MNvending Posted March 15, 2018 Share Posted March 15, 2018 I picked up a government building a few months ago. The location has well over 100 employees and by the look of it you'd think it would be a solid location. The parking lot is jam packed and there are people walking around all over. To my dismay, this location has been pretty much a dud. I installed 4 machines in 2 buildings and they have expired a lot of product over the last 4 months. Has anyone else experienced this with government buildings? To top off the slow sales, the people are really tough to deal with and I get the feeling that they think they're entitled to the equipment. I had a lady very rudely express concern that there was too much diet soda in one of the machines and said that she really wants to have Coke and an orange option. I politely said "okay that's no problem". The next service I put in Coke and Sunkist, and then told her on my way out that I stocked the options she asked for. How many Coke and Sunkists do you think I've sold in the last 4 weeks? A grand total of 3, two sunkists, and one coke. I started filling columns only half way to minimize stales, and started servicing them bi-weekly instead of weekly to keep service costs down. Then last week I started getting emails about a couple of empty coils. I also noticed in the other building that they have an honor snack system in their meeting room literally right next to my 5 wide snack machine and BevMax. The honor cash jar was completely stuffed with cash. I'm competing with my own customers. I am a bit offended by this and I'm ready to start pulling equipment. What would you do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orsd Posted March 15, 2018 Share Posted March 15, 2018 29 minutes ago, MNvending said: I get the feeling that they think they're entitled to the equipment. Your typical government employee, right here. I would pare equipment down, rule of thumb for me is at least 300/mo for a soda and snack. Below that not worth the hassle. I do have some 100-160/mo stops but they are low maintenance, tire shops, with single price Dixie's, drop by once a month or 6 weeks when I'm in the area, 200 bucks ain't bad for stopping the truck and slinging 10 cases of cans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZVendor Posted March 15, 2018 Share Posted March 15, 2018 Yes, this is the attitude of all government employees. They have a sense of entitlement and low moral due to low or no raises and always being worried about their jobs. It starts at the top and works down. Most management is very negative and micro-manages their departments which drives moral even lower. The honor box or even sodas sold out of refrigerators is evidence of how poorly they feel they are paid. Post offies are the same way. I used to do $20,000 per week out of all the Post Ofcs in Phoenix and now Canteen can't even touch that. I saw the trends in the mid to late 90's when my postal sales began to drop with no real reason. It was all moral related as I saw more and more free food sitting around breakdowns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southeast Treats Posted March 16, 2018 Share Posted March 16, 2018 I have a few government locations but nothing to brag about, I don't really seek them out anymore. Also have to contend with the blind vendors in Federal and state buildings, if you do develop a good location they will swoop in as soon as they find out about it, and the Randolph-Sheppard act gives them priority, so out you go.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AZVendor Posted March 16, 2018 Share Posted March 16, 2018 Get a contract and then the Blind have nothing to do about it until it expires. That is how I kept mine for 7 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted March 16, 2018 Share Posted March 16, 2018 Yes, the blind get a lot of contracts around here. I also had some government facilities.. two related buildings at one time but both were snack only. At one location, they ONLY had room for a shallow 4-wide and nothing more. These dumb-dumbs would call and complain when one column was sold out. I didn't have problems with stales but did have problems with them lying about how low the machine was. Sometimes they would call because the machine was almost sold out! Of course, i got there and only a couple random things were missing. This was an office-setting with about 40 cars in the parking lot. The other location had maybe 25 employees but they generated close to $50/week in snacks (other did $30-40). In the end, i lost them because the city decided to bid out all local city buildings in order to "entice" vendors to give them a deal. They wanted 10% of gross, machines no more than 5 years old, card readers on all machines, food machines at specific locations, and they wanted to set the prices. Oh, AND you did NO soda machines because coke had that contract. The only gem was that you also got the local airport where you did 100% of the vending and you set your pricing. I didn't even bid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYCandyMaN Posted March 16, 2018 Share Posted March 16, 2018 sorry.... this sounds so horrible, I always do the opposite, I tell them the machine is already full, well see how this goes, and what sells, then well set up the new selections Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WheelofDeath Posted March 16, 2018 Share Posted March 16, 2018 12 hours ago, AngryChris said: Yes, the blind get a lot of contracts around here. I also had some government facilities.. two related buildings at one time but both were snack only. At one location, they ONLY had room for a shallow 4-wide and nothing more. These dumb-dumbs would call and complain when one column was sold out. I didn't have problems with stales but did have problems with them lying about how low the machine was. Sometimes they would call because the machine was almost sold out! Of course, i got there and only a couple random things were missing. This was an office-setting with about 40 cars in the parking lot. The other location had maybe 25 employees but they generated close to $50/week in snacks (other did $30-40). In the end, i lost them because the city decided to bid out all local city buildings in order