Jump to content

Are single heads good money makers?


jb5580

Recommended Posts

Do single heads do well in locations or should you put a triple in once you secure a location to better your chance of getting a vend? I noticed the Northwestern Super 60's from Sam's Club with stand for around $100.00. It seems like the amount of product to fill machines would be less expensive. If a single is good, what is the best product to vend? thanks.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It really depends on the location. I have triples, doubles and singles out on my route. I have some good single head locations and some that really aren't that good. There really is no way to tell until you get the location. Peanut M&M's are very popular but very expensive to purchase. Gumballs are great. They are cheap and at a good location can be extremely profitable.

You can do very well with a single at the right location.

You can start with one single machine and if a location does very well you can upgrade to a double, triple or rack (as long as the location will allow you to.)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is at least one vender in florida that has only single gumball heads on his 1200+ location route.  He swears by this vending model.  He says that adding any other product just takes away from the gumball vends.  That the investment for single gumballs is cheap and easy and that servicing them is quick and easy and you only have to stock one single product.  I ran under that same model for my first 3 years in the business and it worked well for me too.  However I got bored and more than a little irked about the small returns that many locations offered ($1.50 after 8 weeks?  Really?).  But the real gravey locations seemed to make up for that. 

Then I found that I had more machines lurking in my garage than I wanted and decided to just double up my existing locations.  Then I decided to start adding toys, and racks and then some 2" product, etc.  It's alot more fun to do rack vending, but also requires alot more capital investment, not only in machines, but in product.  A single gumball machine could cost you $100 with shipping, the stand and the product.  A 2" vending machine can cost you $100 without a stand, without shipping and without product.  Plus you have to stock dozens of varieties of product just to keep your customers happy with fresh stuff to vend.

So to sum up, there's good and bad with each model. Single product locations offer easier servicing, lower capital costs and fewer product varieties.  It also offers in most cases a lower volume of revenue.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

dperry did a good job. One thing I wanted to chime in on is gas/time costs. How much more time and gas are you spending to service a bunch of low volume single head accounts?

The plus side it's probably a lot easier to locate singles. I wish I had singles, I would try to locate those and then upgrade any decent location later. I think overall I prefer a double though with Gumballs and Peanut MM's. I'm afraid that some good locations, just won't be a good gumball location and you could be missing out and not even know it. So atleast with a double or triple, you know whether the location really sucks or not.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good replies in here. I run several kinds of locations, and am happy with this business model. Single head GB can certainly work though, and is a great strategy for the people that use it right. I did not want to spread my route out that far, at least initially, and so I am utilizing different kinds of machines to effectively blanket a city. (It'll take me another 14 months or so to reach that point)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is a very long thread on this topic. You might want to read some of it. There is information about a conclusion towards the end, I think it says to check out the revenue reports. Overall this caused revenue to go down. It is a very good concept. One location, one product. A good thing with this strategy is that you don't have to service locations very often. Gum has a long shelf life. 

http://vendiscuss.com/forum/index.php?topic=67.0

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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 account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...