Cheaper Product?

[leo7068]

My local Sam's club hasn't had bulk vendable items for 3 months now, and no one in the store knows why. They think it's a shipping mixxup. This made me start looking for alternatives, so I found smart and final, which is a smaller non membership version of Sam's. They have similar pricing, but I am buying 900 Magic Gumball brand for 22.99 and 56 oz of PMM for 7.49. How can I improve my purchases here? How much do I need to order to start recieving directly from the manufacturer? I am thinking of restricting my route to just 3 items so I am able to reach bulk order levels earlier.

[caserri]

Restricting your route to 3 items is a great idea that I recommend whole heartedly. I've taken it a step further and have kept only 1 item and have done rather well. That will change soon as I start running the DI machine.

That price for the PMM is great. Sam's has the 56oz for $7.88. If you want to buy direct from the confectioners I would try contacting them directly to see what the qualifications are.

Steve

[leo7068]

Wow, Caserri are all of your machines only running gumballs? I thought you did PMM also? Don't you feel that limiting yourself to only single heads you are spending more time traveling around and servicing multiple locations to make the same amount of profit?

Even if additional heads don't make a linear increase, don't you think maximizing profit per location and therefore lowering overall time needed for servicing is more important than profit margin?

[caserri]

I run mostly PMM. I do have a few oddball locations running GB, Hot Tamales and such. All new locations get PMM by default. As for your question about the single/single philosophy, much has already been written on this topic here on the boards. Here are a couple great threads showcasing the pros and cons on this.

http://www.vendiscuss.com/forums/forum1/67.html

http://www.vendiscuss.com/forums/forum1/478.html

Steve