Business Profits

[Johnny Gumball]

Hello Vender Friends,

I was wondering if I ever was to get big enough that I could vend full time 35-55 hours a week how much profit could my business realisticallt bring in?

tks

[NinnJinn]

It is really hard to say without you going out and doing it. 

If every location does the national average, and you have about 160 locations and you are able to service one location an hour.

you would pull in roughly  $258 gross each week for 40hrs worth of work.

But that is IF each location only has one head and each head does the national average of $7/month.  But some will do much less than 7 and some will do a lot more than 7 a month.  I was just giving you a ball park figure.

[michniakap]

which realistically isnt much more than the crap pay i receive working full time as a cashier at BJs. After taxes 40 hours is less than $250. If youre servicing single heads, hopefully chances are it will go much quicker than 1 per hour and you will make more than $7 per machine on bigger/better locations/machines.

[NinnJinn]

. If youre servicing single heads, hopefully chances are it will go much quicker than 1 per hour and you will make more than $7 per machine on bigger/better locations/machines.

Exactly!  I was just using what I was using as a reference point. You put a double head in each location and average out $7/head  and you are up to over $500/week gross.

[Johnny Gumball]

Wow that ain't much. I mean there has to be someone pulling in at least 80k?

[NinnJinn]

How about placing machines trying it for yourself?

[Johnny Gumball]

I do, have 2 triples, 2 doubles. placed. working on placing 2 more doubles and a gacha.

[whaletail116]

There is no ceiling and you can become as wealthy as you'd like, this is America!

[NinnJinn]

I do, have 2 triples, 2 doubles. placed. working on placing 2 more doubles and a gacha.

Sorry for the potential rude comment.  But basically as far as income goes, like whaletail116 put it, the sky is pretty much the limit.  I thought maybe you were just surfing google or something and found this site and was just asking questions just to be asking.

And there is the potential to become a "gravy lounge member"  there are actually folks here with doubles that pull in over $50/month!

[bigtay6187]

Is the national average really 7/mo?

168 locations for 258/wk............itll take awhile to pay off those machines.

I need to start working the HEB for a spot.

Haha just kidding.

[Johnny Gumball]

Crap I live in Canada. I'm screwed! 

Actually the reason Im asking is because I want to know how worth it this business is. Is it worth it to build a full time vending business. Will I be able to make at least 70K a year to maintain lifestyle? Or is this a good partime business?

tks

[mainor5251]

I believe with following good business principles there's much more upside financially to do what you enjoy the most, whether that be your current full time or vending.

[havending]

7.00. Must be an all charity route.  For that kind of money I would keep on driving.

[G-man422]

Johnny,

  As stated, the national gross average per head is $7.  Lets say you can keep your machines located within a certain area of your city and it takes 30 minutes to service each location. 

  Depending on the location a triple, double or even a single head will matter in order to maximize profit and customer satisfaction.  So lets say on average you have 2 "heads" per location. 

2 heads X $7 gross = $14 gross every 30 minutes assuming you can service each location in that amount of time and are getting the average dollars per head.

$28 gross per hour X 8 hours per day = $192 gross per day.

$192 X 5 days per week = $960 gross a week

Now keep in mind the COG is roughly 30% depending on what you are vending ( I like to keep my COG at or below 25%).

So $960 gross per week X 0.7 = $627 per week net. 

The sky really is the limit, but keep in mind you have to pay off the machines before you see any real profit, pay taxes, gas, product, the time it takes to locate or hire a locator, etc.  There are many factors that we forget to think about sometimes.

But anyway, if you are pulling the numbers above you would need to have 320 machines out on location.  ( 2 machines per hour X 8 hours in a day X 5 days in a week X 4 weeks per month ).

The beauty of this business is you can start as small and slowly as you like.  You are off to a great start Johnny and if you really want to, you can become a full time bulk vendor. 

[Hillbilly]

Good post Gabe.

Johnny keep in mind that as you grow your business, you can prune your route.  That is you can pull the slowest locations and replace with hopefully better spots. Or you can change products to increase the revenue. There are some here that have much higher averages.  It's all up to you.  Also toys will generally bring in a higher average. Using products with a low cost of goods will help too.

[mizugori]

7$ a month and 1 hr per head is BS. It takes me roughly 10 mins to service one single-head toy machine, or a triple-head vendstar. That's me walking in the door, chatting with the manager for a minute or two, removing the coins, refilling the product, doing a test vend, and wiping down the machine. If a location does less than $15-$20 gross a month, drop it and move on.

So if you have a single head toy machine location doing $20 a month gross, and let's say your product is sticky hands so your cost is about 15 cents, and you're vending for 50 cents, that's 30% cost so 70% profit. So your profit is $14. And I would consider that a low-end location.

So, if you had 80 locations, that's 1120/month PROFIT. Now subtract $80 assuming these are charity spots, to pay for the royalty to the charity ($1/machine.) That leaves you $1040 which is more than what was quoted above for 168 machines! (258 a week is 1032/month, assuming 4 weeks in a month)

You can easily service 30 locations in one day, and not really working a full 8 hour day. Also, as you gain experience and grow, you should start to get a few rack locations here and there, a rack can easily do $100+ in a month, and it doesn't take very long to service either. I'd estimate 20-30 minutes tops to service a 5 or 6-head rack.

