New to vending - seeking advice and guidance.

[Venderbase]

All it takes is someone in your area to offer the sites a commission, and all of a sudden you have lots of machines sitting at home.
Offering commission when it's too late could be seen as an insult to the site owner.

[Ade]

1, put tower in, 2, go back in a month, 3, top it up, 4, empty cash, 5, give site 20%, 6, clean tower, 7, say goodbye and leave.

job done, simples

Ade

[green army]

1, put tower in, 2, go back in a month, 3, top it up, 4, empty cash, 5, give site 20%, 6, clean tower, 7, say goodbye and leave.

job done, simples

Ade

Im new to all this too so ill tell you what my crack is..

Ade in the post above is spot on...lol...thats all there is to it...

I looked at buying a "franchise” but decided to go independent, I looked on ebay this forum and local adds and found about 30 tower machines and bought them for a fraction of the price, I striped them cleaned them and they look like new!

I then chose Hurley’s as they seemed ok. I also use them to site find for me for some of my machines @ just £15 a site, Some great sites so far!

But 4 sites they gave me when I went to install the machines they had tubz vending in already!
The site owner Insisted he wanted my machines as im going down the route H4H, Which is a great charity and giving 10% commission to them cant be a bad thing. I said no and called Paul from Hurleys who said no problem and found me some more sites. (this is very good support) .

I can understand all the working outs your are doing and profit margins etc But I think you are looking into it far too much( IMO) Unless of course you are about to spend massive amounts of cash to start off??but best thing to do is buy a few second hand machines a bit of stock and see how it goes.
Don’t get me Wrong this is just what I have done and is working for me. This is also not my full time job and more of a hobby at the moment.

The best thing in this industry so far by far! has been this forum for advice and what people are REALLY doing with out all the ********.

Again im only new to this but any Questions you have please ask and I will do my best to Help.
Thanks
Ben

[PGBrew]

Eustace,

The answer to that is 'yes'

The only figure I'm really interested in is net profit at the end of the month. How I get there I'm not too fussed I'll work 6/7 days if necessary. This is a numbers game the more you have out there the more profit you make. Good site locations with multiple product lines, high margin product Lines (eg pin ball m/c) and high volume sales (eg bracelet frenzy last year) all form part of this equation. My experience is that the more sites you have the more referrals & other business opportunities come your way.

With 100 towers you should be doing 40K sales £15K GP. Easy to do as a part time business.

Pete

[Eustace]

1, put tower in, 2, go back in a month, 3, top it up, 4, empty cash, 5, give site 20%, 6, clean tower, 7, say goodbye and leave.

job done, simples

Ade

Each of these steps involves expense, some obvious, some hidden. Yes, the process itself is simple, but behind it there are numerous costs. However I accept that, with the right insight and following a few basic rules, it is possible to make this business profitable.

[Eustace]

All it takes is someone in your area to offer the sites a commission, and all of a sudden you have lots of machines sitting at home.
Offering commission when it's too late could be seen as an insult to the site owner.

Well, I just don't know. Maybe if I work hard at finding sites, it won't matter if I lose some. It could be more profitable to stick to a rule that I will not pay commission and only concentrate on those sites that will work with me on that basis.

What I do know is that if I pay a 20% commission, I am going to need a lot - and I mean, a lot - of towers and sites before this even begins to look profitable, taking into account all overheads - including the commission itself, stock, fuel and travel costs, business insurance, vehicle insurance, vehicle depreciation, income/corporation tax, Companies House fees, legal & accountancy fees, marketing costs, business cards, letterheads....etc.

Plus, the more sites you book, the higher the overheads. And, the more machines on each site, the higher the potential overheads.

