Scrum Posted June 1, 2016 Share Posted June 1, 2016 I have some money and was thinking about investing in some good 1800 soda/snack machines. I was also thinking about buying used soda/snack machines for cheap so I could get 3-6x more. Not sure which route to go. If I was to get nice machines I would want very good locations. Which locations make you the most money? How much money do you offer businesses at specific locations, if any? What type of machines do you have, how many, and how much are they making you on average? How often do your machines break down, require new parts, or just regular servicing? With the world shifting more towards electronic payments, how important is it to have machines that accept credit cards in nicer middle class areas? How do you go about hiring people to run routes when your operation gets big? I am a beginner with no experience, but I also can afford some risk and would like to make a decent sized move if I got in this business (multiple machines). What advice would you give? How much work is it? How much money are you making? How many machines would I need to be making 6 figures, 7 figures, etc. just to get a ball park? I understand these things vary pretty drastically but I just want to get an idea of what kind of operation I'd need to make the kind of money I want. I am an extremely hard worker and a pretty smart individual. If you could take the time to answer some of these questions I would be extremely grateful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scrum Posted June 1, 2016 Author Share Posted June 1, 2016 After doing some more research I realized these bizop vending companies are a really bad idea. So scratch the 1800 idea. But I will say... I would love to have machines that accept credit cards and allow me to track inventory/sales remotely. This would allow me to hire people down the road without worrying about stealing (I understand this is getting ahead of myself but still there are a lot of perks to having those features). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scrum Posted June 1, 2016 Author Share Posted June 1, 2016 Additional questions: What food and drink items have the best ROI? What do you pay for drinks/snacks and what do you sell them for? Can you get extreme discounts if you do major bulk, if so, how? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moondog Posted June 1, 2016 Share Posted June 1, 2016 Additional questions: What food and drink items have the best ROI? What do you pay for drinks/snacks and what do you sell them for? Can you get extreme discounts if you do major bulk, if so, how? A lot of questions First off, there's no such thing as a good 1 800 machine, stick to American made equipment only. For only ten grand, your best bet would be to put together a string of soda machines (cans only). These are easy to service and for that much money you should be able to get at least eight of them out there with some money left over for inventory. You'd be looking at smaller blue collar type accounts. If you go after the bigger accounts, you'll have to do snacks as well and you really don't have enough capital for the equipment for this to be viable as you'd need at least ten machines ( five snack and five soda ) The other benefit with soda machines is that most of them are capable of doing DEX and CC readers where many of the snack machines might need expensive upgrades to make this happen down the road. Sounds like you need to take some time and read back through this forum a bit as most of the questions you've raised have been discussed in detail many times. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Walta Posted June 1, 2016 Share Posted June 1, 2016 1 There is no Santa Claus! 2 There is no tooth Fairy! 3 No one makes money while they sleep! The vending business a lot of work there are lots of competitors and yes many people do lose money in the vending business. The most profitable items are 1 Soda 2 Snacks 3 Coffee is profitable only if and when your machine is the only coffee option for your consumers. 4 Cold Food is only profitable in prisons and jails. The number of people who pay themselves 7 figures in the vending business is a very small number. Walta Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smartvendnw Posted June 1, 2016 Share Posted June 1, 2016 Walta and Moondog know their stuff. Listen to them for sure. As a growing company I found this website very helpful too; http://www.vending-business-information.com/ Pretty much gives answers to all your questions and lines up with lot of advice in here. This forum is by far the best thing to happen to my business though. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scrum Posted June 1, 2016 Author Share Posted June 1, 2016 A lot of questions First off, there's no such thing as a good 1 800 machine, stick to American made equipment only. For only ten grand, your best bet would be to put together a string of soda machines (cans only). These are easy to service and for that much money you should be able to get at least eight of them out there with some money left over for inventory. You'd be looking at smaller blue collar type accounts. If you go after the bigger accounts, you'll have to do snacks as well and you really don't have enough capital for the equipment for this to be viable as you'd need at least ten machines ( five snack and five soda ) The other benefit with soda machines is that most of them are capable of doing DEX and CC readers where many of the snack machines might need expensive upgrades to make this happen down the road. Sounds like you need to take some time and read back through this forum a bit as most of the questions you've raised have been discussed in detail many times. Yeah in my 1st comment on this thread I posted how after further research I realized 1800 is crap. I also could invest 20k+. Any specific DEX + CC reading soda machines that you use and would recommend? I have been and will keep reading through this forum. Thanks. 