to "entice" vendors to give them a deal. They wanted 10% of gross, machines no more than 5 years old, card readers on all machines, food machines at specific locations, and they wanted to set the prices. Oh, AND you did NO soda machines because coke had that contract. The only gem was that you also got the local airport where you did 100% of the vending and you set your pricing. I didn't even bid. I seem to recall you mentioning that you were in Dayton. If that’s correct I know exactly what accounts you are talking about (water related). I work for the company that got the contract. Most of the of the city locations are duds with a few decent ones sprinkled in the mix. You didn’t miss out on that Airport gem. The majority of the public access machines are stuck in out of the way spots. The airport is decent, but used to be a really good account before the airport renovated and added new coffee and food locations. They moved vending to wayside except for the machines at the entrance. My old company before being bought out in 2012 had the airport since 2003. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted March 16, 2018 Share Posted March 16, 2018 4 hours ago, WheelofDeath said: I seem to recall you mentioning that you were in Dayton. If that’s correct I know exactly what accounts you are talking about (water related). I work for the company that got the contract. Most of the of the city locations are duds with a few decent ones sprinkled in the mix. You didn’t miss out on that Airport gem. The majority of the public access machines are stuck in out of the way spots. The airport is decent, but used to be a really good account before the airport renovated and added new coffee and food locations. They moved vending to wayside except for the machines at the entrance. My old company before being bought out in 2012 had the airport since 2003. Yes, you know what I am talking about. I only had a couple accounts but I have no idea how many different vendors were there. I just know that the contract was horrid. That's not to say that the winning bidder didn't negotiate the terms but I couldn't possibly afford to equip everything. I think the deal was bad for all parties except *maybe* the city/county commissioner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poplady1 Posted March 17, 2018 Share Posted March 17, 2018 We get alot of Cities, School District and Government requests. Some of you are probably aware of Planetbids. I hate those more than any of the requests we get, it takes forever to complete the paperwork, finally you get to do a walk thru only to find half of the stuff is terrible, some questionable then a couple of decent spots. Schools can be tough too. I just did a bid on a high-security government building adjacent to the airport. 350 employees and they wanted 18 machines. We got the contract only because we were one of the last companies willing to even talk to them. They had 4 floors each with a decent size breakroom. Our offer was 7 machines. 3 drink 3 snack 1 Crane Combo. All with CC readers, nice like new and the combo was new. Bev Max on each floor. After a month it looks like it will do between $550 and $650 a month per floor. Not great but okay. It has the remote monitoring system too. Surprisingly the combo outsells the other floors. That floor is the trainee floor and they are on the phone all day. Today we spoke to the LA Coliseum. Not for the vendor sales during events but for the employees (200 average during events 95 daily) and the office (55 women). They loved everything about the offer until we got to the office. The office manager insisted they should have a fresh food machine because they have to walk so far to get something for lunch. We told her about our microwave row with lots of options plus Bumble Bee Chicken Salad, Tuna Salad. Nope, she wants fresh salads. She wouldn't budge. We left our card. Explained we could offer 5 machines but could not offer a fresh food/ice cream machine. Please call if they changed their mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngryChris Posted March 17, 2018 Share Posted March 17, 2018 10 minutes ago, Poplady1 said: Today we spoke to the LA Coliseum. Not for the vendor sales during events but for the employees (200 average during events 95 daily) and the office (55 women). They loved everything about the offer until we got to the office. The office manager insisted they should have a fresh food machine because they have to walk so far to get something for lunch. We told her about our microwave row with lots of options plus Bumble Bee Chicken Salad, Tuna Salad. Nope, she wants fresh salads. She wouldn't budge. We left our card. Explained we could offer 5 machines but could not offer a fresh food/ice cream machine. Please call if they changed their mind. I am sure there are some accounts out there that will warrant a machine that has fresh salads in it, but that might not be the one lol. I used to be the driver at an account that did $500-$700/day (3 soda, 1 USI snack that had 7 rows, a coffee machine, and a food machine). At this account, I only did the 3 soda and 1 snack machine every morning, but I think the food and coffee were serviced every other day. Long story short.. we probably stocked maybe 4 salads per week in there and it was a gamble whether they would sell or not. I actually wonder if there are accounts out there that kill salads regularly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlindVending Posted March 17, 2018 Share Posted March 17, 2018 2 hours ago, AngryChris said: I am sure there are some accounts out there that will warrant a machine that has fresh salads in it, but that might not be the one lol. I used to be the driver at an account that did $500-$700/day (3 soda, 1 USI snack that had 7 rows, a coffee machine, and a food machine). At this account, I only did the 3 soda and 1 snack machine every morning, but I think the food and coffee were serviced every other day. Long story short.. we probably stocked maybe 4 salads per week in there and it was a gamble whether they would sell or not. I actually wonder if there are accounts out there that kill salads regularly. Nope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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