Not saying it can't work, but the returns are so small and the margins so tight, that I feel justified in being sceptical. I have a lot of experience in business - including both success and failure. One thing I have learnt is that whether a business is profitable or loss-making on paper is not necessarily a predicator of whether the business will survive. The paper figures can be manipulated very easily to give the impression the operator wants - sometimes to himself. Much of this is basic psychology and human nature. A lot of "successful" businesses are actually loss-making. They survive because the operator is working in a cash business and lives in denial. Such businesses are often profitable on paper but eventually atrophy or run out of cash. I suspect this happens a lot with vending businesses and that among those that survive for years, the owners may be subsidising the business with other ventures.

[Eustace]

[What I do know is that if I pay a 20% commission, I am going to need a lot - and I mean, a lot - of towers and sites before this even begins to look profitable, taking into account all overheads - including the commission itself, stock, fuel and travel costs, business insurance, vehicle insurance, vehicle depreciation, income/corporation tax, Companies House fees, legal & accountancy fees, marketing costs, business cards, letterheads....etc.

Oh, and I didn't mention paying for towers, servicing and maintaining towers (even a basic clean involves expense, never mind repairs), and then there's re-investing profits in new towers to enable growth....that's if you make a profit.

[Eustace]

I can understand all the working outs your are doing and profit margins etc But I think you are looking into it far too much( IMO) Unless of course you are about to spend massive amounts of cash to start off??but best thing to do is buy a few second hand machines a bit of stock and see how it goes.
Don’t get me Wrong this is just what I have done and is working for me. This is also not my full time job and more of a hobby at the moment.

If I'm going to put down my own money, then it's a business, whether I am running 10 machines or 100 machines. I'm happy to take the risk, and I don't mind working with probabilities and 'unknowns', but it will be after carrying out the necessary research.

I think vending looks like a tough business. Like you, I'm starting off by buying cheap machines, doing them up and so on. I think that's the right approach rather than going with a franchise.

Having thought about this further, the problem I see with franchises is that you pay high-end prices for the machines and stock, and in doing so lose a great deal of value (depreciation of machines) and stock (loss of profit). I think the right way to proceed and build-in value and profit is to spend as little as possible on machines and obtain the best value stock you can find.

[FlintVending]

I can understand all the working outs your are doing and profit margins etc But I think you are looking into it far too much( IMO) Unless of course you are about to spend massive amounts of cash to start off??but best thing to do is buy a few second hand machines a bit of stock and see how it goes.
Don’t get me Wrong this is just what I have done and is working for me. This is also not my full time job and more of a hobby at the moment.

If I'm going to put down my own money, then it's a business, whether I am running 10 machines or 100 machines. I'm happy to take the risk, and I don't mind working with probabilities and 'unknowns', but it will be after carrying out the necessary research.

I think vending looks like a tough business. Like you, I'm starting off by buying cheap machines, doing them up and so on. I think that's the right approach rather than going with a franchise.

Having thought about this further, the problem I see with franchises is that you pay high-end prices for the machines and stock, and in doing so lose a great deal of value (depreciation of machines) and stock (loss of profit). I think the right way to proceed and build-in value and profit is to spend as little as possible on machines and obtain the best value stock you can find.

yes you are bang on with that last sentence!
You cannot really fail if you apply what you have stated and you are not scared of hard work!
I feel I have done realatively well out of vending, but I have bought out a ton of small operators along the way and have always made it work where most seemed to have failed?

Nigel

[Happyvending]

Oh God no, I'm not trying to re-write the business model or teach Grandma how to suck eggs. I suppose the problem is I have a naturally critical mind and I tend to want to understand how a business works at a deeper level than most. I can see, and I accept, there are benefits in paying commissions. I suppose all I'm saying here is that the assumption that you must pay commission might be wrong, even if in practice you do usually end up having to pay commission. I'll try some site-finding myself and I'll keep my cards close to my chest.

stop complicating matters mate..

get some machines,find some sites,offer the owner 20% comm,call every 4 weeks,collect miney,refill,onto next one...get about 250 of there and you will be just fine brother....


on the other hand you could try golden root