Business size?

[Franco21]

What is the fewest number of employees a business should have in order for it to be worth your time and money to place a machine in it?  I know there are lots of factors but GENERALLY speaking what is the fewest employees at a business that YOU would bother to place a machine in?  

[Anacapa Vending]

100 in an office environment. 50 to 70 blue collar location. Maybe less if there is good foot traffic.

[Franco21]

I have a Staples retail store that only has 25 employees that wants a machine. I was thinking about a small combo machine. I used to work retail and we had about 30 employees tops and we used to hit the vending machines in our break room HARD!  

[Anacapa Vending]

Retail is okay since they tend to be a younger demographic. We have some that do $80+ a week. Some that do $30 a week 🤦‍♂️

[AngryChris]

From my experiences, retail stores tend to be pretty poor performers while some stand out as decent at best.  Holiday season really affects sales as staff gets increased during those couple months and sometimes, depending on the store, you can get half of your sales from October - December and the other half from January - September.  If I were you, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't even bother with it.  Although 25 employees might not sound so bad, I would venture to say that the majority of us here wouldn't be too interested in pursuing an account with 25 employees.  The catch, however, is that many of those 25 employees are part-time so you might really be working with the equivalent of only 15 employees.  In addition to that, they probably make minimum wage and they tend to be very conservative with the little money they make.  To top it all off, a lot of the younger employees tend to not use the machine if it doesn't have a card reader while older employees tend to not want to buy anything out of the machine at all.  This means that you really need card readers to capture all of the sales, which means a much more expensive investment.  In the end, there are so many better accounts out there that you could invest in.. you have to really consider if you want to even bother with retail.  You may have found yourself and your coworkers using the vending machines a lot, but it may have been an exception such as a large retail store like a Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Lowe's, etc..  Those have a LOT more employees than a Staples and they tend to hit the machines a LOT harder than small retail stores typically do.

[Corvus Corax]

I had a warehouse with about twenty employees that did $300+ a month. Then the 300lb+ dispatcher whose office was 20ft from the machines had bypass surgery. It went to maybe $100 a month with a lot of stale's. Ended up pulling the both machines.

[Franco21]

56 minutes ago, Corvus Corax said:

I had a warehouse with about twenty employees that did $300+ a month. Then the 300lb+ dispatcher whose office was 20ft from the machines had bypass surgery. It went to maybe $100 a month with a lot of stale's. Ended up pulling the both machines.

I’m trying not to laugh but that’s too funny 😂

thanks for the info. I’ll probably give it a try, just because I know the store manager well, and see what happens. I already told her that I will have to pull it if there’s no ROI. 

[flintflash]

The Card Reader is an absolute MUST for this type of account.  We had taken over a big sporting goods account from a headhunter, and it was HORRIBLE.  After two months, we installed a card reader to see if there would be an affect and it went from a lousy $50/month account to $75-$100 weekly.  It is so true that the younger generations do not carry cash.  We do almost 90% cashless at this account.

[vendcobros]

11 hours ago, Corvus Corax said:

I had a warehouse with about twenty employees that did $300+ a month. Then the 300lb+ dispatcher whose office was 20ft from the machines had bypass surgery. It went to maybe $100 a month with a lot of stale's. Ended up pulling the both machines.

I had a location where we would sell around 40 trails best double salami a week until the manager DIED and the sales dropped to zero! One of the employees insinuated I killed him.

[AngryChris]

14 minutes ago, vendcobros said:

I had a location where we would sell around 40 trails best double salami a week until the manager DIED and the sales dropped to zero! One of the employees insinuated I killed him.

Well you gave him no choice but to eat 40 salami sticks a week.

[SCOTT1963]

In a certain retail store with a red bullseye for a logo, the old vendor would not update the machines and $60-$75 a week was the reward

Now newer machines with card readers $225-$400 a week, Bev3 and 113 Snack Refurbed

People under 30 don't carry cash.

[Poplady1]

I have some vendors doing Staples and they say they are good.  

[Franco21]

Thanks everyone for the info