tmac5445
Im 16 years old and have a small vending machine route in town with gumball and candy machines but now i want to expand, any ideas?
What type of vending machines or systems similar to that exist other than:
gumballs, candy, soda, ice cream, pay phones, dvd rental, toys
That covers all i can think of, thanks for your ideas on expanding my business!
Answer
Hi I used to run a vending route with gumballs. We later purchased one with candy bars. I would recommending expanding the gumballs. You are paying 1 to 2 cents per gumball and getting 23 cents. I found the candy machines took more time, we had to purchase biweekly the items and restock the machines-biweekly. Our machines held about 12 items per row and 8 rows. We purchased a existing route. The people on the route would always try to request what they wanted in their machine. That got annoying after while. One place broke our machine and stole candy bars. Another place had mice and they got into the machine-somehow- and ate candy. So with the gumballs, your profit margin is higher, less work and you do not have to fill them as often. I would try looking on ebay for used machines and continue adding to your existing business. I also looked into other machines-crane machines, dvd etc. Most of the time you have to purchase the machines -thousands of dollars, and you have to worry about servicing them if they break. Also a lot of places the owner will put in their own machine. Also big companies-like sugar loaf (they have the machines in walmart) will contract local people to service them.
When we purchased our existing gumball route the owner had hooked up with a local non-profit. So he would go into businesses and tell them 10% of profit would go to the non-profit. He had stickers on the machines too. So people feel 'good' about buying gumballs. You may want to hook up with a local nonprofit. A lot of times they have members and meetings and they are business owners. It's a great way to get your foot in the door to businesses.
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