I am going to try the same thing with coke 16.9 oz. and pepsi 24 Oz. I am not worried about being denied a sale. Due to the fact that sams sells the 16.9 ounce Coke and 24 ounce pepsi, so you can buy as much as you like. What machines are vending the 24 ounce pepsi's . Do you need a glass front ?

The reason I was buying the 24 oz. bottles from WalMart is because my local Sam's Club does not offer them, though other larger Sam's Clubs do. If your's does, then fine - you shouldn't have anything to worry about.

I put the 24 oz. bottles in my BC10 soda machines. Those are made by Wittern Group (probably Fawn Manufacturing which is part of the Wittern Group). Sometimes they are called CB500s, depending on who you go through to get them.

Contracts are tough. Typically for a contract to be enforcable you have to have some sort of consideration for it, just dropping your machine on the location and saying it will be here for 3 years, sign here, wont do. The coke and pepsi guys here pay some sort of commission and an energy reimbursment. I took out a the pepsi guy, who had a contract, by being local, and paying them more $. I have a 3 year contract that they can end with 60 days notice and I pay a 12% commission to them, its about $120 a month and a $1 a day energy reimbursment. I also worked out the commission to be due 30 following the end of the month, so my commission for 10/31 is due 11/30, which gives me about 60 days of float on the money interest free. I know you're saying... wow that 15%, my margins are 60% on this account, i'm getting .75 on a can of soda and after the commission is only .11 and I'm still over my target 50% on cans. What i'm trying to do know is lower my sales tax basis by calling the .11 cents a location fee and making a disclaimer about it on the machine, that would mean I'd only pay sales tax on the .64 and not the .75, that could save me almost .01 a can.

I don't do contracts of any kind, period. They are a complete waste of time. If your accounts wants you out of there, all they have to do is boycott your machines and you will gladly pull them. Conversely, if the account does not produce good GP against a reasonable COG and is not all that profitable, you certainly don't want to lock yourself into that account.

My experience is that when you go in and do a great job and keep the bar raised, you will have that account forever barring closures, etc... I would not waste a single minute of my time on a contract no matter how large the account is. Just because it is big does not mean it will be profitable. And that - profit - is what makes any account worthwhile.

I am considering using a locating service but don't know how to separate the wheat from the chaff. Anyone have a list of questions I should be asking when I interview different services? How can I protect myself from paying for bad locations?

NG

Great advice in just one word: Don't. If you can't do the locating yourself, stay out of vending.

Update on the drinks:
As it turns out the drink situation is working just fine. Instead of buying 20 oz bottled Coke and Pepsi products from Vistar at 79¢ or 80¢ each, we are buying 16.9 oz Coke and 24 oz Pepsi bottles from Wal*Mart at 50¢ and 52¢ each. It's working great! The Coke drinkers don't mind the smaller bottle with a smaller price than 20 oz, and the Pepsi drinks like having more to drink, even at a little higher price than the 20 oz bottles.
It's really working great!

This will work out great until you start buying too much at one or more stores, or until you start trying to exercise your tax-exempt status at the checkout. The problem is, once they find out you are reselling, they will refuse to sell you any more drinks at any "volume" at all, and they will insist you go to Sam's or some other wholesaler. They will tell you it is against their agreements with Coke and Pepsi to sell to you in this manner.

I got away with this for a short time about 2 years ago, but eventually they caught on. Just as well anyway, because once you get to a certain volume, you won't have time to go from place to place buying soda.

I should explain some other reasons for leaving Vistar and going back to Sam's.

First, I am ALWAYS getting chips in with open seams. I'm not talking about an occasional bag here and there. It happens repeatedly with each delivery. At times, simultaneously among as many as 4 different brands. Frequently, as much as 50% or more of the bags are not sale-able of an affected brand. I just went through 3 boxes of a bad batch of Lay's Original in where there were little pinholes in most of the bags -- ants got inside some of the bags and I had some customers discover this, unfortunately. The worst offenders I have found so far: Andy Capp, Lays Original, Austin Zoo Animal Crackers, Snyder's Buffalo Wing Potato Chips (big holes punched through the bags).

I depend on once-a-week deliveries -- so if my entire delivery of one or more products is bad, it really puts me in a bind since I have to wait a week for an exchange to take place. Not good.

Second, Vistar is not cheap. When I get bad product from them that I don't get credit for, it makes them outrageously expensive.

Third, I have gotten bad pastry from them frequently. Some of it has been stale upon receipt (Freshley's Texas Cinnamon Rolls were the most disgusting pastries I have ever seen or tasted), and my Dolly Madison Zingers have occasionally molded between the cakes after just 2 to 3 weeks in some cases. Again, this creates more waste and makes their already high prices nothing short of outrageous.

Yes, Vistar does have a great selection, but that is all they have. My experience with Vistar is that they apparently charge a premium for second-rate or irregular product from the same suppliers that Sam's Club gets their product from, except when you buy it from Sam's Club, you can depend on getting great product with very little or no irregulars. Plus, they are much less expensive.

Good-bye Vistar.