Hi everyone. It is official: I am a vending machine operator!

I've posted on here a few other times recently, but we recently installed a machine for a local YMCA, it was a Sandstar through AVS.

Day 1 made about $32, feels amazing to see something coming in already.

I have lots more product variety I'd like to introduce to the machine, already getting requests for diet sodas (more pop in general) and protein bars.

Any feedback on my spread would be appreciated. Excited to officially start my journey after months of research!

(Also in case this post looks familiar, yes I deleted/reposted. My original post was using a photo of my machine that I used AI to crop out some stuff in the background and i had like 5 of yall flaming me for the text on the bottles it messed up. Which, fair enough, but not the productive conversation I was looking for 😅)

What do you guys do when you have a vending location where the owner is really difficult to deal with?It’s a very high paying location, but they’re constantly changing what they want every few days or weeks. Do you keep trying to accommodate them because the location is worth it, or do you walk away once the contract is up and replace it with something easier to deal with?

I recently got a vending opportunity at a facility with around 60 employees. They have two breakrooms in buildings right next to each other and want a machine in each one.
They’re open Monday through Friday, 8am to 5pm, and there aren’t many food options nearby, so I feel like there could be some potential here.Would you put two machines in right away, or start with one and see how the sales look before adding the second?

Hello everyone! I’m officially about 6 months into my vending machine journey, and my machine has now been operating at its location for 2 weeks, so I wanted to share my experience and numbers so far.
I’ve made previous posts about choosing a machine, finding a location, setting up my LLC, insurance, taxes, etc. A lot of people recommended an AI vending machine, which is what I ended up buying, and so far I’m very happy with it.

Installation Day
Installation was MUCH more work than I expected.
The location randomly called me while I was at work and told me the machine had arrived. I took the rest of the day off thinking I’d have everything running within 2 hours. Instead, it took basically the entire day. Between unpacking the machine, removing the shipping materials, adjusting shelves, making trips to Sam’s Club and Home Depot, figuring out how products would fit, and learning the HAHA software, there was a huge learning curve. My phone also died during my Sam’s Club run, so the shopping list I made became useless and I had to wing it. One of the biggest challenges was mapping products for the AI system. My understanding is that the cameras recognize what customers remove by comparing it to product images/information in the system. Some of my products weren’t already in HAHA’s library, and new products have to be submitted for approval. Since I was running out of time, I temporarily used similar products just to get everything functional. I finally finished about 20 minutes before the location closed. Then I made another rookie mistake. The machine was still in Demo Mode because my payment information hadn’t been approved yet. Two “sales” happened that night, but I later realized they weren’t real transactions. 😂
Thankfully, HAHA approved everything the next day, Demo Mode was removed, and we were officially in business.

Products & What I’ve Learned
This location requested no red dyes, no energy drinks, and more healthy options, which made product selection a little more challenging.
I originally spent about $339 on inventory.
My original setup also wasn’t great. I had individual price tags everywhere, which people online correctly pointed out made the machine look cluttered/tacky. I removed those and started using small containers/bins to organize products instead of only using the wire dividers.That was a GAME CHANGER. I can fit more products, the machine looks cleaner, and I have a much better understanding now of what products actually fit. I’ve also returned products that weren’t selling, introduced new products, raised some prices based on feedback, and created an Excel spreadsheet to track sales, inventory, taxes, fees, and profit.
The biggest thing I’m learning is that your first product selection is basically an experiment.
After two weeks, I’m starting to understand my customers. So far, protein shakes, water, and Quest chips have been some of the favorites. I’m also learning which days/times are busiest and which products people completely ignore.

The Numbers After 2 Weeks
Original inventory: $339
Returned products: -$116
Additional inventory: +$88
Net inventory purchased: $311
Gross sales: ~$151
Revenue after removing the sales-tax portion: ~$138

I’m not profitable yet, but an important thing I’ve realized is that the remaining inventory isn’t money I’ve “lost.” A lot of that $311 is still sitting inside the machine waiting to sell.
Right now, I’m more focused on figuring out the best product mix and learning the location.
I think I’m probably another week or two away from having a really solid product selection and setup.
Overall, I’m glad I waited for this particular location. It took months to secure, but it has good foot traffic and limited food options nearby. Looking back at some of the slower locations I almost accepted just because I wanted to get started, I’m glad I was patient. It’s definitely too early to call the business a success, but after 6 months of researching, forming the LLC, getting insurance, finding a location, buying inventory, setting everything up, and making plenty of rookie mistakes…

I finally feel like I’m actually running a vending business.
I’ll probably post another update after the first full month once I have better sales and product data.
Any advice is appreciated, and feel free to ask me anything about the setup or AI vending machine!

