the numbers

[NYvending]

While full line vending is my newest venture having started, grown, managed and still own 3 businesses over the last decade I would personally buyout an existing operating business or invest in a fantastic consultant before I would consider spending 80K on a start-up loan. Remember your first bank loan payment is due 30 days after you sign the paperwork. You may not locate your first machine for 3-6 months. It may be 1 year before you locate all 10 machines and due to the variance in performance expect to relocate 25%. What do you do if it takes you 1-2 years to locate those machines in good accounts?

 

If you decide to start from scratch start small, buy refurbished machines on a credit card or find a vendor that will finance you in house. I don't know how rates differ internationally but I financed a machine with USI last month for 11% where my bank's rate was 10%. If you have good credit you can get rather competitive rates from manufactures. Take it a step further contact AMS, and USI both direct and through vending wholesalers. Let there sales people fight over your business. I shamelessly make account reps fight for my business because I'm the one paying the loan so that's my money at the end of the day.

 

Your not signing a non-disclosure agreement so If you want a USI machine do the following.

 

Find a direct competitor machine to the one you want...we'll continue with the AMS example.

Negotiate the best price and loan rate with the sales rep for the AMS machine.

Have him email you a quote with all the details.

Contact the sales dept at USI for the machine you really want to buy.

Tell the sales rep at USI you've always used AMS equipment but you thought the USI looked interesting and were considering trying one.

Email him the quote from AMS and tell him if his numbers are worthwhile you'll buy from him. If the machine performs well and their company meets your expectations you will continue to order from him assuming he holds those numbers for you on your reorder.

 

I've done sales for a very long time, before I did them for my own business I did them for others so I've done this dance as buyer, seller, and middleman thousands of times. I can tell you any true sales rep in 99% of sales is paid on commission. If they aren't making commission they are a customer service person and could care less if you order with them. Much like buying a car off the dealership floor if a company can pay a sales person to "sell you" the machine his commission is already calculated into that sale so there is plenty of wiggle room to negotiate a deal.

[NYvending]

Out of my own curiosity the USI Futura combo machine is the one I see USI market the most heavily. I priced the machine out from USI online just now and selected every possible option/upgrade which put me at a domestic delivered price of $4050. Today's currency converter puts that price at 5231.94 Canadian. I'm not sure what import/taxes/shipping costs are into Canada but that's a long way from $8K so I would make sure you're buying it from USI directly and not a wholesaler or Biz-op passing themselves off as the actual manufacturer when they are in fact just a middleman. That $8K price tag and talk of vends per day makes me think of one Biz-op in particular which uses USI combo machines so since we're checking facts USI's website is www.Evending.com

Most of my machines are refurbished so I don't deal with USI direct often but I liked working with Joe in sales and Andy in financing however I'm not sure if I could say they enjoyed working with me.

In closing as some of the other members mentioned combo machines don't work in large accounts which is particularly amusing coming from me since most of what I own are combo's. When I started I bought out several small operators so half my equipment is from people who didn't have a good grasp of vending and gave up after acquired 1-5 accounts. You can profit in business from the mistakes of others so my operations were backwards at the start. I had to bring in full sized machines for the large accounts and find smaller locations the combo's made sense for.