[roastbeef]

there has been a few people pm'ing me asking about my vending machine venture, so i thought i would put it all out there in case anyone else was curious.

i used craigslist to search for "vending routes for sale." through research and my own findings, i found that machines or routes sell for what they gross in a year. sometimes the yearly gross plus the cost of the machine(s) if they are good machines. it is all in what you negotiate.
i got into my route for $7,500 and made about $400-500 in profit each month (sometimes less, sometimes more, but $400-500 was predictable). i ended up selling the machines for $7k just to get rid of them when i was done exploring the venture.

locations can be hard to locate, and some want 10% of your gross profits for the machine(s) they host. others are happy to have your machines there since the machines provide a service to their customers and employees. it is all in your negotiation and agreement when you pitch the deal with the host of the location. i liked buying already placed machines, because a good vendor will keep a spread sheet and you can tell right away from a few month's review if you are buying a dud, or a producing machine. if they can't provide you with a record of monthly sales for an individual machine (or location if multiple machines at one location) then i would walk away.

i got my food products from distributors that sell to food trucks, vending machine operators, and ice cream trucks. they are around in your area, you just have to look. i also shopped at sams club. i like costco better, but they sell the size of water bottle i needed (too thin of a bottle compressed under the weight of the other bottles and didn't vend right). i also liked how sam's club broke down the individual price of an item in a pack. for example, if i bought a box of a dozen mini cookie bags for $5, it said "$0.42 each", and i knew i could sell them for $1 each. this makes it easy to predict prices or try new products that could have larger profit margins.

drinks are by far the most profitable. frozen food can be a pain in the ass since you have to keep it cool while transporting. candy can also melt if you don't control the temperature (i used coolers and ice packs to keep boxes of candy bars relatively cool on hot days).
i worked out of the trunk of my e46 some days, or used my desert truck (not much of a bed), but realized expanding operations would require a van (i didn't want a third vehicle) and significantly more money invested.

vending machines have been around for decades, and what we know as a modern vending machine has been around since about the 70's. so they are pretty polished as far as efficiency and reliability goes. you'll pay more for machines that can recognize multiple bills or have coin changers that can give more than just quarters. you'll also pay more for a machine that can be programmed to individually price each item in each row. just like finding a food/candy distributor, you'll have to dig and find a local vending machine guy that can/will fix your machines. some of the things i could do myself, its just a really basic computer and some electric motors that turn to vend product.

so it was either sell it or go bigger, and i wanted to invest in real estate, so i sold it and bought a rental property. i enjoyed it, but it would never quite be what i wanted it to be without more work and more money invested. since it was a side job, i decided to just appreciate the experience and move on. i sold my route for a little less than what i paid, just to get rid of it, but i made a little scratch while doing it, so it was fine.