I have an account at a cabinet shop which has about 20 people building cabinets and 15 people working in the office. I have a USI GF-12/CD-6 there. This place bring in anywhere from $275-$325 a month. It takes me 10 minutes to service this location. I wish I had more of these but its hard to size up a place like that. Sometimes I guess you have to try it out and if it doesn't work then pull it.

Your right, there is never any harm in trying out locations. I have all mechanical machines, none of the electronic machines you guys are refuring to, but between lunch rooms and showrooms like car dealerships, I maintain 50 combination units that make about 4500 in sales a month over 6 days of work (3 runs that i do twice a month). I wish I had more big accounts but a big corporation like Red Carpet Vending here in canada has contracts with basically every large chain of hotels, malls, ect usually national contracts that cant be broken in small towns that they refuse to sevice well. I find the small locations at least keep my machines moving some kind of money while I look for more locations. If a current location is under your break even amount, whatever you set it at, then at least its not in your garage and you can easily reposition it once you find another location to try out. And depending on your costs of referbished machines, the mechanical ones can go for as little as $600 for a combination pop and snack machine... That kind of small investment can even make a $50-$75 dollar a month seem worth while, and you probably wont have to service it as often anyway.

I use to have quite a few in mechanic shops, but the mechanical machines would always get about about 20% theft, so I am slowly pulling them out. I just have to fight too hard to find new locations due to the big guys and their competition. Any suggestions on where you have them that maybe might work for me as well?

I would consider $300 per month per account to be very small and barely worthwhile, whether you're referring to gross sales or net. Net would be probably be your sales less sales tax and maybe commission... either way, it's not going to make that much difference unless your sales tax is sky high. I have a couple of snack and soda accounts that do $150 per week ($600 per month) and if they didn't do at least that much I'd be looking for better locations to replace them with.

If the location that does just snacks is grossing $300 per month, that's $75 per week. Assuming there is only one snack machine, then in my opinion those numbers are acceptable, not great, but acceptable. If there are two snack machines and that's all they do, I'd probably take a pass.

Where in the world do you find locations that minimum make $150 a week? I bought a route with 50 combo machines a couple months ago and i was impressed that he had 7 that did over $200 a month. I don't have any with contracts, so I don't have to worry about commissions, but still the average of all my machines is probably in the area of $100.00 a month. What kind of locations are you using? I rely primarily on mechanical machines, so I use lunchrooms and showrooms of car dealerships, but there is no damage to the machines and less than 2% theft on average. I would be very interested to know more about your locations and numbers.

Thanks.

Hi jkosmoney,

I am not sure if this will help but have you looked into vending but healthy type of vending? I am trying to pass the words around about this business just for the kids sake. I spoke to a gentelman in Los Angeles about the business and he was really informative about the business. He own Vend Natural, Inc. I understand that he has secured vending location and its at school sites. I think you should talk to him about this. I am not sure in what states. You might want to inquiring about business as well. Have a look at what they offer-vendnatural

gary00

Do you really think those health foods would sell? I checked out the site too, and I have to say the reason so many people buy a bag of chips instead of an apple is not because of what we vend, but what people want. I operate most of my machines in lunchrooms of businesses, and they sell snacks like crazy! I checked out their fridges from time to time to get an idea of what people bring for themselves, but i never see healthy food. I doubt kids are going to be any better. Why would you want to eat fruit or a sandwich when billions of dollars of advertising are going to tell you to buy a coke or a Crispy Crunch bar instead? I can't prove it, but I believe that now that schools are removing the snack machines, more kids are going to go across the street during lunch or recess to a convenient store to get their snacks... We will have to wait to see if I'm right or not.

PS: If he is making $12,000 a year off of 4 machines that maybe cost him $12000 brand new, why would he sell them? I sure as heck wouldn't! This sounds like a case of too good to be true to me.

We took a look at one fo the machines last night. It looked really clean and he showed us how it works. I did not think to look at the serial #. The machine is a GF12 Snack machine drink combo. He showed us the notes he has been keeping and it showed that this location is doing about 400.00 a month and he usually nets about 300.00 so I guess he is putting about 100.00 a month of product into the machine. I asked if there was room to grow at this site and he said they have asked him about coffee, so at least if I buy it I know I might be able to get more business out of this location, but I hear coffee machines can be a pain. I need to walk before I run and worry about buying this route first, then coffee and other dtuff later. Does anybody kknow anything about this type of machine good or bad?

I'm not too familier with that type of machine, but the part that interests me is the margins... I operate in Canada, and have 50 combination pop/snack machines. I sell everything for a $1.00 and my chips cost me (after all taxes) about $.45, my chocolate bars $.65 and my pop (Coke/Pepsi) $.40. Averaging everything out, without my fuel and time spent to do the runs, I average about 45%-50% profit out of every dollar sold. Maybe the inventory is much cheeper in the states, but I cant see him making 75% from every dollar.

If the money he claims to make is $1000 every month, I would look at purchasing these machines but I would also ask about any contracts with the businesses as well. Some places want a cut of the profits. I try to stay away from those locations personally, but if they brought that kind of return I could see working out a deal.

Good luck with your decision