westlakevending Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 Sixlets ? Chewy Spree,? Hersheys Kissables? Dentyne Ice gum tabs? Good n Plenty? Let me know what you think of these items. SHawn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beer980 Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 I like the Sixlets but I have not ordered them in bulk to try yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westlakevending Posted February 15, 2009 Author Share Posted February 15, 2009 im thinking about getting some the next time i get some merchandise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jax Snacks Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 Shawn, You are asking a very valid question here and I want to give a serious answer and opinion. However, you may not want to hear this right now, but... I know longer mess with those special candies since they don't significantly increase revenues for me. The proven sellers are MMP, M&I, RP, Gumballs, Chicklet Tabs and Skittles. IMO, All the rest are a HUGE WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY! The other products do not sell consistently from location to location and you end up with a bunch of niche products in a few exception locations. It's also a real hassle to keep track and stock all those niche products. I know there are exceptions, but I personally want products that appeal to the masses and not niche products where I have to remove them from 9 out of every 10 locations. When your route grows to a couple hunded locations, you will not want to stock those 3 bags of Hot Tamales for those 5 locations that buy them. Generally speaking, you will not significantly increase revenues by adding more candies at your locations. Not trying to be negative, just have been there and done that. After 9 years, I no longer mess with specialty candy since after I tried them, I always end up going back to the proven winners and throwing out cases of the losers. Just my opinion and years of trial-and-error. Can't wait for the hate mail on this one! Jax Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROGERS VENDING Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 JAX, I agree with you for the most part. You are an experienced vet and preach this throughout. As a business, you must take into account how things will work when you become a larger and more successful business (with hundreds of locations). I'm not even sure if Dentyne Ice is that great of an idea. It's at least 8 cents a vend for gum! Stick with gumballs, etc at 2.5 cents a vend. The only explanation for Dentyne Ice would be to get into a location. If you are in a saturated market, or if a good location already has machines, then you may use the Dentyne Ice to get your foot in the door. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jax Snacks Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 Agreed, niche products may help open a door for you by appealing to the taste of the decision maker, but eventually you will most likely replace it. Jax Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guile Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 I'm not even sure if Dentyne Ice is that great of an idea. It's at least 8 cents a vend for gum! Stick with gumballs, etc at 2.5 cents a vend. The only explanation for Dentyne Ice would be to get into a location. If you are in a saturated market, or if a good location already has machines, then you may use the Dentyne Ice to get your foot in the door. While I would agree about most of the other candies mentioned above, I have to disagree about DI. Since I have several DI machines, my opinion would be considered biased, but I'll tell you why I have those machines in the first place. While Dentyne Ice might fall into the "niche product" category, I do think it has a MUCH stronger market share (as well as stronger viability) compared to the other products mentioned above. I think DI is a fabulous product but as you point out, the cog's price is high. With a cog's price at 30%, anybody vending candy is paying the same. I have DI in ONLY charity commission spots and these locations wouldn't support anything else. I have some machines that bang out $40 a month and a majority that are now producing $25 minimum. For a single head, that is VERY impressive. I think DI has it's place in my vending arsenal and will continue to sell it for a long time to come. I had thought about trying a couple of similar products from Ford, and maybe capsuling up 2 tabs for .25. That would bring cost of vend down tremendously but...are people willing to pay a quarter for 2 tabs of gum they never heard of? Time will tell.... g Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROGERS VENDING Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 guile, Keep us posted on how that experiment goes with Ford. I agree about Dentyne Ice. I personally would only offer in high traffic areas with competing machines, or specific locations like a Dentist office or gym, etc. Otherwise, you should be able to move gumballs or chiclet at these same locations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dperry Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 I think DI has it's place in my vending arsenal and will continue to sell it for a long time to come.guile,What machine are you using to vend DI? Are you using their machine or some other? How many tabs do you vend? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
guile Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 I think DI has it's place in my vending arsenal and will continue to sell it for a long time to come.guile,What machine are you using to vend DI? Are you using their machine or some other? How many tabs do you vend? I'm using dedicated DI machines at the moment. The product price is at about 30% cogs so it will ALWAYS be 2 pieces. g Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nepavend Posted February 16, 2009 Share Posted February 16, 2009 I could see myself using Dentyne Ice at some point to diversify my rack setups just to have something different or for a tabletop but the others like you say are niche products and hard to keep in stock and sell reliably. Sixlets? Wow I haven't heard that name since I was about 10, I used to get them in the little store at the corner for a nickel. Memories.... I dont even think Sprees are being made anymore, I was told that by another vendor on the site. I guess that would go for chewy spree too. That stinks because I think that candy may actually be a decent sell otherwise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beer980 Posted February 16, 2009 Share Posted February 16, 2009 You can get packs of Sixlets at Dollar General stores if there are any located up that way. They are a nice change to M&M's and I like them better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ROGERS VENDING Posted February 16, 2009 Share Posted February 16, 2009 Beer, That's an interesting strategy. If PMMs continue to increase, everybody will be trying this! