mdm Posted July 8, 2009 Share Posted July 8, 2009 Can I expect to earn at least $1000.00/week in this business? Thanks mdm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-man422 Posted July 8, 2009 Share Posted July 8, 2009 Let me ask you this: Do you expect to put in the time and effort required to make $1,000 a week? If you plan on taking the time to get giood loocations you will do well. I am in bulk but I'm sure someone who does full line will chime in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mxer518 Posted July 8, 2009 Share Posted July 8, 2009 You sure can make 1000.00 a week but you need to be prepared to do 1000.00 a week worth of work. also you need to decide if that is gross or net take home money. Unless you have a huge nest egg that you can blow on getting into the business a lot of the money earned will have to be invested back into the business so that you can grow and achieve that level that you are looking for. you will see tons of very useful information on this site that I suggest you take notes on because you will most likely run into every problem that has been talked about on this board. keep us posed on where you are at on getting into the business and I am sure we would all be happy to help you through it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spdydre Posted July 8, 2009 Share Posted July 8, 2009 I would estimate you would need a good 30-35 machines to net this amount I could be wrong though but I am giving an average $150 a month for each machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
G-Vending Posted July 8, 2009 Share Posted July 8, 2009 i have not got there yet but if you have the machines and time to service them I would think you could make what ever you want to make....Good Service is the KEY to this business.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mxer518 Posted July 8, 2009 Share Posted July 8, 2009 that's a pretty good estimate for someone who is starting out, since big accounts will not come easy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mdm Posted July 10, 2009 Author Share Posted July 10, 2009 Thanks guys for your response. I know that to make $1000.00/week would require time and hard work . Presently I am putting time and hardwork at my job and my empolyer seem to enjoy more of the benefits than I do. I would like to turn this around and build a business that would take care of me and my family. mdm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mxer518 Posted July 10, 2009 Share Posted July 10, 2009 start with just a few accounts that you can do in your spare time and continue to work full time, this will give you a great idea of what it will take to make enough to support you ad your family. it may also show you that this is not a business that you would be interested in... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mdm Posted July 11, 2009 Author Share Posted July 11, 2009 Mxer, that is my plan to start small and test the market. I notice that you have 16 combos, if you don't mind me asking what brand are they and what is the average take home per week from them. I also want information on small electronic combo, do they perform better than the small mechanical ? Sams selling small Seaga electronic for around $2400, I was hoping to get about four or five for that price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alyssamma Posted July 11, 2009 Share Posted July 11, 2009 MDM, Let me give you my $0.02. I used to run full line but no longer do. They made good $, but it was too hard for my wife (who actually services the route) to run (all of the lifting was killing her). First, I would advise against combos or mechanical if you want to really grow. Mechs can't hold enough product for larger accounts and the combos are hard. For example, you might want 3 sodas + one snack in a location - can't do that with combos. Now onto the $1K/week... I paid $12K for an existing route. None of the accounts were commission. There was one extra machine (unplaced). I got about $1000 in product, plus all of the change in the machines - about $5-600. We also got a dolly for moving full line machines easily, some coin mechs and other spare parts. I'm giving you these numbers so that you will understand what you'll need to invest to get the $ you are looking for. We pulled in about $500/week gross, or $1000/mo *profit* - your costs are typically 50% with full line. I think this was a "fair" deal - it would have taken us about a year to make our investment back. Or, since we got the change + the extra machine, plus the spare parts, you could say we would have made our initial investment back in about 9-10mo. We could have done better, but again, we thought this was fair and wanted the seller to be happy also so he would give us good support (which he did). And, since when we sold the route we sold it for $15K, it was a good investment (we financed part of the route which is where most of the "extra" $3K comes into play). Anyway, we had some bad locations, and if we spent the time to properly locate everything we probably could have made close to $700/week gross. This is about 1/3 of what you would need for $1K profit/week. Assuming my numbers hold, you would be looking at $35-40K to invest in a route like that. Others here might have gotten better deals - and some might have gotten worse deals. A friend of mine paid $55K for a route that made about $700/wk profit. He did get a bunch of extra machines and product, though, so he probably only paid about $40K or so. Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spdydre Posted July 11, 2009 Share Posted July 11, 2009 how many machines were on your route you paid 12k for? