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[ronsidney]

Do any of you operate coin pushers or crane machines along with your bulk vending??

I have been in bulk for years and its a staple of my biz . I locate all my own machines for everything.

Locating is the most valuable skill a vendor can have and in my experience being diversified is the best way to make it these days with gas prices being so high.. I used to drive 600 miles out just to service gum ball heads and had a formula for my miles..

its was $20 for mile driven,, so if i hit a town with 8 stops and those stops (double head on pipe stand was my staple) made $500 for my standard 12 week service cycle then i could drive another 25 miles before i had to pick up more cash..I would leave with my small minivan squatted on the tires full of gum balls and 27mm balls and 1.1 caps and head out for a 4 day trip..Id come back with 5-6k at end of the week..

Well then my boy started school and i wanted to be a more stable father and not leave for weeks at a time collecting so i wanted to make my route where i could come home every night. This is when i got into crane machines and then even better coin pushers.. There are even better things than these but i didn't want to break any gambling laws with back room slot rooms!! lol

My talents as a locator are exactly the same skills used to place these machines..I could locate racks 100 times better once i brought cranes into my mix..I was actually now talking real money to locations.. I could honestly say "This crane will make you more money in a month than you make on that gum ball rack in a year." and secure those sought after locations like china buffets, steak house buffets, grocery stores etc. then after i was in and paying the big commissions i would say, " why don't you let me put a rack in here? i have been here servicing my crane 3 times and i have seen that gum ball rack out of order for 3 weeks now." I would usually get a spot for my rack then..
I eventually picked up all the far away spots and moved my route into a nice 150 mile radius of the home,,making a really long day but still at home by bedtime if i leave early.

after the meltdown a few years ago that people blame on bankers etc. that was really caused by the summer of $5 gas that caused everyone to quit eating out etc just to try to pay their bills. I had 160 restaurant locations i had (or roughly 30% of my biz at that time) close between june and september!! thats just in my area!! the resulting stock and bank crash because of these insane gas prices meant that there was no recovery gonna happen even if the gov got the gas back down to $2 a gallon!! those greedy gas folks finally broke the camels back by pushing the gas up little by little to see how much we'd pay.

sorry bout that rant..anyway,,, I decided to try a coin pusher.. I was forced into it because i had a operator placing them beside of my cranes everywhere.. And for those of you that don't know a coin pusher will decimate a crane's sales. I walked into one of my locations one day and he was there.. I wanted to go punch him in the head but instead i just walked up like i was a customer. I said "I play this pusher all the time, how can i get one in my pizza restaurant?" He then started his sales pitch as i triggered it with that remark, and started showing me all the details of the machine, showing me his big money bag with about a grand in it!! and telling me all the locations he had in the area.

I couldn't believe that pusher made a grand in the time my crane only did about $100 and on further down the same time my rack in the location only did about $20...needless to say i started putting out pushers..

I do sell them and this is not a post trying to push my machines .. I just want to get a thread started with some other operators about cranes and pushers.. Im not gonna even start saying mine is better or anything like a sales pitch. So with that said plead don't trash talk my stuff and make me have to defend myself..every product out there has its plus and minuses..If anybody wants to talk about buying or selling then just email me..

I really just want to talk about routes and locating and stuff.
thanks
ronsidney
www.blazingquarters.com