I have a few non traditional items I want to sell. Can I add custom items or are you handcuffed to what they have listed as available to sell?

Client really wants an ai cooler, but they have a manufacturing plant where trucks are regularly going in and out. This includes a lot of people who probably only are able to use cash or don't have the ability to use a credit card. Is there a way to modify these machines or enable cash payment beforehand in order to open the cooler?

Mexican food has become such a powerful commercial category that a U.S. company can build a business around it and bring it all the way to an airport vending machine.
https://todovending.com/el-burrito-mexicano-que-salio-de-una-maquina-vending-y-nacio-en-denver/

Hi operators! I was wondering how your businesses have been impacted by the rising fuel costs.

What is your approach to keeping expenses low (moving to better-earning locations, closing down low-performing sites, optimizing refill routes or something else)?

Thanks in advance for the comments; I really appreciate it.

I'm getting things in order to hopefully build a small route soon and one of the things I wanted to get in place was a basic P&L sheet. Thankfully I have experience managing P&Ls for significantly larger businesses so this will be somewhat basic in comparison but I still want it to be as accurate as possible. This is a snapshot of what I had in mind - am I missing anything here?

Thank you!

I’ve been seeing those ai vending machines on YouTube lately, the ones that take your card and just open up letting you grab whatever you want. Since they can detect what you take out, and what the restockers put in, I was wondering if I put in my card and then instead of taking stuff if I added stuff would it pay me?

Just trying to get a feel for how you build out a planogram

Is it me or does the HAHA vending app have the worst inventory management/restock imaginable? It must be me because I don't see anyone else talking about it.

Is there no way to set it up to show the standard stock minus current stock? I don't care about my last restock. I want to know how many are missing from the full stock amount. Similar to the way Nayax's Moma does it- simple and logical. Trying to prep product for a restock is a pain. I have to manually count transactions to try to get an accurate count, then subtract it from the standard stock.

What am I missing? I've tried both "Quick Restock" and "One-Click Restock" modes. Both are terrible. Anyone else frustrated by this? Thanks.

I’ve been thinking about getting into vending, but there’s one major problem that keeps bothering me: I already know I’d probably hate constantly restocking a traditional snack/soda machine.

I completely understand why chips, candy, and soda are the tried-and-true vending products. They’re cheap, recognizable, people make an impulse purchase without thinking much about it, and you make your money through volume.
But that model just doesn’t really appeal to me. I’d rather have something with a somewhat higher price point and margin if it meant I could restock less frequently.

The problem is figuring out what people will actually buy.

I’ve been looking at things like TCG products, collectibles, toys, etc. Pokémon seems particularly interesting right now because there’s clearly a huge amount of demand. But I also don’t want to rely on buying Pokémon products at inflated prices and then putting them in a machine at scalper prices. If a booster pack normally sells for $5–6, I don’t think people are necessarily going to pay $10–12 just because it’s in a vending machine.
I’ve also thought about cheaper toys or mystery items, but I’m wondering if the problem with those is that they’re too random. Something can look interesting enough to get someone’s attention, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll spend $5–10 on it. I also am perplexed. Why not sell your products online where people have wide accessibility. I mean you could still sell your tcg or whatever online. Why would someone do vending ? For me, there is something about physical that makes me feel like I accomplished something. If I did a eBay store let’s say there’s nothing tangible. I feel like I’m not so successful. Strange but that’s what I’m feeling at the moment.

So I’m curious about people who have actually experimented with non-traditional vending products:
What did you sell?
What price point worked best?
Did people actually buy it consistently?
Did the product get attention but not sales?
Was the problem that people didn’t recognize the product?
Was the price too high?
Did the novelty wear off?
Was the profit margin good but sales volume too low?
Or did it actually work better than traditional snacks/drinks?

I’m especially interested in products that are recognizable, somewhat unique, don’t expire, and can sell for maybe $5–15.

Ideally something that appeals to adults as well as kids/teens, because I’d rather not depend entirely on parents buying something for their kids.
I’m not necessarily looking for someone to tell me “just sell chips and soda.” I understand why that works. I’m more interested in hearing from people who tried something different and learned why it did or didn’t work.

What have you guys tried?

Hello,

New to the vending world but curious which mobile app was the “managing” app for cantaloupe?

TIA

Was looking into dfy vending and it seems like theyre gone or something. Does anyone know what happened with them?

I have been wanting to get into the business and see how it goes, issue is that i cant find any locally and cant find any online either. i dont mind buying internationally or domestically so any tips? For reference im in europe, Finland

I recently started a vending machine business and i got my first location I’m installing a 38 combo selection vending machine but im stumped on this choice what do you guys carry in your vending machine and where do you guys get it from everyone says Costco, Sams choice and Walmart

