How to Choose a Snack Vending Machine
Snack vending machines come in all shapes and
sizes. Some are small enough to hang on a wall and some are the full
size floor models like the one I had. Some are electronic that you plug
into an electric wall socket. Some are manually operated that don't
require any electricity at all.
There are snack vending machines that offer user's
the chance to buy a coffee right out of the same machine, while others
can vend soda and other cold beverages. There is snack vending machines
that do all three! That's right, these machines offer customers the
chance to buy coffee, cold beverages and snack products out of the same
machine.
I've seen a snack vending machine that sells
cigarettes.
I've seen a snack vending machine that sells
hockey cards.
I've also seen a snack vending machine that sell
bus passes to access the local transit system.
And I've even seen a demo where one of my local
distributors showed me how he could vend a can of three (3 ) tennis
balls out of a snack vending machine! That actually impressed me.
So what does this all mean and how do you choose
the right kind of snack vending machine?
You need to have as much flexibility with your
snack machine as possible. I wanted my machines to be able to have
maximum flexibility to sell my customers whatever they wanted (within
reason and legal parameters) and I needed to have the machine that was
capable of doing that.
This meant I needed...
Pricing flexibility. I needed to be able to raise
or lower my prices according to my supplier costs or customer demands.
That meant I needed to have snack vending machines that gave me that
option without any additional equipment upgrades. That meant mechanical
was out, you just don't have the kind of pricing flexibility with
mechanical as you do with electronic. With electronic you can raise or
lower prices of individual selections and do that within seconds. With
a mechanical snack vending machine you might have a customer stand in
front of your machine with a pocket full of coins but your mechanical
machine can't sell her anything because it isn't configured to accept
certain coins.
Payment options. All my snack vending machines
came with built in capabilities to add payment options. I could have
added a bill acceptor if I wanted to. This may have boosted sales if
the customer had bills in her pocket instead of coins. Some machines
may allow you to add credit card or smart card capabilities.
Product options. Have you seen the Pringles chips
business opportunity? How about the Campbell's soup business
opportunity? There are others and in my view Pringles chips are good
products as is Campbell's soup, but the business opportunity is
garbage.
For $100 at the time I owned my business I could
have purchased an add-on to install that would have given me the
ability to sell cans of Campbell's soup if I wanted to. I would have
had to sell a lot of soup to pay for it though. Plus when the Pringles
chip business opportunity was going around I bought a coil for one of
my snack vending machines that allowed me to sell that product. For $20
at the time I was selling the same thing those so-called " Pringles
Vending Machines " were doing!
A lot of people lost a lot of money buying into
those so-called business opportunities. I know because I saw the
machines for sale months after I saw those so called business
opportunities advertised.
The bottom line with snack vending machines is
that they can be extremely versatile. You can sell a lot of different
types of products other than just snacks. The ability to change your
prices quickly and easily are vital and the option of installing
additional payment capabilities is also a necessity.
Don't limit your options when you purchase snack
vending machines. At some point in your business you may want to sell a
higher cost item(s) and there is a good chance that snack vending
machines may be able to do that for you.
About the Author:
Mike Corbin's website
http://no-vending-secrets.com
challenges would be entrepreneur's to
think about vending differently and avoid the vending business
opportunity scams entirely!
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