I don't know where the hell the hour figure came from, maybe they meant driving time, if your locations are that spread out you aren't building an efficient route in my opinion. I have one spot where 3 of my locations are all within a block of each other! That can't always happen, but you should try to be building them around and between each other, so that you can drive in a loop from one location to the next, without there being a ton of driving around. That's why it's called a route! You can even place machines in "pockets" like say 20-30 machines on the east end of town, and another 20-30 on the west end, and service the east end on a different day than the west end.

Granted, I'm not figuring mileage here because it would get very involved, but people overrate that. If you had a job, you would have to commute too, and you wouldn't get paid for it. For me to drive around for a day and hit 20-30 locations, it would only cost me about $12-$15 worth of gas, and I live in an area where gas is expensive. Also, your mileage is a tax-deductible expense, and you get a higher deduction than what the gas actually costs you, so it covers some of the wear on your car as well.

I'm also only using one toy in this example, if you vend some gumballs and rubber bounce balls too that will increase your profit margin. Gumballs you buy for about 3 cents and sell for 25! Bounce balls are a little more but still less than toys. And, I am pricing my toys lower than most vendors. Most of my 50 cent toys, other vendors are selling for 75 cents. So there is more potential profit. I just keep my prices low for now to try to get business started, and I figure I may end up making more money by doing volume than by price gouging on individual sales. The other day at one of my spots while servicing the machine, I heard one of the cashiers talking to her co-worker about the wacky bands in my machine. She was saying "it's only 50 cents for 2, I saw them at this other place and it was 75 cents for one." Needless to say, this spot is doing very well.

[NinnJinn]

7$ a month and 1 hr per head is BS. It takes me roughly 10 mins to service one single-head toy machine, or a triple-head vendstar. That's me walking in the door, chatting with the manager for a minute or two, removing the coins, refilling the product, doing a test vend, and wiping down the machine. If a location does less than $15-$20 gross a month, drop it and move on.

Dude!!!  Chill man!  we were using it as a reference!  Gee Whiz...

And it wasn't an hour for a machine, it was 30mins from the time you walk in til you get to your next location.  But like I said, it was an example.

[NinnJinn]

Johnny,

                Although some vendors will pull a machine and put it in storage for not making more than $15/month.

Just remember, that is $15 MORE in your pocket than before you started the route.  If you are not happy with the earnings, I would at least leave it only location until you find a new location for it. At least its bringing something in while you find a new location for it.

[vendy]

   Mizu......

If you are doing charity vending with toys, I suggest you enjoy it while you can. It will only be a matter of time til a commission vendor takes your location, if it is any good.

good lord here we go with this same old crap again from gumballprincess. you should just put that line in your signature. it'll save you from having to type it in every other post.

[mizugori]

   Mizu......

If you are doing charity vending with toys, I suggest you enjoy it while you can. It will only be a matter of time til a commission vendor takes your location, if it is any good.

No, it will only be a matter of time until I myself upgrade the decent locations to commission and/or try to get more machines into them.

[vendy]

It may be "same old crap" but their is a bit of truth to it. He is just trying to warn the younger guys.

bit of truth or not, she keeps harping on it so much that i thought i would give her some advice to put it in her signature.

here is a novel idea, how about simply providing encouragement to upgrade those really good charity locations to commission racks? make your fellow vendor/member feel like you are providing some decent advice that they would like to follow instead issuing a threat that they are gonna lose their spot to someone like them.

wannabe operators like the princess, havending and a few others act like thay are so much better than the "lowly charity guys".

[Jax Snacks]

I have to agree with gumballprince on the charity thing.  I had built a route of 170 charity locations with Uturns and NW, but it was not sustainable.  Simply got kicked out of waaaaaay to many locations for petty reasons and a high business ownership turnover in this region.  The single head gumball vendors seem to be the only guys that can make charity vending work on a full time basis.  I know of no other (that's zero!) full time triple head candy charity vendors on any past or present vending board that has been successful at a building a full time income.  I have not completely given up on charity, but have gone the way of the "blended" route for stability and better sales volume.

[will.vend]

          Oh, and vendy, I will ignore the gender comments as long as it gets you posting more. I am thrilled that 3 of your 18 post in 3 years have been regarding me.

Ive been wondering about vendy...like you said 18 post in 3 years, maybe he/she should get the lurker award, but I really think that the name vendy is an alias for someone else that uses vendy as their alter ego to argue with peoples points. something just doesnt quite add up.

signed,

wilma.vend

[Profits]

Steve should be able to confirm if any other IP's match Vendy's.  I'm sure he does not allow fake nicks.

[havending]

bit of truth or not, she keeps harping on it so much that i thought i would give her some advice to put it in her signature.

here is a novel idea, how about simply providing encouragement to upgrade those really good charity locations to commission racks? make your fellow vendor/member feel like you are providing some decent advice that they would like to follow instead issuing a threat that they are gonna lose their spot to someone like them.

wannabe operators like the princess, havending and a few others act like thay are so much better than the "lowly charity guys".

I started with one two head eagle from sams club many moons ago and have built up to where i am today.  If that makes me a wanabe than thats fine with me i wont mind a bit.  But I do not think im better than anyone on here i just have much more experience than many and i know what works and what will not.  I would like to see every one that has a charity machine in a good place to upgrade that joker to a larger  unit and make all that they can with it.  If not someone will come in and do it for them.  Im not being ugly its just the truth.  Charity machine are just fine for some locations but as any charity vendor knows in most locations you are just on barrowed time.  I have a friend in fl that does over one million a year in all gumball charity and he has 5 full time people doing nothing but placing and replacing machines.