Roughly two months ago I took the plunge and bought 10 towers and a wire bar rack from a former tubz vending franchisee who had been finding it hard to make things work financially. He had a couple of decent sites which I took over but the rest of the towers were bundled in to my car until they found a new home. I soon had Barbara on the case and she quickly found me the 5 sites I had requested as well as offering me a lot of tips and guidance. I decided to hold off on placing more towers initially and ended up trying to diversify slightly by buying good condition beavers and a batch of not so good condition Tomy machines which were in various states of disrepair with missing parts,old coin mechs etc.
I spent the Christmas holidays buying parts and some stock for the machines and then reality hit that I had been speculating a lot more than I was accumulating! I got the machines at decent enough prices but I made a major mistake by not realising how much it would actually cost to fix and fill them all! I was very quickly running out of cash so my first real collection of the sites that I bought over and that Barbara provided was a very welcome cash injection. I am aware of the honeymoon period on sites so I won't expect it to be the norm but all but one sold way above my expectations. The one poor site sold a grand total of 2 tubs and one was me when I placed the machine! On paper the site looks fine,it is a good sized salon with plenty of customers and staff,machine placed well but for one reason or another it just didn't sell anything. I thought it must have been broken but the girls said nobody took an interest in it. I will give that one another month and hope it does better but if not I will be back site finding. You can't win them all.
The money from the collections meant I could push on and manage to fully stock some of the Beavers and also start buying some of the spares needed for the Tomy machines. Once the Beavers were ready I started the site finding. Having the advantage of local knowledge and a fair chunk of beginners luck i managed to get agreements for 6 bulk machines and 4 towers on my first day. I also got a number of maybes for towers. This created a bit of a problem as I didn't have enough towers! Not wanting to lose my momentum I did a bit of a stupid thing and rushed out and bought the first towers I could find for sale locally. In hindsight this was stupid,the machines were cheap but when I got them home they were a lot more rundown and shabby than I had realised,it made me appreciate what a good deal I got with the first batch I bought which had been kept in very nice condition. I would rather have paid more and have good machines than now having the hassle of fixing and repairing these. It has set me back a bit and dented my confidence a bit when pitching to sites as I feel these are not quite perfect if that makes sense? After some spare parts,elbow grease and advice from the forum I got a few up to standard and placed , the rest are waiting the next pay day so I can stock them up and get going again.
So my current situation is that I have about 50machines in various states,they are a pretty even mix of towers,bulk and toy. I am not comfortable spending more money on stock and parts just now as I have already bitten off a little more than I can chew so I think the plan is to sell off a few machines and use that cash plus the next collections to get everything fully stocked and looking good. I have a few places I would like to try and target for toy and bulk machines but I think I would use Sitefinding services again in the future for towers. I am a stay at home dad and was lucky over Christmas as my wife was off and able to watch the kids giving me the chance to site find,normally I don't have this option. Also any I have placed myself have been on 20% commission as I'm just not confident pitching the charity angle. Barbara is the expert and I think her prices are very fair for the service and advice she gives so I am hoping she will be willing to help me out again in the future.
I stay in quite a rural area but have been trying to develop a circular route which so far is working out ok.Hopefully in the next month or two as cash reserves build up again I will have about 40 machines stocked and on sites. In hindsight I definitely would build one machine at a time but unfortunately I am prone to getting carried away!
Some general bits and pieces that I forgot to include above!...luckily had no jams or machine problems on site.I wish we had a more eco friendly alternative to plastic tubs and capsules.I am still ordering exclusively from tubz vending and so far I have no complaints at all. Beaver machines are incredible quality and my favourite to deal with.My best customers are my kids.Anyone I have dealt with on this forum or met with in real life when buying machines have always been more than willing to help and offer advice. It is quite refreshing to see as obviously it is a competitive industry but people still seem to go out of their way to help others. I have a huge list of people on the forum I already owe at least one drink to and really appreciate Matt and all the regular guys who post and help make it such a Welcoming place.
Apologies again for the ramble,I am sure plenty of you are snoring by now
