Advice and Suggestions Please

[radical.richard]

Hi all,

I have a sweet tower in a drivers lounge at a small distribution food centre, its a local player and to be honest with you, when I went in to site the tower, I really had the feeling that when I went back, it wouldn't be there. However I refilled it this week and it has done really well, its actually in the top 10% of my towers for sales.

I know the honeymoon factor will reduce this, however, my initial impression was because the drivers 'lounge' is very dirty and before my tower, the only thing apart from the fridge in there was a microwave that looked like it would kill you if you used it, and a rat bait trap which certainly would.

But its got me thinking, the tower has done so well probably because there is nothing else there for the drivers, unless they bring their own food, which several had done when I went to install, and no doubt risked their lives with the microwave.

I currently only do sweet towers, but would be interested in expanding into larger vending devices. Any help and suggestions from the more experienced among you of the best type of machines to suggest for me to try and put into this totally virgin environment would be most appreciated., especially taking into account it is Asian owned thus Halaal products may be appropriate. The drivers seem to be about 70% Asian, 30% European mix.

Cheers

[Siting Services]

Hello Richard

The site sounds like a good one and there are not many driver's type of companies left who do not already have vending machines in place. We used to put machines into all logistic/courier companies and they were gold mines with return on investment in weeks! A lot of these sites do now have vending contracts in place so are very difficult to get into.

With the site that you have, how many staff/drivers do they have and what are the opening hours?

I would see how your tower performs over the next few months and if usage is still very good then it may be worthwhile looking into a larger vending machine to place on site. There are slimline versions of the large box vending machines available on the market which in my opinion will do the job. Look at the type of slimline vendor that Snack in the Box operate - I have seen a lot of these type of slimline vendors in many of the old sites that we use to operate.

Good luck.

Barbara

[Style]

Id stick a Pringles tower in there too. I figure if you are selling plenty of sweets at £1 a pop then why reduce your margin by spending £100s of a refrigerated vendor and then less for your product. Pringles tower stocked and installed for around £100 will pay for itself in no time.

[Siting Services]

Id stick a Pringles tower in there too. I figure if you are selling plenty of sweets at £1 a pop then why reduce your margin by spending £100s of a refrigerated vendor and then less for your product. Pringles tower stocked and installed for around £100 will pay for itself in no time.

Spot on Andy! I would service the site for as long as possible with cheap towers. I had forgotten about the slimmer margins on the products for larger machines, also I am presuming that the larger machines are quite expensive to fix?

The only fear there is if the company is approached by another vending company offering a chilled machine and drinks machine you will get booted out so 'make hay whilst you can'.

Regards,

Barbara

[radical.richard]

Andy, Barbara

Thanks that is certainly food for thought

As I know nothing about the refrigerated machines, I think towers are the best initial expansion, but for my future reference, if you do have a powered vendor, what is the standard arrangement for who pays for the power ?, and what would the general margin be on chocolate bars, crisps and drinks, just rough ball parks would be great.

Thanks

[cliffxtc]

Pringles.
And chain the machines together.

[Snackmore]

They pay the electric and cover insurance for total loss. 70/100% mark up

[radical.richard]

Steve, thanks very helpful. So totally different from the charity tower business I am used to, I guess you need to find a site that wants to provide a service to their staff, and thus is willing to pay for the overheads, but happy to outsource the capital cost and servicing to the machine owner.

[Snackmore]

Yes but remember you are offering a service to their employees at maybe £1 a week cost in electricity, all modern machines are now A++ energy efficient. On the flip side though you are purchasing a piece of kit at a cost of thousands that they are not having to shell out for, they are also not worrying about massive stock range, stock going out of date and repairs etc. A no brainer for most companies.

I insist on minimum 60 month contracts now and if they are not prepared for that they can jog on.

I have had complaints that my cans of pop are 10p dearer than the local supermarket. I always explain that I give that particular customer permission to never ever use my machine and to go and save their money.................. Normally backfires on them !

[radical.richard]

Thanks Steve most enlightening for a newbie, looks like I have a lot to learn before I cross the sweet tower real vending divide.

Cheers