Make money from vending machines - I do

hammersuk

ok really like this idea. There is a question though, probably very stupid and will show why i have never been self employed and in charge of my own business.

You put a minstrel machine into a garge, child buys some minstrels, chokes, parents gonna sue. Whos fault is it?? Do you hav some sort of insurance on the machines ie, public or product liability?

I know these kinda situations are extremely rare but the fear of something like that happening without being protected really scares the hell outta me.

Probo what holds me back in business.

Mumolulu

I've not looked on ebay myself, will just take it as gospel. But if its such a money making thing, how come people are selling them on ebay?!

The_MoneySavingKid

jig wrote: »

How much money do these machines hold? Also do you have to screw/fix down to a surface??

Cheers
Jig

Thats the exact same question I want to ask.
As soon as I know the answer,I will consider purchasing one for a bit of fun.

CFC

qolwillclearmydebts wrote: »

minstrels about once every eight weeks is average but some machines once every three.

On the bouncy balls a 20p bouncy ball costs 3p and a 50p to £1 ball costs 15p to 30p dependent on type. Site owner normally gets 25%. You tend to get to know how often each machine need emptying or put a sticker on saying please call ................ when I am nearly empty.

Here's a bit of maths;

You can easily do 4 sites an hour. Lets say thats 6 machines as busy sites have a double head machine. Average take £20 a machine = gross of £120 , site owners get £30 stock costs £50, profit £40 a machine. Do 5 hours work a day = £200 a day profit

Thanks for posting this idea, it's something to think about.

Would it be true to say that you have 300 sites after 3 years work, at 6 machines an hour you make an extra £200 a month for 50 hours work, which averages out at around £4 per hour? Have I got that right?

I think from those maths that we are looking at 'pocket money' which is not to be sniffed at if you and/or a spouse have a spare 50 hours per month.

geordie_joe

Mumolulu wrote: »

I've not looked on ebay myself, will just take it as gospel. But if its such a money making thing, how come people are selling them on ebay?!

Good question, one I asked myself when this thread was started. Even spent an evening searching ebay for a link between the Op and a seller on ebay.

There really are a lot of these machines on sale on ebay, most second hand. This led me to think "Why are they selling them? Could it be they don't work?" Don't work as in "people don't put money into them", not that they are broken.

Then I started taking notice of vending machines, and asking questions.

At work (I work in an office but ten times per day have to go into the factory to sort out problems) we have over two hundred factory workers who use the "lunch room" every day. The lunch room has a vending machine that has "everything", crisps, chocolate bars, healthy snack bars, sweets etc. We also use this room for meeting and I noticed the machine was always full. So I asked the woman who deals with it, and she didn't actually know it was her job! She told me that nobody had been to refill/top up or collect money from the machine in the three years she had been doining her job. And she should know, she's the receptionist and she has a record of every visitor.

We also have charity women who comes into the office every couple of weeks. Open plan office with 47 people. She leaves a large display,of sweets to buy for a very good cause. Along side it is a chart of how much the office has raised for the charity. It started last may and we bought over a tenners worth of sweets in june we bought nearly four quids worth and in July, when I started working for the company we bought 40p worth of sweets.

We also have 3 tea/coffee machines, all free. I'm told that when they were installed you had to pay for the tea/coffeee and nobody used them. So the company came to remove them and the boss offered to pay for the tea/coffe, so we get it free.

In my small town there are about 9 pubs, I regulary use five of them. All have fag machines inside, but most people go out of the pub and go to the Spar, or one of the 3 other supermarkets to buy their fags. The only people who use the machines are strangers who don't realise that the shop 50 yards down the road sells fags much cheaper.

From this I conclude that most people, who work near a vending machine, soon learn not to use it. You may sit in an office with a machine that sells crips for 40p per packet, but you soon learn that you can get 10 packets for a quid at Tescos.

You may start a new job on Monday, and feel peckish mid morning and buy something from the vending machine. But on Tuesday you know better and bring your own snacks.

The only people who buy from vending machines are people who are there for the first time and didn't know to plan, or didn;'t kow they could have got the same thing round the corner cheaper. Once you have been there a couple of times you learn.

