Hello from Ohio

[Candyman963]

Hello all,

 

I just recently started vending myself. I've messed around with arcade machine for the past few years and have recently decided to start vending. The company I work for just bought a new building and new I was familiar with machines and asked me if I wanted to do the vending for the company. I was super excited since I haven't really made any money with machines yet (The arcade machines I bought were for my personal game room and aren't on site anywhere.)

 

So I started my search roughly 2 months ago looking for machines for the new building. I found one old Snackshop 2 machine on a craigslist ad and bought it not realizing how in over my head I really was. I bought the machine for $300 and was told everything worked fine but needed some TLC. Once I got the machine home and opened it up I realized how different a vending machine was compared to an arcade machine. The machine I had bought had a busted coin changer. I started to source the coin changer but was unsuccessful. After buying multiple coin changers that would not work I turned back to craigslist to find another machine. This time I hit pay dirt. I found can machine for $125!. The machine seemed to good to be true. It had a dollar bill changer and according to the post had everything working.I jumped on the ad listing as quickly as humanly possible and headed out to check the machine out. Once onsite I thoroughly checked every aspect of the machine and gave the guy my money. He even delivered it to my house for me! I recently over the weekend finally found a working 3 row vending machine from a guy on a buy sell trade site. Once again I thoroughly checked the machine and gave the guy my money.

 

Both my machines are now onsite making money and I'm excited to be a part of this forum.  Now comes the questions. I have so many questions but rather than going crazy I'd like to just shoot my top 3 questions.

 

1. This Snackshop 2 machine I bought had a Multi-price Coinco M300-9400 unit in it. I can't seem to find this changer anywhere. Is there a different type of changer I could use instead of this? Is this machine even worth fixing give the age (1980's) I believe.

 

2. I read the forums on pricing for a snack machine and was wondering if anyone has had luck selling bagged Ramen? If so whats a good price to set it at.

 

3. Last what are some major problems I will have with these machines and what can I do to prevent these? I assume one of the most expensive repairs would be a bad condensor but since I'm new to the game id like to know a little more to be prepared.

 

Thanks for your help! Here is a picture of my machines too