I've been noticing that with soaring fuel costs, vendors who have employees out there servicing accounts - in other words, medium to large vendors - are really cutting back on how often they service accounts. I can understand why. Rising product cost, cost of the gas that goes into a truck or van, distance to drive to an account - all have a part in draining our profits.

Specifically, I'm noticing that accounts that average, say, $200 per week or less between soda and snacks, just are not getting serviced and are likely to be unhappy with their current situation. In many cases, the account was not getting "great" service to begin with. Combine bad service with bad equipment and it becomes very difficult to ask for higher prices. That makes it worse for the vendor... if they service a little less frequently in order to save on overhead, they are lose sales (and money), and maybe even the account.

Sometimes, a big vendor, such as Canteen, will just go ahead and pull-out of an account like this if they just are not making money at all. However, sometimes I think it's their own fault they don't make money on these accounts because these guys are not adept on service or even offering products that people actually want to buy. That alone can make the difference between a good account and a bad account.

In other words, vendors who were just getting by (before gas prices and product cost started going crazy) on old, unreliable equipment and mediocre service are probably in a pinch right now because their accounts will likely reject all price increases.

For some, this will be a good opportunity for growth.

Anyway, I have implemented new price points with almost all of my accounts, and so far so good. I still have a couple of accounts to do, but don't anticipate any problems.

Has anyone else resorted to price increases to help defray higher operating and product cost?

I know Kevin's wife was due in January (I think), so I can imagine that he's been pretty wrapped up with his new baby. Has anyone been in touch with him? Been kinda quiet around here without him.

Well, for those of you who vend full-time using cargo vans - successfully - and liking it - my hat's off to you. I've had to go back to using my cargo van for two weeks because my box truck engine completely died (head gasket was leaking antifreeze into my cylinders from the inside, I had no idea, engine would heat up, then cool down the sensor without cooling the engine, back two pistons finally welded themselves to their cylinder walls), and I will tell you straight-up that using my van to run my route now that it is twice as big as it was when I outgrew my van has really kicked my butt. Big time.

Finally found a new (remanufactured engine) that arrived today, and tomorrow my mechanic is switching them out and I should be back to normal by tomorrow night.

Of course, part of the reason I've had such a hard time with the van is because of having to stock both bottles and cans of both Coke and Pepsi products, snacks and cold food. And - trying to stock deep enough to make it through the day without having to reload and go back out after the first two stops.