Which Provider - Hurleys, Snack-a-can, tubz vending or Sweetfix

[Jon123]

Hi Kris,
I have been told vidal will not supply any more strippy pencils as they stopped production at the beginning of last year and there was just stock in cirulation until that runs out. We've been doing the bold pencils and not sure on the sales front they don't look as good but still a steady seller for us.

Regards
Jonny

[Snackmore]

Newleaf

Firstly good luck in your venture but I have one question.

If you go into a site that already has a tower do you still try to leave a box? I have a site where this has happened and guess what they have sold nothing in 2 weeks so cant really see the point (the box is behind the bar) the landlord was told that all proceeds were for charity!

[Newleaf]

Newleaf

Firstly good luck in your venture but I have one question.

If you go into a site that already has a tower do you still try to leave a box? I have a site where this has happened and guess what they have sold nothing in 2 weeks so cant really see the point (the box is behind the bar) the landlord was told that all proceeds were for charity!

I have a few pubs that I am now sited in and none of them have a tower. In some of the pubs they have said they will keep honesty box behind bar and they still sold very well, maybe it was just the time of year or luck. I don't say all proceeds go to charity, mainly as it states 10p per bag of sweets goes directly to charity, ok in small print and most don't bother to read it but it would be easy to get caught out.

If asked I will say that around 25% of profits goes to the charity and the rest is the cost of stock and the cost of servicing the boxes. To be honest I just ask site owner if they would be willing to have a honest box to help raise money for Childline, I don't mention how much goes to charity, if they ask I tell them.

Would I place honesty boxes in sites where there are towers the short answer no. I live in a fairly rural area and most of the pubs I intend to target I doubt would have a tower as it wouldn't suit the imaage but would certainly consider a honesty box. I don't just place them in pubs though, I target a lot of hairdressors again where I doubt a tower would work and I have so far had a good result from these.

[Snackmore]

OK mate thanks for the honesty and I have to agree with all you say apart from the actual percentage to charity, to be fair I have no doubt that sites and customers do not ask (I suspect that they think a large amount goes to the chosen charity) I too would think if a charity box is emblasened with a charity that they get the money. Thats where I am uneasy with this concept. Why cant the charity boxes and tower ventures be up front and declare the percentage given directly to the charity? I suspect because this would put buyers off and thats the bit that sticks in my claw. Deception basically ..........

[Vendingwarehouse]

55p per bag of sweets and then 10% loss on top of that leaves 35% profit for the operator. Then take costs out of that. That's a deal I would have to respectfully decline....and run fast in the other direction. By the time you get the sweets delivered to you, Hurleys and the charity have had their money and you are left to do the work. If it fails then you are left hanging while Hurleys and the charity move on to the next operator. I really hope it works for those who try it, but I would be looking for a safer haven for my investment I think.
To me one of the safest investments at the minute would have to be bouncy ball machines.
No stock going out of date
Large capacity machines meaning less trips to service
Practically trouble free
A free fill of stock with the machine which when sold will have paid for the machine
Bouncy balls have been around for EVER and still sell well
Potential sites are familiar with b/balls and so are more acceptable to having one
Bouncy balls , do just that, they bounce and get lost so generating a certain amount of repeat sales
Machines are bright and colourful atttracting children
They actually compliment ANY shop or business except pubs, they don't like them.

They don't fit everywhere that a honesty box does but you have a safer, tangible, more viable business with teeth that you can sell on if you want. Thay also open doors to get OTHER machines in to whilst doing your rounds. And just like sweets and bulks they can be put on a charity model if you so desire.
That's just my view on it all, it doesn't mean I'm right though.

[Snackmore]

Sounds to me like you are talking balls Noel

[Vendingwarehouse]

You're dead right I am. lolol

[Paul@HurleysFoods]

6500 for some sweets and cardboard is an awful lot of money. Someone said on the forum ages ago. at the end of a tower business you can run the stock down and sell the machines at least you get something, these charity boxes are worthless and you would probably have to pay to get rid of them. too low margin per visit to make it work. self employed couriers who do 30 + drops a day don't start work until they have £190 in there pocket and they pay for there fuel and van. which would mean that they wouldn't do charity boxes unless there was £310 quid a day to collect.

On top of this if hurleys are giving £25,000 to charity minimum fixed payment then that means they need to sell 250,000 packets if they fall short I am assuming the pay out of there own pockets, if they sell 1,000,000 do they give everyone a 7.5p rebate per pack?

I had enough problems with Vending Revolution charity bulks the only saving grace from a very sour experience was that I could recoup some money lost by selling the bulks.

I would think very hard how much time it took you to get 6500 and whether all those days putting in graft to get to 6500 is worth spending in one go.

Hi Jonny. £6500 includes VAT, includes 9600 bags of stock that retail for £1 each and enough boxes to do 600 sites. Siting is extra, but very minimal in cost.
Where else would you get a business set up for that cost for that many sites??
Worst case scenario is if you sell all the stock, taking into account the industry average loss of 8-10%, you make over £2000 and that stock wont last more than a month or so at most.
We have about 20 people making a good living from this at the moment and needless to say the NSPCC (and now the ISPCC as we have sold the master franchise in Ireland) are making great money too. We donate 10p for EVERY bag that leaves here. Our guarantee is £25k per annum to start with, but the total for this year will be much, much higher than that.
We dont stop donating at £25k, every bag earns the charity 10p from bag 1 to bag 5 million.

General Vending Chat may not be the right area for this posting as Im blowing our trumpet, but I felt I needed to reply to Jonny to set a few things straight.
Thanks, Paul.

[Ade]

Hi Kris,
I have been told vidal will not supply any more strippy pencils as they stopped production at the beginning of last year and there was just stock in cirulation until that runs out. We've been doing the bold pencils and not sure on the sales front they don't look as good but still a steady seller for us.

Regards
Jonny

i prefer the bold pencils, way more tastier and sell a lot better than stripey ones for me

Ade

[dorsetvending]

Servicing 600 sites for return of 2 grand - a lot of work and diesel don't you think? - Vending can return u this in 15 prime sites for fraction time and diesel. Just get yourself those quality sites, don't employ me or anyone else - you really can do it yourself. People do value local quality operators so we all have a very saleable asset that few sell enough to potential new sites.