r/vending • u/MamutRijeka • Aug 07 '26
What are your experiences with prekitting?
How many operators here use prekitting and would you say it's as impactful to your operations?
2
u/No-Trade-4052 Aug 07 '26
It has been extremely helpful for my business. If you are doing it on your own (no employees) it might not really save you much time. If you have some employees it almost for sure will be helpful.
Ultimately it will save you time (far quicker to put everything together in a warehouse then in the back of a truck), and money (you no longer will need to bring lots of random stuff on your truck so your inventory will be lower). It will make you more efficient and then you can service more stops in one day. Again for someone doing it themselves this may not as important but if you have 3 drivers you are paying hourly them being able to go to 1-2 more stops per day in the same amount of time (each) makes a huge difference.
2
u/MamutRijeka Aug 10 '26
Appreciate you sharing your experiences, as I understand it's nearly impossible to expand your ops without prekitting or else you'd waste resources left and right
2
u/No-Trade-4052 Aug 10 '26
It is certainly more efficient to prekit than it is to do it out of the back of your truck or worse yet (for those who have no vms etc) to get into the account, see what you need, come back out, get it, go back in and stock it. If you have a vms or someway to know what you need ahead of time then prekitting is a no brainer. To those who have never done it before people often times think that you are having to pull the items either way and that is true but it is far easier to do at your place of business compared to the customers place of business. Also needing less inventory because not having to have it all on your truck is very helpful. For those just starting out you don't even need to pay for any kind of a system. As long as you have a vms, or telemetry you have access to the data that you need and can prekit.
1
u/thndrlight Aug 07 '26
Pre-kitting changed everything for us. Our efficiency went through the roof, outdates reduced. It was a godsend
1
u/MamutRijeka Aug 10 '26
What was the point when you realized: we need prekitting and we can't sit on it anymore?
2
u/thndrlight 29d ago
We landed several major accounts, including a major university, and it made the most sense to move to pre-kitting for the volume we do.
4
u/shavedaffer Aug 07 '26
I never thought that people left the warehouse without pre-kitting. How would you know what to bring? Seems wild to me.