Tom Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 Hi everyone, I hope everyone had a great holiday season. My name is Tom and I'm thinking about diversifying my current ATM business into vending. I'm still trying to make up my mind between bulk versus full line. On the one hand, bulk candy machines are considerably cheaper but the trade off is the number of units needed to be placed. On the other hand, full line machines are much more expensive with the potential of a higher ROI and much more time involved in inventory and re-stocking. I've just downloaded all the ebooks that were available and am hoping to meet a couple of people that can help me make a decision. P.S. - I almost went with 1800 vending before joining this site. Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caserri Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 Welcome Tom! I'm sure you'll meet more than a couple of people here. We have a great group of vendors here willing to help. Enjoy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amc-vending Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 Welcome to the forums - there is lots of good information here along with lots of great people willing to help you out if you just ask. You picked one of the better machines for bulk vending - others are northwestern and oak. I started with 1 bulk machine now I have 40 bulk machines on location, several soda and snack machines. Plus I am expanding more in to racks with toys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Posted February 9, 2011 Author Share Posted February 9, 2011 Thank you both. Hopefully, I'll be able to learn enough to contribute back to this forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Posted February 9, 2011 Author Share Posted February 9, 2011 I started with 1 bulk machine now I have 40 bulk machines on location, several soda and snack machines. Plus I am expanding more in to racks with toys. Hi Elite, Out of curiosity, how long did it take you to acquire 40 locations? How do you like the full line vending? Thanks in advance! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mission vending Posted February 10, 2011 Share Posted February 10, 2011 I realize that I`m a little biased but IMO full line is the only way to go. Feel free to ask or PM about any full line questions you might have. Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noved1 Posted February 10, 2011 Share Posted February 10, 2011 Welcome Tom, I have learned alot about bulk vending since I started back in november. There is alot of great vendors on this forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Posted February 10, 2011 Author Share Posted February 10, 2011 Feel free to ask or PM about any full line questions you might have. Mike Thanks Mike! I appreciate your help. I do have a few questions regarding the full line aspect. 1. How do you overcome the relatively high initial investment to be able to grow your business successfully? 2. How do you handle time off? (currently with my ATM business, I can barely get away for any time with the family) 3. How can you keep employees from stealing? 4. Why are you a full line vs bulk vending company? Any help would be appreciated! Sorry for such newb questions. Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Mage Posted February 13, 2011 Share Posted February 13, 2011 Hey Tom, welcome to the group. I have been a little slow getting to this forum recently and saying hi to the new members. We have another member who has a few ATM machines, BluePlate. I lean toward bulk myself. I feel it affords me more free time then a full line account would. But I haven't been planning on having employees for this, and if I did, then I would consider full line. But I also believe it is a great way to get into vending, and then move into full line if that interests the person. Bulk is so much cheaper to get into, and with plowing the profits back into the business you can eventually get to a point that you can start buying the more expensive full line machines. Although I have seen a refub project posted here in the full line section that I thought was amazing. Took a fairly cheap used snack machine, and made it look practically new, so sweat equity can pay dividends. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mission vending Posted February 14, 2011 Share Posted February 14, 2011 Thanks Mike! I appreciate your help. I do have a few questions regarding the full line aspect. 1. How do you overcome the relatively high initial investment to be able to grow your business successfully? 2. How do you handle time off? (currently with my ATM business, I can barely get away for any time with the family) 3. How can you keep employees from stealing? 4. Why are you a full line vs bulk vending company? Any help would be appreciated! Sorry for such newb questions. Tom 1. I started out with about 10K cash. After that I basically worked for free by putting any profits back into more equipment, I also took on a lot of debt and spent about 5 years digging myself out of the hole I jumped into. 2. I have not taken any extended time off in a long time (more than a week). I don't see any extended vacations anytime in the near future either so I try to take shorter periods more frequently. I do have a couple of part time helpers, well one is now basically full time so I try to get a three day weekend once a month. 3. All electronic equipment has non resettable meters. Take ending meter reading minus beginning meter reading and compare that to the cash and coin pulled. It's not an exact science because of fluctuations in the coin level in the coin mech but it's close enough that you can tell pretty quickly if someone is skimming cash. 4. I'm in full line because that's how I got started, bought 10 machines from a guy getting out of the business and never looked back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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