Anyone tried vending machines?

I have seen on local bus station, that someone wants to sell newsagent building. Maybe I would put vending machines with coffe? 24h/7?
It's popular bus station, people travel to work 24h/7 (copper mine and copper smelter). One of 10 the most popular bus stations in my city.

Winter is coming, hot coffe would be awesome.

Yes nice idea! and i think you will sell a lot , how much they are charging to rent you the place? Good luck Mate!

Babalot said:

Yes nice idea! and i think you will sell a lot , how much they are charging to rent you the place? Good luck Mate!

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he want to sell, 25k$ for building, small box to put inside some 6-7 vending machines, there is small fee for city, no monthly cost, just yearly for building placed in the road area

Well is a very good business and i think it is in a very nice point. and also you can add something else in the vending machin, something like pancakes or something to drink a good coffee

Babalot said:

Well is a very good business and i think it is in a very nice point. and also you can add something else in the vending machin, something like pancakes or something to drink a good coffee

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Probably I need to hire some kid, to count people on bus station

I've thought about doing something related to vending machines a few times.

Definitely would be cool to get into.

If I were to get into vending machines I'd buy two machines (One for snacks, the other for drinks) and put the machines next to each other.

I had some vending machines at one time. They are notorious for breaking, and the parts are outrageous. One good thing about it is that it is a cash, no receipt business. So it's up to you if you would like to pay taxes. That might change with credit cards at vending machines now-in-days.

Sounds like a good deal as you are only going to pay once.

So, how much profit per cup you think you'll make? 40 cents? 62,500 cups of coffee later the building will be paid off, if nothing breaks, not counting machine purchase costs, and not counting the city fees. So, what amount of bus riders you selling coffee/tea/ hot cocoa to? 30%? 280,000 people would have to hit up that bus station, to get enough buyers. Feeling as comfortable with this idea?

You won't have google analytics to help you count, so figure out your numbers somehow, if it makes sense, go for it

It mays interest you: https://fossbytes.com/how-17-year-old-warren-buffett-created-a-pinball-empire-from-25/

It's All Your Under Budget, Good Idea And Best Of Luck

I thought about it a few years ago. The amount of time and initial investment compared to profits were just not cup of tea.

you could always get a permit and set up a small cart for a week and test it. See how the cart does. That would give you an idea of how it would do.

i think it would work if the machine is not overprice.
here in the PH. it was very popular. the the hype came down.
now i only see it in good locations.

make sure coffee is simple. no BS. just plain great coffee.
we still have the machine. but it's dirty now, we kinda forget about it, because we always forget to refill it with powder.
but i remember it was good business,

BTC coffee vending machine. Dooooo ittttt.

The electronic machines of today are a different dog back when I had machines as you probably have to pay someone to fix them if they go south so my thoughts may only help on a very small level.

Back when I had one of my bottled water companies I was buying other small companies and blending their customers into my routes and one of the companies I bought had some 45 or so machines. 8 or 10 were not on location but the others were and the products sold from them were cookies, crackers and candy and they were 100% mechanical.

Mechanical ones don't break often and when they did I could just frankenstein the machine using parts from the ones that were sitting in the warehouse and they were simple to fix.

The profit margins were very good as I could spend 1.00 and get 3.00 in return and it was easy for me to service them as you could get 90% of them serviced in one day and had the added benefit of the driver having water on the truck for someone that may have run out before their normal delivery day.

We paid the location 10% of the total revenue and I'm sure that the driver ate junk food during the day that the company paid for but it was still a good deal.

I have not seen a coffee vending machine since I was knee high to a grasshopper but I am sure they are still out there. I don't know what kind of quality coffee drink they produce but it is probably instant coffee or bag in a box coffee (I'm guessing a syrup) that is mixed with water which is heated.

You would not be paying a location fee which is good and I would expect the margins to be decent and the price of coffee is much more stable these days than it was for a while so you would have a fairly consistent profit percentage.

I'd check a couple of things in the preliminary phase; Repair issues as they could be a huge pain like @jordanbc mentioned, profit margins (including cups, sugar, milk, etc), sanitary concerns with whoever issues permits and such for that, lifetime expectations of the machine VS the cost of the machine, as well as if it would make sense to just use a local company to be your vending machine supplier and you get your cut.

You might be better off having a local vending machine company handle that for you and see if there are other vendors you can rent to in order to make your 25K investment make sense and you stick to what you know and let that be a semi-passive income for you.

I cannot contribute much to the thread other than to say I am shocked you referenced the bus station is 1 of the top 10 busiest in your town. We have 1 bus station in our sprawling metropolis of a town.

Best of luck whichever way you choose to go with this venture.

Hot Coffee is one of the best things in life. I think that vending machines are of the best things ever made. A lot of money is made with the vending machines business. What do you think guys? How do you rate the vending machines? Have you in your office?

You could also add a cash machine