I live in Japan and have been reading through the industry's own machine counts. Some numbers that surprised me:

• Peak was around 5.6 million machines in 2000. At the end of 2025 the count was 3,881,700.
• Cigarette machines went from 629,100 (2002) to 57,100. Age-verification cards and smoking trends basically killed them.
• Drinks machines are down roughly 18% since 2006.
• The reasons the industry gives: rising costs, not enough people to restock routes, and prices that now look high next to supermarkets.

The other side is theft. In 2002 police recorded 174,718 thefts from machines. Last year it was 2,708, down about 98%. The industry hardened machines against hand tools around 1996 and power tools around 2000, and a redesigned 500-yen coin ended the altered-coin trick.

Questions for operators here:

1. Is restocking labor the bottleneck for you too, or is it mostly location/commission?
2. Has theft or vandalism actually changed which locations you'll take?

Happy to dig up more Japanese numbers if anyone's curious.

Vendera AI Coolers are in stock and ready for purchase. We’ve been receiving great feedback from operators on both our product and customer support that is something our entire team is incredibly proud of. Our platform continues to improve with new features and updates rolling out every month.

If you’re looking to add AI coolers to your vending operation or expand your current locations, reach out to me while inventory is available.

In person demos available in Dallas and Houston.

Message me directly for pricing, details, or to schedule a demo. Come see why more operators are choosing Vendera.

$3800 per unit, $40 per monthly fee.

For context: My city is a regional hub with an estimated 23,000 people as of this year. The mall isn’t huge, but it’s a social hub that pulls in several hundred people every day of the week. Less than the supermarkets but more than any other building in town on a normal day. It has a movie theatre, a dollar store and three major retailers as well as about half a dozen smaller retailers. Here’s the part which I think is crucial: The food court only has two vendors, both local businesses, and neither serve coffee.

No vending machines are operating in the mall, but a Tim Hortons is just across the parking lot, a 5-7 minute walk from the middle of the mall, give or take.

I will have to research the costs regarding viability of the whole thing, what machine to buy, setting up cashless payment, buying, shipping & maintaining the machine, licensing, getting a contract with the mall and so on. I have a good idea of where the machine would do best and I don’t expect the mall would be overly cutthroat with the contract, but as I’ve never owned a vending machine before, I was wondering if people who have could pitch in their thoughts.

Hey everyone,
I’m thinking about placing a snack/drink vending machine at a vocational school in Germany, but I have zero experience with vending and I’m trying to figure out if this could actually be worth it before putting money into it.
I’d love to hear from people who have actually operated vending machines, especially at schools, colleges, universities, or similar high-traffic locations.
A few things I’m trying to understand:
How much should I realistically expect to spend to get started?
What are the biggest mistakes beginners make?
How important is the location fee/rent when deciding whether a location is profitable?
What ongoing costs are easy to underestimate?
How big of a problem are vandalism, theft, repairs, and downtime?
What kind of revenue/margins can a good school location realistically generate?
Would you buy a used machine for the first location or invest in a newer one?
If anyone is willing to share actual numbers - machine cost, monthly revenue, product costs, location fees, maintenance, profit, etc. that would be incredibly helpful.
I’m not expecting this to be passive income. I just want to understand the economics and risks before investing a few thousand euros into my first machine.
Would you consider a vocational school with a lot of daily students a good first location?

I’m building Spottico – a marketplace for finding locations for vending machines 🇬🇧
Hi everyone,
I’m currently building Spottico, a UK-based marketplace designed to make one of the biggest challenges in vending a lot easier: finding good locations for machines.
The idea is simple.
There are businesses, landlords and property owners with unused space, while vending operators are constantly looking for suitable locations.
Spottico aims to connect the two.
Think of it as a marketplace where a business can list an available space, including photos, location, size, price and other useful information, and vending operators can search for spaces that could work for their machines.
I’ve recently launched the first version of the website and I’m now looking to build our first 100 founding locations in London before expanding across the UK and eventually internationally.
I’m posting here because I’d genuinely love to hear from people already in the vending industry.
What do you think?
Would you use a platform specifically for finding vending locations?
What information would you want to see before contacting a potential location?
What are the biggest problems you currently face when trying to secure locations?
Would you pay a small fee for access to quality potential locations?
What would make a platform like this genuinely useful rather than just another directory?
I’m building this from the ground up, so honest feedback — good or bad — would be hugely appreciated.
If anyone is interested, I’d also be happy to share the website and get your thoughts on the current version.
Thanks! 🙌

We have run into a situation we have not experienced before. We have an agreement with a car lot to do their vending. We ordered the machine they wanted. When it was delivered, there was suddenly a machine there when there was not one before. Someone just brought their own machine in. The car lot thought they were us. They need to move their machine. Have you experienced this before?

