Is £50k possible from vending

[Guest]

I like all the guess work guys, and I'm sure about 700 sites would be about right..... but why don't we just ask Barbara? I think she ran a round of about 2000 towers at one point, with staff, vehicles and premises.

A few more .....

I have put up my comments already - ie, around 750 in today's market, if all Towers and if you are buying from one of the suppliers and paying 5% commission. I would say the national averages of the towers in today's market is £20 gross sales taking into account the excellent sites, average and poor sites. £25.00 can be achieved if you keep on top of re-sites and if you run just a few towers then the averages will be (should be) higher.

Adding Pringles and Toys will reduce the number of vendors required, keep your working territory smaller and help boost turnover and keeping to a sole trader is the best way. Our drivers used to service on average 17 towers per day and we only visited those that had say £40+ in them to make the visit worthwhile. As time went on though that figure reduced to £30+ as averages fell across the board.

Barbara

There are many variables and each individual's accounts will be different. The market has now changed and averages are lower than they used to be, costs and stock have increased.

[Guest]

Thanks Barbara, I knew you would be able to offer a definitive answer (although I think we may have inadvertently take all the life out of this thread now)

[Guest]

It may not be guess work from all of us!

[Guest]

Barbara's post has put me right off this business.

20 sales per month average makes this business unworkable. And it's going downhill she says!!

So £50k seems totally unachievable.
For the investment in 800 towers at £130 each you could buy a house and rent it for a similar return.

[Guest]

I agree, all posts on this thread are relevant and we all have our own experiences and thoughts to share.

Barbara

[Guest]

Barbara's post has put me right off this business.

20 sales per month average makes this business unworkable. And it's going downhill she says!!

So £50k seems totally unachievable.
For the investment in 800 towers at £130 each you could buy a house and rent it for a similar return.

I didn't say that and it all depends on how you run and manage your business. If you are running 100 towers opposed to 800 say for a single sole trader, based on experience I doubt you would get all 800 towers doing £40 per month unless you covered a massive area, therefore it is realistic. I speak to many operators who share with me averages and £20-£25 gross per month on a reasonable sized business is about right.

[Guest]

Also, forgot to mention that the decline happened when the recession hit in 2008 and all vending businesses across the board found averages lowered, as well as many other businesses. It's business, and we all accept that.

[Guest]

i posted a couple of years ago that return on investment in vending was going down and would continue to do so. That's a fact and that's happened. but returns have fallen for a lot of investments in a low interest rate environment so if you've only got a small amount of money it's not a bad return on your cash which I think is why so many people continue to buy small bundles.

If you've got £100k spare (which most people dont) and bought a house now and interest rates go up in a few years time you'll be making less out of it than you calculate now because your mortgage payments will be much higher. I think we've all had to change the way we run our businesses in the face of continuously falling sales, some like Barbara have sold their round altogether. I sold about half and manage the others better to keep my averages up.

With vending the great thing is people can buy a 100 tower bundle for say £25k and re-invest over 5 years to get that 800 tower business. And if you do it like that, as others have said, you can easily maintain £40+ a month on 100 towers so you'll be making more money per tower at the start which will give you a boost to help turn that initial investment into a proper business.

[Guest]

Isn't all doom and gloom my average is around 50 per month but I nail the site finding

[Guest]

Isn't all doom and gloom my average is around 50 per month but I nail the site finding

That's great! Well done.

If you target the top cherry sites then you will achieve the higher averages, the only problem in today's market is that many of them have gone and you are limited to how big you can grow in your territory which is why going to the 'b' and 'c' sites, having lower turnover and much lower commissions makes sense.

The industry in my opinion is not all doom and gloom, it's great and people are eating lots of sweets.