Trying to get my foot in the door, routes worth it to you?

[tilleylorenzo]

Hi, I'm trying to break into the vending industry and recently came across 2 locations on Craigslist that are very close to my house, and wanted some insight on if they seem worth it or not

Thanks in advance for the feedback

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[lacanteen]

A few questions:

1-Is the income verifiable?

2-What exactly does "MDB ready" mean? Are the machines currently MDB or just capable? Conversion will cost you $300-$500 per machine if not currently MDB.

3-The bill unit on the snack machine in the picture appears to be a Coinco, not MEI as advertised.

The equipment is worth about $3K which is a little over 41% of reported annualized sales. A fair offer, in my opinion.

[AngryChris]

I can't tell the model numbers based off of pictures but the bottom 501e appears to have a control board and I have only seen 501e's with SIID boards in them.  Regardless, as long as they are multiprice, then they will be capable of having MDB decides for maybe $30 per harness?  The GPL's probably just need a harness as well because they look much newer than a National 147.  I think virtually everything that came after the National 147 was MDB-capable with a harness.  Not to mention.. the only machines with any kind of vend sensor that I know of are MDB-ready except for older Royals maybe.  I feel about 90% sure that everything either IS using MDB components already or just needs a $30 harness (if that) plus mech and val.

In all fairness though, as long as everything works, you don't need to upgrade to MDB unless you need a credit card reader.

I can't see what the asking price for the first pair is.  If it was $3,000 for all 4 machines, I would take it pretty much right away, assuming the pepsi-logo'd machine was not a pepsi asset.

lacanteen, from what I see, the $3,000 price is for the 2 machines doing 350-400/month.  $3,000 is about 67% of the annualized sales.  Still, if the location does anything like what's advertised, it's a good deal in my opinion.  To buy those machines refurbished and installed to the location would easily cost me $3,000 from a couple sources.  And if they DID make $4,000/year, it would do enough sales to keep me busy while I look for a better location (if necessary).

Really, it seems like a reasonable deal.  If you can get proof of income for the locations, it could be a really good deal to get your feet wet.  You will still have problems with stale product though because you still might not make enough sales to sell entire boxes of products without buying variety packs.  It's better than starting out with a bunch of low volume locations though.  Verify the income!!
 

[falls]

$4500 for the 1st 2 machines, $3000 for the second 2

[vendman0729]

I think it's a pretty good deal.

I try to pay no more than 8 months of gross sales of the location as long as the equipment is descent.

I just bought 2 locations my self which together gross $900. 

The seller was asking $7500 which is fairly reasonable and is slightly more than 8 months gross sales.

I looked at the accounts and I got lucky that she excepted $5500.

I have to dive a good bit to one of the accounts but it's worth it.

 

I am sure the price is somewhat negotiable as well here.

I would look at the locations and show that you'r really interested in them.  Tell them that your real and that you have the cash because there's a lot of scammers on craigslist now days and also a lot of people actually don't have the money and try to ask the seller if they can finance it which is a big turnoff for sellers.  

Anyways if both locations are making together $900/month lets say, that means you should not pay more than $7200 in this case.  

Since both together cost $4500+$3000=$7500, it is alright but I am sure you can bring them down on the price.

Like the others said verify income.

When I looked at the 2 locations that I just bought, I resetted the machines sales and met up with the seller again after a week and the machines did do what the seller stated.  Make sure you know how to reset the data and tell the seller ahead of time that you will be resetting the machines sales.  Actually you don't even have to reset the sales but note down the total sales history for each machine and subtract each time you go to the location from the next history sales.  You would write something like $74,347-$74,270=$77/week or amount of days since last service.

Also check for diet drinks to see if their expired when looking at the locations.  The slower out of the 2 accounts I bought I did notice their drinks were about to expire but this wasn't a deal breaker for me.  

Those 5 wide snack machines are annoying to service when snack sales are on the lower side but it's still doable.  Hopefully their not putting in too many many different types of pastries.  Pop tarts, Pecan Twirls, Sugar Wafers should more of make up the pasty shelf rather than lots of different types of Honey Buns, Cheese Danishes e.t.c.

Man I can go on forever on this topic.

All of the locations I acquired are from buying small different routes haha. 

 

[AZVendor]

Everyone should always be recording meter readings, which you referred to, all of the time.  This allows you to compare cash collected to the meter on every collection.