BluePlate Posted December 5, 2009 Share Posted December 5, 2009 One of the first routes I bought, the person I bought the route from told me "In this business it is very easy to lie to yourself." Over the time I have been vending this has stuck with me. What he ment by this was, we often see the quarters coming out of the machine, but if you ignore your soft expenses like gas to get to the location, or the paper towels your store from the household budget, or car maintance - We may look at out business a little differently. Tonight I went to scope out a Chinese restaurant. The owner called me to put an ATM in. I went undercover to see if it was a viable location. I ordered 2 eggrolls to go. There was a Vendstar 3000 in the waiting area. Dropped a quarter in - holy cow, I got a huge handfull of Plain M&M's. My first thought was, this guy can't be making anything. I ran to the car and got a zip lock, bought another vend "for later". When I got home I weighed it. 1.74 ounces. At what I am paying for M&M's (and my math is correct), that vend cost him .258 cents. He lost money. If BJ's runs out of M&M's I know where I can buy them! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tooldini Posted December 5, 2009 Share Posted December 5, 2009 LOL I didn't know they opened up that far. I still remember the time I got 6 skittles it pissed me off good, but that many M&M's is just crazy I would have thought something was wrong if I got that many. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cavity Posted December 5, 2009 Share Posted December 5, 2009 I guess there's a good chance a route will be for sale in your neighborhood soon . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JPVendCo. Posted December 5, 2009 Share Posted December 5, 2009 " i dont understand it, it seems like theres alot of quarters, but I never have any money left over." "there are over $300 new..." "my loss is your gain" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jax Snacks Posted December 5, 2009 Share Posted December 5, 2009 I will never understand that mentality to vend with slots wide open!!! There is guy with an 8-select Uturn that does the same thing and I can no longer vend candy at those spots since the staff gravitates to his (great deal) machine! However, he has now abandoned some machines (surprise) and even sold one to one of my Chinese locations for $50 bucks! His days are numbered and he will be done soon! Darwinism will do it's magic on that guy. Jax Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluePlate Posted December 5, 2009 Author Share Posted December 5, 2009 LOL I didn't know they opened up that far. I still remember the time I got 6 skittles it pissed me off good, but that many M&M's is just crazy I would have thought something was wrong if I got that many. That was one of my first thoughts. I didn't know they could open that far. But I guess maybe for PMM or bigger stuff, it could (maybe) be fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lurtsman Posted December 5, 2009 Share Posted December 5, 2009 How many PMM were in that vend for 1.7 ounces? The high cost of PMM and relatively large vend sizes in the area are the reason I'm pushing PMM out of my lineup. My new opening lineup with triples is skit/rp/MI. Even so I've been gravitating to smaller vends and taking less contested places for my charity spots. I suppose this summer as I get larger I will also start calling those owners with huge vends and see if they want to sell their routes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JPVendCo. Posted December 5, 2009 Share Posted December 5, 2009 i call the owner of ANY empty machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quarter Master Posted December 5, 2009 Share Posted December 5, 2009 BluePlate, Notice the machine was giving large quantities of plain M&M, not PM&M. I've seen this done on triples before with the thought of using it as a "price leader" to get people to try the other candies to see what they get. Then again, maybe he's just trying to empty the machine before he goes out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluePlate Posted December 6, 2009 Author Share Posted December 6, 2009 Isalnder, Never heard of that, but i guess it makes some sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clifford84420 Posted December 6, 2009 Share Posted December 6, 2009 He is probabally trying to kill your sales and run you out... The more he gives, the less you make, over time you may leave. Then he has the location to himself. For a small but worthy price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sterling Posted December 6, 2009 Share Posted December 6, 2009 I bought a few machines from a guy awhile back. When servicing it one day a guy there said you may want to check your skittles setting it is giving out a lot. I didn't when I came back the skittles were almost gone and he said the same thing to me. Low and behold you got about 4-5 oz of skittles for a quarter! Well maybe not that much, but it was ALOT! I then checked all the settings since I assumed incorrectly he was as dilligent as I in product control. The guy I bought it from later told me he knew he was giving too much candy but never bothered to reset the portions and just got out of the business. So I guess he was just lazy to figure out the cost per vend and then do something about it. The guy I bought my original 38 machines from told me to have the neighbor kids come over and ask them if they thought it was enough candy when setting the portions. Ask kids if it is enough or should he open the wheel more! This guy got out too. That's like asking the inmates if the bars of their cell are too close together. I want to make about .20 per candy vend period if they don't get enough candy they won't buy it and I will quit selling it, end of story. Moral of the story some people are not business minded and that is who we get good deals from. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antoniocinisi Posted December 6, 2009 Share Posted December 6, 2009 One of the first routes I bought, the person I bought the route from told me "In this business it is very easy to lie to yourself." Over the time I have been vending this has stuck with me. What he ment by this was, we often see the quarters coming out of the machine, but if you ignore your soft expenses like gas to get to the location, or the paper towels your store from the household budget, or car maintance - We may look at out business a little differently.I save all my reciepts for everything even if it`s a buck.I give my book keeper all my reciepts,keep track of mileage and everything.while serviceing I get gas and deduct that too.doing this will help ecspecially in the long run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dperry Posted December 7, 2009 Share Posted December 7, 2009 If I ever find a machine next to mine that vends that much candy, I will empty it out with my quarters and put that candy in my own machine. I mean, it would be cheaper to buy it from that guy's machine than it would be to by it from Sams, right? So I empty out his, and put the candy in mine, and since his is empty, the people would have to go to mine to get the candy, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sherlock Posted December 7, 2009 Share Posted December 7, 2009 I save all my reciepts for everything even if it`s a buck.I give my book keeper all my reciepts,keep track of mileage and everything.while serviceing I get gas and deduct that too. doing this will help ecspecially in the long run. Sorry to hijack, but, this could be helpful to some of us... If you're tracking mileage for tax write-off purposes, I don't believe you should deduct gas expenses, too. Tax deducting your mileage on a per-mile basis includes all associated costs (gas/maintenance). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alyssamma Posted December 7, 2009 Share Posted December 7, 2009 Sherlock is 100% correct. Kevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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