AMD Snacks Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 Just switched to mints for my honor boxes. Trying to put 50 in pink ribbon boxes, how is everyone counting mints out? I tried a scale but the weights on these things is all over the place..Just have to hand count them all? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lionvending Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 I put 120 per each acrylic box. I have found that good ol fashioned counting them by hand works best for me. It takes some time, but I know the count is right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AMD Snacks Posted March 18, 2017 Author Share Posted March 18, 2017 Yea that's what I had to do so far too. But 40 boxes is a lot to count [emoji28] ohwell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuikVend Posted March 18, 2017 Share Posted March 18, 2017 I think I'm going to take Rodney's suggestion. He counts the first few services, then just tosses mints in afterwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AMD Snacks Posted March 21, 2017 Author Share Posted March 21, 2017 The idea being, if the theft was significant it would be obvious enough to know to pull without the numbers to back it up? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QuikVend Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 Yea. I know I can fit 120 or so mints in the box without really cramming them in there. If I watch how much money I'm spending on mints and how much I'm collecting, it should give me a good idea of how much I'm making. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbeckl Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 i know a lot of people will disagree with me on this one... but id never hand count my mints. i have a lil over 300 stops, and hand counting them would be a nightmare!! heres how i do it, and this is just my way, not saying by any means its the smartest way, or the most effective way. but, youll find as you grow, anything that slows you down will be a curse. traffic does enough of that for me already! i walk into a location. i know i have no more than $11.25 in product in there. i dump the left over mints into a cooler in my front floorboard, make a note, tear it off my paper and put it in the coin slot, put the now empty box in the back, grab a new one, move on. example: marks grill, half full, add 25 days. now if i get home, and i see marks grill had $9.25, and was about half full, i may make a note in the location title like this "marks grill, add sign if loss goes higher". down the street, at changs, i may have a nearly empty box with $45 in it. no note needed except "changs" . as long as you know your product costs, and service times, youll get a feel for it if you do it that way. just my .02 i guess it all depends on your goals too. if you want 50 spots doing $35 a month with low loss, id keep close track of loss. if you want 500 spots averaging $17-20 a month... id give up on the hand counting and focus on growing, and end of day profits. obviously, at some point, if you have a location that consistently gives you $12 on a empty box, its probably time to pull it. my rule of thumb is pretty simple: if its near empty and has more than $15, close to other locations, ill try and keep it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lake Cities Vending Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 I weigh mine. 100 mints is around 1,404 mints. I don't care if its 1 or 2 mints off, close enough for me. I have a chart I made that goes from 1 to 100 and has the weight. When I get home I just dump left over mints in and weight and get it close enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AMD Snacks Posted March 22, 2017 Author Share Posted March 22, 2017 Bbeckl how do you know you only have$11.25 worth of product in the box? Lake cities yea I tried weighing too, at some points I was at the right weight but 3 or do mints off.But all in all sounds like the consensus is become good at guessing and things should be ok. That's all I need to know lol, I figure like most things in life...Figure out how other people do it...and then, after you got the hang of it, you can make changes if you want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bbeckl Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 the $11.25 was a guesstimate. i did the math, and its actually closer to $10.40. the way i came up with that number is i pay $13 per box of 175 count yorks =.074 ea x a maximum of 140 pieces (thats another guess. maybe 150 pieces in a crammed full box thats piled high, in a location thats 30 miles away, and is a weekly service with low loss). so with my new found math and knowing its closer to $10.40 product per box on a really really full one, id say most boxes have $9.25 or less in mints, per box. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AMD Snacks Posted March 22, 2017 Author Share Posted March 22, 2017 Makes sense, I'll give it a try and see what happens. I was giving my wife a hard time because she wasn't being careful with my mint counts. I guess she had the right idea all along lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lionvending Posted March 25, 2017 Share Posted March 25, 2017 I vary the products I offer in my boxes between locations. This pretty much requires me to hand count. But it allows me the flexibility of offering various products and different locations. This in turn allows me to maximize profits. An example of this is a location of was considering pulling due to extremely low sales with Mints is making a killing with Laffy Taffy and Airheads. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AMD Snacks Posted March 25, 2017 Author Share Posted March 25, 2017 Do you change your prices for the different products? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lionvending Posted March 25, 2017 Share Posted March 25, 2017 No. As long as the unit price is 10 cents or less I put them in the boxes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lionvending Posted March 25, 2017 Share Posted March 25, 2017 I do Pearson Mints, Laffy Taffy, Airheads, Tootsie Pops, Blow Pops, Nestle Candy Bars, Mars candy bars, etc. Or a combination of some of the above. Locations always seem to get excited when I switch product, which I do when sales start to decline consistently over a few cycles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shvending Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 On 3/22/2017 at 4:37 AM, bbeckl said: i know a lot of people will disagree with me on this one... but id never hand count my mints. i have a lil over 300 stops, and hand counting them would be a nightmare!! heres how i do it, and this is just my way, not saying by any means its the smartest way, or the most effective way. but, youll find as you grow, anything that slows you down will be a curse. traffic does enough of that for me already! i walk into a location. i know i have no more than $11.25 in product in there. i dump the left over mints into a cooler in my front floorboard, make a note, tear it off my paper and put it in the coin slot, put the now empty box in the back, grab a new one, move on. example: marks grill, half full, add 25 days. now if i get home, and i see marks grill had $9.25, and was about half full, i may make a note in the location title like this "marks grill, add sign if loss goes higher". down the street, at changs, i may have a nearly empty box with $45 in it. no note needed except "changs" . as long as you know your product costs, and service times, youll get a feel for it if you do it that way. just my .02 i guess it all depends on your goals too. if you want 50 spots doing $35 a month with low loss, id keep close track of loss. if you want 500 spots averaging $17-20 a month... id give up on the hand counting and focus on growing, and end of day profits. obviously, at some point, if you have a location that consistently gives you $12 on a empty box, its probably time to pull it. my rule of thumb is pretty simple: if its near empty and has more than $15, close to other locations, ill try and keep it. bbeckl I agree with your approach. I currently have 650 locations with 690 boxes on location. It would be impossible for me to hand count candy (I don't sell mints). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodney69 Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 After we got the hang of it, we just put about half a box in the mint box at about every location. So approx. 6.40 product cost. If a box is to low, we're mention it, if it repeats and it's not worth it, we pull it. We don't count individual stops, money or mints. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AMD Snacks Posted April 18, 2017 Author Share Posted April 18, 2017 I get everything except, how do you know which location was low unless you counted the money vs mints and knew where that box came from? I'm heading a similar direction because counting a bunch of locations and mints and money took quite a chunk out of my day last time.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodney69 Posted April 18, 2017 Share Posted April 18, 2017 I know that a half box (175ct) makes 18-30 dollars for me to be ok with it. 18 being medium theft and 30 being extremely low theft. That's just my area. When I open the box to dump the money out I can tell by looking at it if it's unreasonably low. I don't track individual locations after the first round or 2. I did for awhile and I made the same amount as I do now. To me it's not worth it. I use 2 boxes to service my route, or my driver does when I'm not with him. Call me later today if you want specifics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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