You and I are Mr and Mrs average, how often do we buy things from vending machines at work?

I think the only people who buy fromm these machines are peoplem, who find themselves in a place they don't know, and didn't plan for, and the machine seems to be the only option.

Next time they have to go there they are forewarned and take their own stuff.

Why are so many of these machines for sale on ebay? Because the sellers have found they don't make money.

They have fallen for the mathematics, "you just need 7 customers per week to break even, and in a office of 40 people 10 will use the machine"

And not concidered the reality, people won't keep putting money into a machine when they know there is a cheaper alternative. How many people pay £2 day after day for a sarnie from the machine when they can make their own at home?

How many people pay 40p for crisps every day when they know the can get 6 for a quid in the supermarket?

lets put it another way, if I had a machine that made me £20 profit per month do you really think I would be selling it on ebay for £19.99?

The reason they are on ebay is because the owner can't make money from them, so they are cutting their losses and taking the £19.99 from some other mug who believes the maths.

Don't think "If X number of people use the machine" think "if I were working there how often would I use the machine"?

Then think "When was the last time I used a vending machine regularly, come to think of it....when was the last time I used the same vending machine twice"?

Scudlink

Drawbacks from these vendor machines are:-

* Fraud, penny wrapped in paper trick (even with mod plates fitted).
* Paper/rubbish jammed in coin entry (mainly due to above fraud) rendering the machine out of order (potentially weeks of lost income before anyone reported/spotted machine not working).
* Using soft sweets would gel up in warm weather. Jelly Beans are soft and on some machines tend to get crushed in the payout exit springs.
* You had to make sure after collecting/servicing the machine that the payout disc was in the exact correct position otherwise it could possibly be fiddled to vend the entire stock either with just 20p or turning the handle back and forth, this tend to happen with very small sweets.
* With £1 vendors the plastic capsuals often break or split open jamming the whole machine up, best case would just be the machine out of order and the task of empting out a full vendor to get to the broken capsual and clear the blockage, worst case would be a customer who put the money in forcing the handle on the jammed machine, breaking the turning cog on the spindle and ordering/fitting a new part.

Company I work for used to supply a lot of these machines but now only do a very small handful (they've stopped the sweets completely) for the simple reason as there was no money to be made after giving the venue their cut.

Possible for a small one man band operator with a lot of good machines, keeping on top of their round, to make some money out of it, but can't see big profits myself, hence why so many available on eBay.

CFC

Ah, thanks for the posts. I'll stop getting excited then!

MarkLS12

geordie_joe wrote: »

...
At work (I work in an office but ten times per day have to go into the factory to sort out problems) we have over two hundred factory workers who use the "lunch room" every day. The lunch room has a vending machine that has "everything", crisps, chocolate bars, healthy snack bars, sweets etc. We also use this room for meeting and I noticed the machine was always full. So I asked the woman who deals with it, and she didn't actually know it was her job! She told me that nobody had been to refill/top up or collect money from the machine in the three years she had been doining her job. And she should know, she's the receptionist and she has a record of every visitor.

The contents must be very dusty and past their sell by date, maybe you should raise it as a health and safety issue.:D
Or maybe the receptionist just doesn't know who services it.

geordie_joe wrote: »

From this I conclude that most people, who work near a vending machine, soon learn not to use it. You may sit in an office with a machine that sells crips for 40p per packet, but you soon learn that you can get 10 packets for a quid at Tescos.

How many people pay 40p for crisps every day when they know the can get 6 for a quid in the supermarket?

I would say millions of people buy crisps for 40p or even 60p each day.
If I were to buy a pack of 10 it would not last 10 days
I frequently buy from Vending machines at work and see others doing it too.

sarahs999

Also depends if you have a captive market. when I was a student I was in a college tha was way out of town and a bit isolated - I rather became friends with our vending machine as i was far too busy to be doing stuff like planning food etc.

sarahs999

And also, I meant to say, I think it works if you have a really unsual siting. Like, for example, putting a retro vending machine full of retro sweets in a club, or a funky bar, where it's a talking point. Cool jelly beans for trippy clubbers might work.