but for now I've added them to all my machines.

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I have  5 coffee machine,14 soft drinks,12 snacks machine and about 125 beaver/nothernwerstern/gacha bulk vending and I do everything with my Hyundai Elantra.Sometimes when I drive I can't see behind me because of the boxes of chips.But this can't go on,I should get a mini van soon

 

As for a job,I am pretty busy with vending but I work part time as a janitor for a school board here in Quebec..they call me just once in a while..my favorite shift is 4pm to 12am..I start with vending and I go to the school they dispatch me to.

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