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lurtsman Posted February 16, 2009 Share Posted February 16, 2009 Thanks for the product ideas jax. Are runts not worth stocking because of low sales? (Their CoG is incredible, and I expected them to have a very long shelf life.) As I grow I will attempt to imitate the above mentioned products. Most likely focused on RP and skittles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nepavend Posted February 16, 2009 Share Posted February 16, 2009 Lurtsman, I think I have only had one spot do pretty decent with Runts, it was at a YMCA, and even then it wasn't half of what Skittles did. I would rather have had another toy/ball head there in its place looking back at it. Sometimes, Spanish places sell well with Runts, I had a hair place that did about $20/service or so, but even then nothing real special. After I use up what I have I will drop Runts from my products, they just aren't asked for in my area and don't sell all that great, it is a shame because of the low cost but the spoilage isn't worth it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nepavend Posted February 16, 2009 Share Posted February 16, 2009 Jax, POTD! On the contrary, it looks like you've started a very interesting thread on candy, and I appreciate it for one, since I have been more close-minded to candy vending than the average vendor on the site. Because of posts/threads like this, I have been reconsidering my positions on not doing any candy to looking at using Dentyne Ice and even Buzz Bites! That is one of the reasons I am here, I am still learning new things just about every day and I am one of the "seasoned vets" on this site with coming up on three years in the biz already come July. Can't believe I'm still here going stronger than I imagined, and getting ready to jump to full-time for next year! You can tell I am excited! haha... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nepavend Posted February 16, 2009 Share Posted February 16, 2009 I know I have certainly heard of Dentyne gum, and certainly Dentyne Ice, I think you can certainly get away with putting them in some capsules. 2 or 3 tabs should be a good enough vend for most people I would think, but you do not know until you try it out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jax Snacks Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 Joe, We all evolve in this business and we also tend to go to extremes and over-compensate during that process. I started as "pure" candy/charity vendor for 5 years. I had no interest in commission racks or most toys. Many times a location would demand a cut and I would just simply take the machine out - that was dumb on my part. After losing many, many charity locations, I went the other way and only wanted to do commission toy racks and never place another charity candy machine again - another dumb extreme position on my part. Well to make a long story short, I try to just take what ever I can get from a location - candy, gum, toys, charity, commission, hoops, racks, doubles, whatever works. There are limited locations and I want to stay in a 60 miles radius. The problem I had with trying to focus on any one kind of account, is that I was always running out of those locations that fit the profile of what ever model I was doing at the time. I personally would love to do just commission racks but that is not practical here. It's also important IMO, to not overkill on any one kind of product category and not have too many candy, gum, toys, tats, etc. To obtain a good diversity, I like to think of each head as an isle in a supermarket. Each isle has very different products for different people. How many people go to the supermarket and fill up their shopping cart up with just candy? Or how about cereal - waaay too many choices there??!! My goodness, how many cereal products does a grocery store really need to offer? What if the store manager's strategy to increase revenues was to add more cereals. Don't think that would work because most people buy only one or two boxes at a time regardless of how many selections are on the shelf. So I don't mind one candy on the rack, but I don't want eight either. I also don't want three jewelry toy products or four gourmet gumball flavors either or three different figurine toys either. Etc, etc. We need to find balance and not have overkill and try to appeal to as many demographics as we can. Just tryin' to get as much money from each location as possible. Whatever works. If people tell that they are having good luck with buzz bites, I may try a few in my break rooms with my NW machines as well. Jax Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markvend Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 I absolutely agree with Jax on sticking to proven sellers. You will have better luck rotating these best sellers in an individual account than trying too many speciality products especially if your goal is to continue adding machines and expanding. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nepavend Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 Exactly, using common sense and a little creativity to maximize our revenue and profit is how to succeed in business. We have to be careful to not go from one extreme to another, because when emotion gets involved, that is when bad decisions can be made. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lurtsman Posted February 17, 2009 Share Posted February 17, 2009 Great conversation here. I only purchased one bag of runts and put it in my highest visibility location. I think I will plan on switching to skittles when it runs, and only going back if I find out runts actually out performed skittles. (Highly unlikely) Even as a new vendor I need to keep in mind that while my focus starting has been on candy, that I should really limit myself. MMP/RP/Skittles/gumballs gives me a large enough selection for the size of my operation. For me the excitement is in looking at upgrading to a five way rack. Jax, do you purchase your NW60s and 80s new? I tried buying some used machines and had to drive so far we ended up going through illinois (terrible roads) and screwed up the alignment on the car. Now I'm much more selective about buying used. Tons of great deals out there, but more bad ones than good ones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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