Is it just me?

[Vendition Ltd]

After speaking to a few people it only seems to be me losing lots of sites lately!

I have never had such a bad run the last 8 months losing so many sites. I am starting to question where I am going wrong, I must be doing something wrong if I am the only one losing so many.

Apart from the changing hands of a pub there is not a lot I can do as 9/10 I don't keep the site due to the way the pub industry is changing so when a pub closes down/swaps hands the place tends to get gutted/refurbed and turned into a restaurant/pub and they always tell me the machine wont fit with their image. DO you lot also find this?

The above does not bother me as there is not a lot I can do about it but i'm also losing social clubs/rugby clubs I have had for years over stupid reasons such as - 'the kids keep putting the pots down the pool table pockets jamming the pool table up costing us money to get someone out to fix it' or the machine breaks down for the first time ever and tell me they have had so much trouble over it they just want it taken out rather than me put a new machine in and refund them any money they had to refund customers.

I can't work this game out and after years of experience I can't help but feel the industry is shrinking, I just looked at my site list and over the past 6 months I am on average losing 15 sites per month!!!! I am struggling to re-site that many due to it being tougher and tougher to find sites.

I have just had to buy out 2 small rounds, one 7 sited machines and another 15 just to keep my business afloat and instil some balance into the business. Hopefully I am just being very unlucky and things will get back to normal soon but my heart is telling me to sell up now and get out before it all goes **** up, only problem there is what would I do then lol? I don't really have any skills in any other sector so it's either this or stacking shelves in Asda

Sales this summer have been really good on the sites I have managed to keep so that is positive but just wandered if anyone else out there is in a similar position to me

Cheers

Ross

[rotterncake]

not had it as bad as u around my way lots off pubs are closing and turning into restaurants i try to get some machines in but like u say they dont want them in cos of their image lol ive not got meany sites to lose so iam ok at min did lose 3 kids clubs last year i suffed alot cos of it i would like to buy some small runds off ppl but they not meany ppl do it the bigger vending componys seem to have the best sites so that rules me out i would just stick at it m8 if your not losing money then stick with it u will see u will get some more sites and they will be good 1s and it will e ack to normal

[PGBrew]

Hi Ross,

I'm always loosing sites, you need to keep replacing them, get a sitefinder. Look at downmarket pubs without the fancy restaurants, in council estates in the citys. Places like Paulsgrove rather thn Tunbridge Wells.

Pete

[dorsetvending]

Happy to help if you need it

[FlintVending]

Ross. I do sympathize .
lots of pubs are turning there focus on food now with some marketing themselves more as a restaurant.
Seems like the tower vending does not have quite the right the look for these kind of establisments.
And as Ross lives in the prosperous south east there is probably not many of the spit and sawdust type boozers left in his patch?
I have more than made up for the declining pub market by catering more for holiday camps and leisure centres and pubs near to tourist areas which don't seem quite so adverse to our vending towers.
The Town of Great Yarmouth is 8 miles from me and I make 60% - 70% of my income just from this one town as its full of kids with chav parents.
You have never seen so many fast food restaurants in such a small town, makes Blackpool look like the French Riveira
It has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the WHOLE OF EUROPE, not just the UK!
Don't you other operators have any "chav towns" near to you as these are very fertile grounds for vending tat and junk food!

[Vendition Ltd]

lol your message made me laugh Nigel! Yes it seems that all the rough pubs are closing down at a rapid rate and sold off to local builders or supermarkets who seem to get planning permission to make a quick Tesco express or block of flats with a click of the finger, I guess the local council are only too pleased to see these pubs closed down.

I will just have to carry on and hope tubz vending keep churning me out the sites, I have tried to diversify from pubs but find most other sites impossible to actually get the machine in and once you do the sales are terrible! Car forecourts/hotels

Sometimes worry I;m just flogging a dead horse tho

Ross

[part-time-operator]

i went to a site yesterday which had a few commission machines in for several years only to find that they'd started building a sainsburys right where the site used to be... only 6 weeks ago the ******* landlord was asking me to provide different types of machines!

at another site yesterday i spent an hour sitting with sub-contractors on the phone to the various morons at the brewery whose words were "because it's not brewery property we can't let you take the machine away". This was my third visit to the pub since it shut down!

anyway Ross it's not just you...i've got about 60 sites less than i did at my peak but the more experienced operators are right, we just got to find ways round it. I really think commission sites are under-rated, i got half a dozen of them last week. you can get different sites this way that charity telesales don't get. you are much more in control, you can target profitable areas and its easier to get multiple machines in. slow + steady wins the race right? having said that i know of a site near you which has 8 starlight machines in it lol

another good line to help make more money is explain to a landlord that over last few years stock prices and fuel costs have gone up, but the sale price and his commission has stayed the same. if u've got figures for how much commission you've paid them that helps. then you can justify to them that you need to reduce their commission by 5% but if they want you can put an extra machine in so that you both make more...

what matters is not how many sites, its how much do u take home and keep at the end of a day/week/month.

[dorsetvending]

Post of the month....

[Mark@YorVend]

Luckily being quite new to vending I've only had one site ask me to remove a machine, and it was only the Pringle machine I got him to take after I had put the sweet tower in. He was quite annoyed that the Pringle tower was empty and even though I gave him 20% he said he hadn't sold a bag of crisps in three weeks!!

I think keeping the landlord happy and feeling like you appreciate him/her allowing you to place a machine on their site is important. When we were doing the Help For Heroes machines I went on their website and bought branded teddy bears for the sites, and told them it was a thank you for taking the machine, most of these are sat behind the bars still.
It just reminds them why they have the machine and makes them think twice about asking for it to be removed!! Unfortunately I can't find anything similar on the childline website.

[dorsetvending]

Site relationship is crucial