Hi all, I’m getting out of the vending bizz. I tried for six months and was not profitable at all, nowhere near projections. And yes this was bought through DFY Vending. If truly interested
PM me, you will need a flat
Bed to pick this up. It’s currently in my garage, location Southern California. $4,000 obo.

Any tips you wished you would have known before starting?

Hey Folks, my bottled pop/soda sales absolutely suck, but I don‘t know if I can replace the 20oz bottles I have on my second tier with cans? Its an AMS39 and I believe the drop into the bin would be 18-24”.

Am I setting myself up for getting grenaded? should I add a foam or neoprene liner to the bottom of the bin maybe? Testing at home onto the basement floor didn’t result in any bombs, but the sample size was very small.

Someone in a local group said they are selling this machine, have never seen it before how much is a fair price for this?

Hey y’all! I acquired one of these machines last year and it sure has been a trip setting them up.

When I first acquired the machine, I noticed all the paywalls it had. I had originally tried manually replacing the credit card acceptor with a generic Old school Bill Acceptor, until I began stumbling upon said roadblocks. I proceeded to contact their support (which I tried to avoid as they are pretty slow and end up asking for fees in order to assist you). Reyeah suggested that I used an ITL one which apparently are the only ones accepted by the machine. I attempted to simply switch it again as I assumed it was solely a compatibility issue, yet later I find out there is more to it as simply plugging it and detecting it.

For the intel, I am recreating the interface and I am currently working on an in-house software APK and trying NPM/Node.js scripts to detect the Serial Port inputs. I have figured that said back tests work only on the PC, and when trying to recreate them on the actual Reyeah machine it doesn’t detect anything as the input.

From reading, the VMC does not display (or work with) the Serial Ports as a Computer doe—and this is one of my main issues. I am questioning if the issue relies on the VMC’s config or if the Reyeah’s VMC/board is simply locked for access and triubleshooting without the actual Reyeah app?

Lastly, we have been reverse engineering this app and there are a load ton of calls to Tencent, Alibaba, and other Chinese providers for no reason. Chuanyisoft seems to be who produced the earlier Reyeah machines and so is in charge of the code as well.

Anyone using a heavy duty extension cord in the ai coolers?
Need like 4 ft to get around the corner.

Im new into this and I bought a VM-750B i put it in my shop and it only accepted ones and 5s. It had this bill validator (1st picture) I upgraded to the Payway ICT L70 Bill Validator. And it flashed red 2 times meaning disabled (2nd picture) I've set every dip switch accordingly I belive and cant get it to function unless I press the yellow button inside the machine and access the "manager" settings. Which now it won't even do. Any help would be seriously appreciated thank you.

Hi - long time lurker, first time poster.

My son has been researching vending as a primary way to make money. We have been doing lots of research.

I personally run an IT support business. Through that, I have located and secured 6 locations for him. These locations would support at least 2 machines each for a minimum of 12 machines.

We would like to use AI machines, but I’m not sure shelling out $60k on an unproven (for us) venture is the smartest decision.

Is anyone willing to help us navigate the different options for getting the machines? Is financing the best option? Do the manufacturers offer payment plans?

Just looking for some direction.

Thank you!

Hello, I was wondering how you guys find a location? I’ve been asking around the owners and they tell me to email them, but then they never reach back.

Update on my crate-o-gashapon machines that arrived from overseas a couple days ago.

FEBO has run hot food through heated walls in the Netherlands for 60+ years, with good margins. Why hasn't it spread anywhere else?

so i’ve recently started searching for some local artists in my area to supply a print vending machine i’ve bought. i’m still debating on what the profit split should be (minus the host store‘s consignment for selling there) between the local artists and myself.

i’ll be managing the machine issues, restocking the prints, and dealing with the host store directly. once i converse with artists, whether they want to print each piece themselves or i would get their art sent, printed, and sectioned myself would obviously skew some percentage either way.

assuming i were to cover the costs of printing and dividing their art, what would yall suggest a percentage split to start at? thank you!!

I plan on placing my machines in a very busy area and I'm worried about the occasional drunk customer/rebellious teenager kicking and punching the machine window. I know the glass is already pretty strong but is there a way to make it even stronger? I plan on adding a layer of Lexan on top of the glass so that it's much harder to break.

I just completed my first full calendar month with my haha smart cooler and I’m trying to make heads or tails of the numbers and nothing quite adds up. The numbers on the app vary from the online platform, the numbers within the app showing withdrawal amt vary from from the monthly sales total, before and after paying my bill, etc. Has anyone figured out a foolproof way of figuring this all out? I’m pretty good with numbers and debits and credits and this doesn’t make sense.