Bulk Vending

It’s a hugely competitive business. In some locations you may see 2 or 3 venders already there. Don’t bother placing a machine in a location with more than 1 other machine, it just won’t be profitable.

Finding and keeping good locations is a constant struggle, it can sometimes seem that as soon as you get a good location you end up losing one. Generally about 5% of your locations will need to be relocated each year.

A lot of people are surprised that bulk vending machines only average about $7 a month, clearly not the road to easy riches that some people envision.

A full time route requires 100s of vending machines, maybe 400 or more machines. Figure that 100 double heads will net you about $1200 a month in profit and you can see the kind of numbers you’ll need to make any decent kind of money.

With a well laid out route, you can service 3 to 4 locations an hour, including driving time, this makes vending a pretty time efficient business.

Don’t forget all the little things that suck up time like coin counting, banking, book keeping, locating, shopping and machine repairs. All these extras can add up quickly.

A program designed specifically for vending book keeping and route management is well worth the money. At the beginning it’s fine to get by with an Excel spread sheet, but once your route starts to get larger, this type of program will pay for itself over time. They allow you to track your servicing, product usage and debt/income ratios.

When buying used vending machines, try to buy multiple machines from the same manufacturer. Machines break down regularly and having interchangeable parts makes things a whole lot easier and cheaper in the long run. In most instances, buying individual parts usually just isn’t cost effective, it’s just cheaper to buy a new machine and use the old one for spare parts.