Vending Machine Business

[Basil Carey]

Thanks for your suggestion. It is an interesting suggestion and worth pondering over.

[JamaicanSprinter]

Originally Posted by poweramplifyingionairline

I had looked into this opportunity for awhile, but ultimately had more profitable and faster ideas to proceed with, but I did learn that can machines are higher profit for the operator, but bottle machines bring in more volume.

The biggest problem with this industry is the LONG wait time until you actually start making money. The only way this can be a real career for you is to have 50 or 100 machines all making money. And if you don't go into the business with major money up front, you'll need to wait 4 or 5 years of turning all your profits into new machines before you can stop building up your infrastructure and actually earn money.

This is a great college level business, but sadly I did not think of it until after college.

This is true if you buy all of your machines. Depending on your business model the easiest way is to get free machines through coke,pepsi or dr. pepper. That is how I started I have been in this business for about 3 years now. That is the FASTEST way to grow. Call you rep tell him you need ten machines and they deliver it to the locations. Your costs are product,gas and a lock for the machine that's it. Use that method to get good cashflow then from there you can decide if you want to start purchasing your own machines etc. Getting 50-75 machines out from setting up an account with coke or pepsi is a breeze depending on your sales person you can do it in less than a year. It is more based on sales at the account more than machines. You can have 50 machines doing 240k or 50 machines doing 60k in sales. I try and avg at least $300-$400 a month per account(soda and snack machine). 50 accounts and say you roughly net $150 out of that $400 overall that's around 70k-80k take home after taxes etc which would be like a 130k 9to 5 job not too shabby. The best money maker is coffee delivery service not vending. Look for delivery accounts where people just want coffee supplies delivered. Its more money and less hassle.

[longnecker]

Originally Posted by Hemlock140

I don't know where you find those machines, certainly not around here. Just last night I felt like a candy bar or something while waiting at the airport, and the cheapest thing in there was those little bags of chips at $2.15, candy bars were $2.50. I would expect them to have credit card readers soon if only for the high prices.

The coke machines at my work DO have credit card readers.