candyman353 Posted February 19, 2009 Share Posted February 19, 2009 I got started in bulk vending last Oct. Have 6 Vendstar 3000s making quarters. Its been an execllent hands on education. I have an opportunity to move into full line snack and soda vending. Pending decisions are buy vs lease ? Are there equipment vendors that offer built in computers that can maintain and report on inventory levels, vend counts, with internet connectivity ? I was thinking leasing one of these advanced machines for a new location would provide good data to assess cash flow, allow just-in-time inventory replenishment, and monitor machine malfunction from my desktop to provide the best service. Appreciate your inputs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VendSmart Posted February 22, 2009 Share Posted February 22, 2009 CandyMan, I don't know of any company that leases machines with this system installed, but you may retrofit just about any modern machine with a system that does. Currently I use a system called Cantalope Seed in my machines, basically they use cellular technology to connect to a server to download dex information to your computer. Meaning it tracks sales, inventory,malfunction alerts, and generates all sorts of reports in real time. It does help to know what products to bring with you or even whether you need to service a machine at all. Overall it's a good system and helps but it's not perfect either, it can be time consuming to get working properly. You can read more about it here: http://www.cantaloupesys.com/products.html Also I know there are other systems out there but I could only comment on this one from experience. Hope this helps! Mike VendSmart Co. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
candyman353 Posted February 23, 2009 Author Share Posted February 23, 2009 Mike, Thanks for the inputs. I found out about the Seed system last week, called them up. Also spent an afternoon at a local major vending machine distributor, who gave me a good basic education on getting started. According to this distributor, no manufacturer rents machines because of the high risk of vandalism, and possibility of machine taking a walk. Also, he says that adoption rate for the Seed system and other remote wireless monitoring systems has been weak. Can you provide some details of hardware costs and data reporting monthly fee for Seed ? Cantaloupe did not provide these details over the phone. Kishore Subbarao Candy-in-a-Hurry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VendSmart Posted March 19, 2009 Share Posted March 19, 2009 Sorry about the delayed response I never got an email reponse to this trhread. Anyway the Seed costs me about $275 per unit and about $6.00 per unit per month. Hope this helps! Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now