1 There is no Santa Claus! 2 There is no tooth Fairy! 3 No one makes money while they sleep! The vending business a lot of work there are lots of competitors and yes many people do lose money in the vending business. The most profitable items are 1 Soda 2 Snacks 3 Coffee is profitable only if and when your machine is the only coffee option for your consumers. 4 Cold Food is only profitable in prisons and jails. The number of people who pay themselves 7 figures in the vending business is a very small number. Walta Thanks for the reply. Just trying to learn as much as possible from the experts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apple Leisure Posted June 1, 2016 Share Posted June 1, 2016 Lots of questions. I'll answer one: You don't need to be looking for 'nicer middle class areas'. Generally speaking you want a younger demographic, probably less than middle class, and captive is always a plus. Foot traffic can be good, multiple shifts are always good and of course number of employees is paramount. Get lots of people who use vending machines and provide good equipment, selections, prices and service. You'll be off to a good start. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chkoolaid1 Posted June 1, 2016 Share Posted June 1, 2016 To add to the good advice already given, you said you wanted to buy used, find a good dealer in your area and look into refurbished as well. I buy a lot of machines off Craigslist and eBay and I'm learning that they're not difficult to work on. The most confusing part for me is finding the right parts. My best accounts are the ones with multiple shifts, and locations with lots of kids. Welcome to the forum! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southeast Treats Posted June 1, 2016 Share Posted June 1, 2016 Another option to jump start is to look for a small operator who is ready to sell his entire route... some people on here will disagree, as locations that are being sold off piecemeal are almost always an operators bad locations; but an entire route will usually have something. That way you have a base to start learning. You need to be wary about the cost of the route tho, it's easy to pay too much. I started with about what you have and bought a route with 14 locations. About half of those were golphers and I got rid of them. Paid a little too much (seller carried some debt for me, so nice of him LOL) and had to work thru that. Learned what machines were good and what were not, how to fix machines, and got enough knowledge to start looking for my own accounts. Also found a good vending mentor along the way. Spent a LOT of time on the business, it's not a part time gig if you want to make any money! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moondog Posted June 1, 2016 Share Posted June 1, 2016 Yeah in my 1st comment on this thread I posted how after further research I realized 1800 is crap. I also could invest 20k+. Any specific DEX + CC reading soda machines that you use and would recommend? I have been and will keep reading through this forum. Thanks. Thanks for the reply. Just trying to learn as much as possible from the experts. I'm a big fan of the Royal GIII machines. I currently own six of them and they've been super reliable and are set up to take CC readers and will do DEX. I'd steer clear of the glass front machines for now unless you land a really good account that demands them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scrum Posted June 3, 2016 Author Share Posted June 3, 2016 I'm a big fan of the Royal GIII machines. I currently own six of them and they've been super reliable and are set up to take CC readers and will do DEX. I'd steer clear of the glass front machines for now unless you land a really good account that demands them. What are the best CC readers with DEX? I found ePort and AirVend. Do you stay away from glass front because it is more expensive? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZVendor Posted June 4, 2016 Share Posted June 4, 2016 You aren't reading here enough if you still don't understand that DEX isn't in the card readers and that card readers don't have a hard time with DEX. It's the machines and the unregulated way that manufacturers play around with the DEX programming that causes a problem when the card reader tries to extract the data. Old machines don't play well and newer machines often need a newer software version so DEX works correctly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scrum Posted June 4, 2016 Author Share Posted June 4, 2016 Thanks for the reply. You're right, I don't really understand DEX. Is there any information on it that you find valuable that you don't mind sharing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZVendor Posted June 4, 2016 Share Posted June 4, 2016 DEX stands for Date Exchange Protocol which was created by the NAMA industry association along with machine manufacturers many years ago. This was supposed to be a standard that all machines would follow when sales and item level information was extracted from the logic board. Unfortunately NAMA has done a piss poor job of enforcing their claimed "standard" and so the DEX protocol has changed dramatically over the years as manufacturers redesigned their software and stole data space from DEX. That led to many older machines no longer sending DEX data as they should because the third party service providers have written their DEX extraction software to match the current DEX footprint. What this all boils down to is that many machines can't send all the DEX data they should, even with upgraded EPROMs and other late model machine must have updated EPROMs to work properly. Just a general pain in the butt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poplady1 Posted June 5, 2016 Share Posted June 5, 2016 First get a location then buy the equipment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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