gelaro Posted August 31, 2016 Share Posted August 31, 2016 Is there any thing special involved in transferring them? Can they be informally transferred or does there have to be some sort of steps taken with the bottler? Is there any guarantee against the bottler reclaiming them? On a route I am looking at buying, there are 26 bottler owned machines all currently located. There about 23 snack machines as well and 1 owned drink machine. All told, the route grosses about $60K annually. There are only three locations with commissions/contracts. So the drink machines are a significant part of the business. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lacanteen Posted August 31, 2016 Share Posted August 31, 2016 You would need an agreement with the bottler. The selling operator cannot convert assets he doesn't own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZVendor Posted September 1, 2016 Share Posted September 1, 2016 Contact the bottler(s) and see if they will transfer them to you as a new third party vendor. Because he has that many machines they should be receptive to it especially if they are all from one bottler. This will be easier if you are already a vendor with a bunch of locations because they want to know that their relationship with you will grow and last. They tire of fly-by-night operators. There will be an agreement to sign where you will have repair responsibilities and they will spell out the rules of "foreign" products in their machines and what happens when they find it. You will also have to purchase specific amounts of product from them or their "approved distributors" to avoid having the machines picked up or paying more of a lease fee. Don't allow your soda machine mix to exceed 50% from bottlers because then your purchases of product for your owned machines will help you make the minimums for the leased machines. Also, don't pay for the leased machines because they aren't salable assets. You might expect to pay a percentage of sales for the locations or the volume they do but in that case don't base the route purchase price on the assets, base it only on the gross or net sales. By doing this you need to ensure whatever you do pay does not make the owned machines too expensive. For example, a route doing $60K may not bring a price more than $30K, but that's just a hypothetical. Base your price on quality of machines, sales volume, product prices, commissions paid, contracts that exist, validators in every machine, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gelaro Posted September 1, 2016 Author Share Posted September 1, 2016 Thanks. Does anyone know of any situation where the bottler has come after someone in a case like this? What are the ramifications of it? What if the minimums from the bottler surpass the profitability of the machines (i.e., can't sell enough to meet the minimums)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlindVending Posted September 1, 2016 Share Posted September 1, 2016 Thanks. Does anyone know of any situation where the bottler has come after someone in a case like this? What are the ramifications of it? What if the minimums from the bottler surpass the profitability of the machines (i.e., can't sell enough to meet the minimums)? If the account cover the minimums it's not an account worth keeping. The minimum is so small this shouldn't be an issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southeast Treats Posted September 1, 2016 Share Posted September 1, 2016 The bottlers don't really want the machines to come back, they want the sales and exposure, so they will likely work with you. Be prepared, the prices you will pay for their product are going to be slightly higher than what you are probably paying now, that is how they monetize the machines they are loaning to you. Most bottlers are looking for 10 to 12 cases a month per machine as your quota, like AZ said it is easier to meet if you have some of your own machines and are buying all your product thru the bottler. You will need somewhere for delivery as well, when I started with bottlers I had a small storage unit (with good truck access) and put a combination lock on it. They would deliver to the storage unit and I would leave a check for them. Made my life easier as I could just pull up to the storage unit and reload the truck vs "going shopping" for drinks every day.... you should meet with the bottler rep before doing this deal to make sure the current guy is in good standing with them and find out what you can from the rep as well about the account. They can probably tell you exactly how much product he buys, which will help you figure out if he is giving you good numbers for the route... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.