Sour gumball empire

[BouncyBalls]

Thought about putting out Condom machines, but didn't think I could get the same feeling.

[Hillbilly]

Do you find the smaller GB is just as successful in a shared location when the competitor is doing the 850ct?

I would think the smaller gumball WOULD be noticeable if there's a machine carrying the 850ct just feet away.

 

 

In my case, I only have a few shared locations.  In those I changed flavor as well as the size at the same time.  Sales actually spiked for a while.  Not one customer ever mentioned the smaller size.

[gumhead]

Instead of 300 single head gum locations, why not concentrate on finding 50 good locations that will support a 6 stand with gum and capsules? Or 35 locations that will support an 8 stand that includes flat?

[rodney69]

Instead of 300 single head gum locations, why not concentrate on finding 50 good locations that will support a 6 stand with gum and capsules? Or 35 locations that will support an 8 stand that includes flat?

 

In my current and limited experience, more product cost, more commission, more time to service. Finding 50 good locations that support a 6 way are not as common as they used to be, even more so on the 8! At least in my area it is! 

Example: I just went to a restaurant that is extremely busy, they have several machines that were empty or mostly. I tried to put a rack in, no go. Offered a single head to help benefit the charity I use and they said sure! Right over there! 

This location used to sell 80.00 worth of gumballs a month 6 years ago with commission.

 

But, maybe in his area it is a lot better for racks! More isn't always better.

[musser]

For every GOOD rack location there are 500 charity locations. For every $30 a month charity location there are 100 $10 a month locations and 200 $6 a month locations. Some will get this and others wont. Its all about the math.

[hanihotdog]

Musser is 100% correct. it is a numbers game. I'm sure professional sales people like Rodney can tell you that landing accounts is also a numbers game. if you knock on x # of doors, you will land X number of accounts. Musser just gave you the distribution of those accounts. if you know your stats, you can plan your business and create a formula for success.

[rodney69]

Musser is 100% correct. it is a numbers game. I'm sure professional sales people like Rodney can tell you that landing accounts is also a numbers game. if you knock on x # of doors, you will land X number of accounts. Musser just gave you the distribution of those accounts. if you know your stats, you can plan your business and create a formula for success.

 

I can say from my end on the phone locating that if it's a tough area, it can take 200 calls for 1 viable location. If you live in a good area it can be 1 in 3 or so. For corp accounts and charity, even though we have pre-approval it still takes 3-5 calls. Some places are better than others.

 

I like Musser's numbers. That seems like a pretty good starting point. The question your faced with is which ones are which? That takes a lot of trial and error to find out. We have a standard platform we follow for employee size and type of business, but we don't call some that could be viable because I don't want to end up taking a chance on replacing it.

There are some places that I've had with just 3 employee's do 30+ a month. I've also had a large business with 120 people that only did and average of 20!

with gumball machines, I'll try everywhere for myself. If I make 6 a month, I'll leave it and service it every 6 months. Just me though. 

[musser]

I love my crane stops, especially the "A" locations. I love my single head gum stops too! You can make money on slow single head stops its a matter of scheduling the work load and understanding your cost of doing business.

[jmac]

This has been my experience with vending. I purchased a charity candy route that had 30 located machines and about 30 unlocated machines. With my charity route, I was constantly relocating machines and losing locations. My route was in a 30 mile radius, to service every machine would take about 6 hours roughly, including driving. This route I made about $300 per month, before expenses. Which I was ok with.

Then i purchased 2 tomy gachas machines, put them in 2 busy pizza spots, on commision. With those 2 machines combined, I averaged $140 a month. I sold my charity route. I now have those two pizza spots, plus one more with a double head with 1" caps and skittles. For only 3 locations I average $170 a month before paying my 25% commision, and I can service those 3 locations in under a hour including driving. Im no expert, but to me building slow with toy/commision locations is the way to go. I made decent money with the charity route, and had a great return on my initial investment. But it was way more hassle and work. Plus Ive never had to throw capsules in the garbage because of spoilage.

[tnycman]

Hello everybody!

 

It is great to finally be a part of this wonderful forum! I've spent the past few months reading everything I can about bulk vending, and you guys have given me a better education than any book I've read on vending. For that, I cannot thank you enough. In addition to having access to the downloads, I wanted to post to get some feedback on my business plan for the near future. 

 

I see a few others have posted about doing a route entirely of single head gumballs, and I would like to expand on that a bit. To me gumballs just make way more sense than candy, which was my original plan. But I'm sure you guys knew that already, so I won't bother trying to explain why. Anyway, I haven't seen many posts specifically about sour gumballs. The two or three posts that mentioned them claimed to be very successful selling them, and that they outsold regular gumballs by quite a bit. I'm curious why no one has bothered to convert their regular gumball route to a route of sour gumballs, or any other popular flavor. It would probably bring the monthly average up from 7 (is that true? seems kind of low), to maybe 10 or 15. 

 

I'd like to make a living right off the bat and then expand from there, so I'm saving enough to buy around 300 or so machines, plus the cost of gum and maybe the help of a locator for some machines (definitely not all of them, way too pricey). I plan on using NW 60's from Sam's club and selling their CryBabySour gumballs. I also plan on hiring Howard Goldstein out of Florida to help me locate. I've heard good things about him on this site. I will use LegalZoom to create an LLC, and I will partner with the NCCS so I won't have to pay sales tax (this is also in Florida, btw). I will also purchase liability insurance to protect my business assets, and I will use Vendtrak for my accounting.

 

I'd love to hear any thoughts or suggestions on this, especially from anyone else doing gumballs in Florida. I'd like to eventually get up to around 2,000 machines. I figure I can service 500 a month, or 50 a day for ten days, and that way I can cover them all within a four month cycle. Look forward to hearing from you. Thanks guys! 

Not sure if you done it already, but you don't need LegaZoom to create the LLC, yoiu can go to the IRS website apply for an EIN number fro free, and whatever state you located website and register your LLC.. I created mine in NJ and took less than 30 mins for both and only paid $125 processing fees for the state..

 

Good luck..