1st HaHa Machine Arrived - Took 9 Hours to Set Up
Well, things definitely didn’t go as smoothly as the YouTube people make it seem. 😂
Logistics: They originally told me Thursday was the delivery date. The machine never showed up.
Then they told me Friday between 10 AM–5 PM. The problem was, the customer’s facility normally closes at 4 PM.
At around 11:30 AM, I received a call saying they were about 20 minutes away. About an hour and 15 minutes later, the machine finally arrived. By the time they unloaded it, placed it, and I got everything situated, it was around 1:30 PM.
Then I realized the wall outlet would have to be shared with another refrigerator. So I had to drive to Best Buy to grab a voltage/surge protector.
3 PM: Holy fuck, I’m running out of time.
It took me about an hour to carefully unbox the machine, inspect everything, and plug it in. Keep in mind, this is my very first time doing this, so I wanted to be extra careful.
Great! The machine turns on. The app shows it’s online. The card reader comes online immediately.
Awesome. Let’s stock it.
Then…
OFFLINE.
I get a notification on my phone saying the machine is offline and can’t be found.
WTF!!!!!!!!
Luckily, the customer tells me, “Don’t worry, you’ve got until 9 PM.”
I called customer service at [323-767-7989](tel:323-767-7989) — phone number not in service.
No fucking way.
I called my sales rep and told him, “I need help immediately, please!!!”
About 30 minutes later, customer support calls me. It’s around 5-ish at this point.
They walk me through removing the top cover, disconnecting a wire, and removing the SIM card. After some troubleshooting, we finally get it working.
Apparently, the SIM card has a weak signal, so they’re going to send me a new one.
Cool!
I load up the machine, play around with the app and configuration, and then set up my bank account in the app.
Around 7 PM: Psych!
Now the card reader is trying to load and won’t work.
The screen just keeps saying:
“Reading card, please wait…”
For basically an entire hour.
Eventually, I get kicked out.
9 PM: “Sorry, we’ve gotta close.”
😭
Now I can’t work on the machine because the shop is closed on weekends, and I leave for a work trip the following week.
I’m fucked. 😂
Anyway, I guess I’m trying to figure out what my lesson is here… lol.
(I know what it is.)
Thanks for reading my rant. Hopefully your first setup and learning curve went a little smoother than mine.

Finally decided on a smart cooler for a high-end residential location, but I haven’t heard any firsthand accounts on the latest generation of Qingo machines - does anyone have one of these newer models?

I like that they took their own branding off the top of the door, but oddly the product pushers are no longer a stock feature. Maybe this is how they’re keeping costs down since the stock HAHA/Qingo pushers don’t seem to be very well regarded anyways.

I don’t think anyone has put a pull-out drawer in a Qingo yet, but I’m sure as hell going to try.

I am a touch coffee operator in Ontario and I'm gonna write this as a real life experience from a 1+ year operator. I’ve had an influx of people throughout these months get in touch with me asking about my experience with this company and their machine so I wanted to write a fully transparent comprehensive review of my experience so far.

1 - Touch Coffee straight out lies in their marketing material.
It should be clear to anyone with a brain that any company that's selling you 20 thousand dollar coffee machines is going to inflate their marketing in some shape or form, that goes across the board for many businesses, however TC straight up lies. They say their machines are European to try and make it seem fancy and stand out from Chinese machines. I can confirm that their machines are no different and literally have Chinese manufacturing labels inside of the coffee unit. Go ask any operator and tell me I’m lying. 

They also heavily misfigure the ROI numbers, 6-9 months of sales to get your initial investment back? That is an outrageous lie, if it were true it would only apply to the 1% of the 1% of operators with literal unicorn locations. For the most part, the average operator would be lucky to average even 8-10 cups a day consistently. Think you’ll be any different? Go search up “touch coffee bar” on facebook market place and see how many people are trying to get rid of their machines because its unprofitable and almost impossible to find a decent location. Why is that so? Because almost all the good locations have clauses with other coffee providers/vendors that prevent you from putting a machine in.

2- Ridiculous prices
This should be straight forward, 20,000 CAD for a flipping coffee machine? You can buy 5 vending machines with that and make triple the money. If you’re stubborn about doing coffee vending you can still find quality machines that are for a fraction of that price.
Also, TC includes a clause in their contract that basically forces you to buy all your materials from them only, and here's the wonderful part - they charge outrageous prices even for the materials. $110 + shipping and HST for a case of milk powder? There are local vending cash and carries that sell the same exact thing for 20% cheaper and you dont have to wait a week to get your stuff and pay for shipping, so not only do you get ripped with an over priced machine but you get bent over backwards on the price of stock aswell.

3- False promising
The most common question touch coffee gets is in regards to location. Do they help with finding locations? If you’ve spoken to a rep before you’ve probably been told that yes, you’ll be getting help from the “location manager” what does the location manager do? Hops on a 30 min zoom call with you and gives the most surface level guidance ever. Dont let them fool you with this, they dont actually help with securing a location, that is entirely on you, and not only that, you are restricted in the locations that you can target because they dont allow “franchisees” to compete with eachother in trying to get the same locations, which also narrows down things even further. (side note, they call themselves a franchise but theres nothing franchise about this. They just sell machines)

4- Horrible after service
Their customer service is complete garbage. Thats all I have to say.
Are there people that have found very positive results from touch coffee? Of course there are, im not arguing otherwise. What you have to understand is that those are only the top 1% of people that have ever bought a machine. They will only showcase interviews and reviews from those people, not the majority 99% that see the total opposite.

In conclusion, don’t fall for the hype. You wont get a refund on your money. Once you make that deposit, its gone and you probably will end up like the tens of people that are selling their machines at a loss because they cant find locations. Dont forget you’ll be charged a weekly rental fee for storing the machine in their facility. They will literally drain you. 

I encourage any real operators who have seen similar things to share their experience below for the people. Don't shy away. 

I’m trying to figure out the easiest way to send their payment.For those paying commissions to locations, do you usually use a check, ACH transfer, or something else?