laki Posted June 22, 2009 Share Posted June 22, 2009 Hello everyone, I come from Slovenia and I am in vending business now for a year and a half. I am a student and vending is for me a part time job which is more and more and more becoming full time and my only income. Slovenia is a very small country in the centre of Europe with population of only two million. The town that I live in is the second biggest town and its population is under 200.000. 2 years ago we adopted euro as a new currency and since that the vending industry is expanding. Our old currency didn’t have suitable coins for vending , the biggest coin was worth for about 2 cents (EUR). Now all kinds of vending machines are appearing all over the country. Luckily I was the first with breathalyzers in my area and I have secured the best locations. Today I have 30 breathalyzers and 3 condom machines. Now I am thinking on moving into washroom machines and coffee vending machines. I am very happy to find this forum and I think it is great. I hope this forum has some members from EU who maybe have more useful information for me, because the market in EU has some specifics. However any kinds of information are useful and new approaches are welcome. People that do vending in Slovenia are not following any rules and generally are not gathering information from abroad. I have red “Vending Business in a box” by Bryon King and “The vending jackpot” by Ronnie Talent. Getting those in Slovenia is another story… Thanks for reading my post! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alyssamma Posted June 22, 2009 Share Posted June 22, 2009 Hi Laki! I've been to your country and had some of the best food of my life in Bled. Very, very, pretty little town. Of course we also visited Ljubljana, but that was all we had time for. Welcome! Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caserri Posted June 22, 2009 Share Posted June 22, 2009 Welcome to the community Laki! It's great to have you here. Spend some time reading and asking questions. Once you get 20 posts you will have access to our member PLUS section which contains several other vending ebooks that you can read for free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-man422 Posted June 22, 2009 Share Posted June 22, 2009 Laki, welcome to Vendiscuss! It sounds like you have a nice route established. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nam Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 laki, It was very interesting reading your first post and look forward to reading some more from you. We may be able to share some things that may be different in our countries and learn from our varied experiences. I've often worked in different states here in the US. Sometimes living close enough to be licensed and operating in multiple states. Would it be possible for you to now work in Austria or Italy or any other neighboring countries now that everyone is going on the euro? My favorite product to vend here in the states would be gumballs because of the extreme high profit margin and easy of handling. Have you ever considered vending gumballs? Our cost here is only a couple cents each and vend for 25 cents so as you might guess these can be great money makers. You mentioned getting into washroom machines. What are these? I would guess condom, tampax, etc. but since you already mentioned condom I'm not sure what you are referring to? I would also suggest checking into temporary tattoos. These seem to be very popular all over the world right and now and also are easy to handle and great money makers. Well, look forward to hearing from you in the future and nice to have you as a member in our forum. nam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laki Posted June 23, 2009 Author Share Posted June 23, 2009 Thanks! Nice to hear that you now something about my country… And it is even nicer to have such a warm welcome on this forum. Kevin, Bled vas a very good choice… Did you come to Slovenia by Business? Nam, Since there are no borders and we all share the same currency there should be no problem for me in Austria or Italy. I live only 15miles to Austrian border. I already thought about gumballs since you can’t find any in Slovenia. However Slovenia has some very strict regulations on selling food. Last year I wanted to put a bulk machine in a bar to sell peanuts and it was not possible because in a bulk peanuts are not properly packed in vacuum and the expiration date is not exposed. Maybe with gumballs is different… However there are no gumballs around here and no competition… About washroom machines, I met a guy from UK that told me:” Offering sanitary protection (low profit margins) is usually used more to get new clients than anything else (i.e. to sell on to new sites – so male toilets can be gained!)” and here is the correlation between condoms and sanitary protection. He called this type of vending “the washroom vending”. So I used this name for that kind of business. Please correct me if I’m wrong. Those 3 condom machines are just for testing a few locations and seeing what the markets like in Slovenia. Somebody already have temporary tattoos in my area. So I’ll go for where is no competition since I have that option… laki Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alyssamma Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 Laki, I love to travel. Europe is my favorite place (overall) to visit. So, Slovenia was just for fun It was combined with a trip to Croatia, so that is why our time there was limited. But I hope to return one day. Very pretty country and, like I said, great food Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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