When do you pull machines?

[btuck32]

Hey, I'm new to the vending business. I bought a route that had not been serviced well, but had about a 4 year history. I placed another 15 machines for a total of 44 Vendstars on location. I have only serviced the machines twice, both times with a month between servicings. I'm averagine around $10. I've read that you should always be looking to change locations for your bottom producing 20%. Is this a number you guys use?

[Profits]

Well it's a number you could use... doesn't mean it necessarily makes sense. It would make more sense if there was some sort of threshold associated with relocating your bottom 20%... such as a 20% variance from the average of the top performing 80%. Or you could relocate the bottom 20% if they vary more than 20% from your top 10%, etc.

If you have 100 locations doing $100 each, and your bottom 20% are doing $99, I wouldn't go and relocate the bottom 20%.

[JEREMYTINA]

Hey, I'm new to the vending business. I bought a route that had not been serviced well, but had about a 4 year history. I placed another 15 machines for a total of 44 Vendstars on location. I have only serviced the machines twice, both times with a month between servicings. I'm averagine around $10. I've read that you should always be looking to change locations for your bottom producing 20%. Is this a number you guys use?

Bascially you need to decide what works for you. There are a lot of factors to consider before you decide how many of those machines need to be moved. Did you try changing the slowest moving products at the location? You have individual coin trays, so you know which selection had two quarters in it for the last month. I would start there. Stay away from chocolate if you can. Chicle, runts, skittles, bonz, and others have a much longer shelf life. I would also extend your service time to 6-8 weeks on the slowest spots. Conserving fuel and time will greatly improve your profitability. You can probably do this on most of your locations. Also, you need to take the physical location into account as well. I have a lot of plazas that I have multiple machines in. Some spots do great, others average, and a few do lousy. However, I don't even have to get back in the car to drive to the next loc in the plaza. So to me, these three spots are like one location. For example, I have a rack in a Pizza place pulling about $90 every 30 days. I have a hair salon that pulls $35 every 60 days (triple), and a tobacco shop, with gumballs and chicle doing $15 every 60 days. I only service the salon and tobacco shop every other time I am there, but i wouldn't drop either just because they don't meet my minimum. So opportunity cost is important when considering moving machines. If you are averaging $10 per month for a triple machine for your route, you probably have a lot that do less. The next question to ask is about the envirionment of the machine. Is it in the best place for foot traffic to see it? Is the building air conditioned? If no one sees that machine, it won't be used. If the machine is turning product slow, a hot environment will kill the candy much faster. In slow locations, that you have changed products, and tried to ensure the highest visibility, it may be time to move them. Looking at the bottom 10% may be the way to start, but make sure you factor in the things I mentioned above. As Profits already said, if your machines all earn about the same, you may not want to move them if they average high numbers close together. I personally have set a goal that I do not stop at a location with exception to the example above, unless I know I am pulling $25 out of the machine. My service routes are all set up based on machine earnings. This is my goal. All of my machines are very close to one another, and this is what works well for me. YMMV. I have a ton more to say on this topic, and I might blog about it later.

[btuck32]

Thanks for the advice. Currently, I've been working at optimizing the products offered in all my locations. At this point, I don't want to give up any locations without first trying a few different things. For example, I emptied one machine in a very nice office building. It had $1 in it. The office manager asked me if I could change what I was offering. Her requests increased my sales to over $10. I'm trying to switch some products around (a benefit of the Vendstars) so changing doesn't cost me too much.

I don't have any machines within walking distance of each other, but are very close. I'll make sure to factor that in as I evaluate how much a location is worth.

Also, the previous owner put Cashews in a bunch of machines. Some of them weren't even selling! They are very expensive and next to impossible to clean. Taking those out should increase my profit margin over night.

[JEREMYTINA]

Thanks for the advice. Currently, I've been working at optimizing the products offered in all my locations. At this point, I don't want to give up any locations without first trying a few different things. For example, I emptied one machine in a very nice office building. It had $1 in it. The office manager asked me if I could change what I was offering. Her requests increased my sales to over $10. I'm trying to switch some products around (a benefit of the Vendstars) so changing doesn't cost me too much.

I don't have any machines within walking distance of each other, but are very close. I'll make sure to factor that in as I evaluate how much a location is worth.

Also, the previous owner put Cashews in a bunch of machines. Some of them weren't even selling! They are very expensive and next to impossible to clean. Taking those out should increase my profit margin over night.

Although I don't personally care for Vendstars, They do have their benefits like you said of changing canisters easily, provided you have extras. I would stay far away from nuts unless you specifically have to vend them. Just keep looking at your lowest seller at every location, and change it out until they all sell about the same. I would recommend trying to find gumball wheels, even if you have to buy one machine at a rediculous price from Vend3 to buy the parts. Gum will make your money back easily for that machine over time. I won't place a machine without GB unless a location specifically forbids them. And those are few and far between. Plus, if you have a gumball wheel or two in a machine, you can vend 1" round caps at your kid friendly locations. Toys never go bad. (they may slow down if you leave the same product too long)

[btuck32]

Although I don't personally care for Vendstars, They do have their benefits like you said of changing canisters easily, provided you have extras. I would stay far away from nuts unless you specifically have to vend them. Just keep looking at your lowest seller at every location, and change it out until they all sell about the same. I would recommend trying to find gumball wheels, even if you have to buy one machine at a rediculous price from Vend3 to buy the parts. Gum will make your money back easily for that machine over time. I won't place a machine without GB unless a location specifically forbids them. And those are few and far between. Plus, if you have a gumball wheel or two in a machine, you can vend 1" round caps at your kid friendly locations. Toys never go bad. (they may slow down if you leave the same product too long)

I haven't been able to locate gumball wheels. However, I did order a case of the the "Polarmint Gum" from Sams. It's a tab gum with a mint flavor. Costs about 4 cents/vend. I've been trying to phase it in as an option and some of my slower locations. I didn't consider the toys option, though. That really might make it worth it to track down a gumball wheel...

[Crimson Tide]

I'm new to the bulk candy vending business and have only have two machines on location so far, but, for what it's worth, I pulled a machine from my first location (a restaurant provided to me by Kickstart) after three weeks. The machine is a 4-in-1 UTurn in which I had 2 canisters with Skittles and 2 with trail mix. After three weeks, the machine contained only 12 quarters. So, I pulled the machine, replaced the trail mix with peanut M&Ms, and moved the machine to a different restaurant, one that I found. After one week, the relocated machine contained 20 quarters. Nothing to write home about, but still an improvement.