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alyssamma Posted July 11, 2009 Share Posted July 11, 2009 15. But really, you care about the income and not the number of machines. I would have been happy with 1 machine. Of course you don't want 100 machines each making $5 Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spdydre Posted July 11, 2009 Share Posted July 11, 2009 so you where averaging $35 gross per machine each week? That seems very low Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alyssamma Posted July 11, 2009 Share Posted July 11, 2009 Don't put too much weight into averages Remember I said I had a few locations that needed to be replaced. I had 2 machines that only did about $5-$10/week and some others only doing $15-$20/week. All 15 of the machines were within 10min of each other, so we never took the time to relocate any of them - especially since it became apparent soon that we would be selling. We also had some situations where 2-3 machines in a building would do $50+/week and there would be another that only did $5/week. Since the machines were so close to each other, servicing was easy, and we conccentrated on the overall take Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alyssamma Posted July 11, 2009 Share Posted July 11, 2009 Also, maybe a better way to think about it is that we had 6 locations...each location had multiple machines. Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spdydre Posted July 11, 2009 Share Posted July 11, 2009 oh ok thanks for clearing that up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mxer518 Posted July 11, 2009 Share Posted July 11, 2009 I feel there is incorrect way to get into full line, Myself I started slow to make sure that it was really something that I would be interested in doing for the longer term. I purchased 1 combo machine super cheap off of craigslist, cleaned it up to get it to the point where I would feel ok about having it on a location. I then took the profit from that machine and started to invest a lot more into my bulk side of the business because the results would come a lot quicker than with saving for more combo machines. Once I had my bulk side of the business up and running to the point where it pretty much is today I began to pull the profits from that and invest more aggressively into the full line side. I never purchased new machines and about half of them were purchased on locations and the other half I purchased and placed myself. If I were to make a suggestion to you I would no go buy any new machines from sams or any other place. Try to find them used even if they are junk old mechanical machines, at least it will give you some first hand experience to why they are junk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mdm Posted July 12, 2009 Author Share Posted July 12, 2009 Mxer, you are the second person to suggest mechanical from craiglist. I intend to take the advise of purchasing machines from craiglist. But I don't feel good buying any kind of Mechanical machines after knowing that they are junk. I was hoping that the small electronic combos are better machines. I am not going to purchase new, $2500 is too much for one junk machine. I like how you got started and would like to do the same thing. Thanks again for advise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coinvestor Posted July 12, 2009 Share Posted July 12, 2009 If you intend to take the business seriously and eventually do this full time, then stay away from mechanical machines. Don't worry about what machine to start out with, worry about what location to start out with. Find a location then we can help you detemine the proper machine. $3000-4000 for a machine is not expensive if its going in the right location, but $300-400 is expensive if its going to be sitting in your garage. JD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alyssamma Posted July 12, 2009 Share Posted July 12, 2009 I agree that if you are serious about full line, stay away from mechanical. They are great machines if you have a small location, want to dabble a little, or whatever. But if you mean for this to be a full time thing, then you'll want electrical machines. As to how much to spend for them...are you good at fixing things? You can spend as little as $3-500 for a full line machines. But you'll have problems with it and need to take care of it. If you are mechanically inclined, this will work for you. Or, you can spend about $1500 for a machine that is a little more fixed up and you'll have less problems. Or, $3-5000 for a state of the art machine that really won't give you any problems at all. Yes, it does sound expensive, but make it fit your location. If you are in a place where you are pulling in $500/wk from a single machine, spending $4K is a smart move. If you are only pulling in $50, it isn't. Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poplady1 Posted July 13, 2009 Share Posted July 13, 2009 This is a very hard business to get started in today. The economy is really hard for everyone so be careful no matter what you decide to buy. There are a lot of machines available right now because so many vendors have had to sell to recoup some money. Check on Craigs List in your area to see if anyone is selling a part of their route. Sometimes for a new vendor having someone to train you is really helpful. Once you know the in's and out's of the business you will be fine. My suggestion would be to look for a small existing route. Bev Blue Moose Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sbishop Posted July 14, 2009 Share Posted July 14, 2009 I guess I got a little spoiled when I started vending. I bought 18 machines with 10 of them on 3 locations for 7k. 1 location did $250-$300 per week 1 location did $150- $200 per week 1 location did $75- $150 per month. I also got a 97 cargo van in the deal. those figures are gross. I had 8 machines I had to store. I have placed some of the machines, but none have done the level of the first 2 locations. If you are talking Gross. Yes you can do $1000 per week. If you are talking net...Yes you can do $1000 per week. It will take more work and more locations! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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