Evaluating your time on your routes is a crucial factor in vending. Making sure you are servicing your clients sufficiently and utilising your time wisely pays huge dividends, by simply increasing service visits one is able to improve sales by at least 20%. By the same token over-servicing costs money!!Service Cycles
Double column the best selling brands & ask your customers what brands they would like to see in the vending machine.
Merchandising
Is your machine being merchandised correctly ? Are you refreshing product lines frequently enough?
By simply changing the line up of products in a machine, you also create an element of freshness!
Cleaning
I cannot stress the importance of KEEPING YOUR MACHINE CLEAN ! Every service call should have a dedicated cleaning time. (5 to 10 minutes is all it takes) Preventative Maintenance will save you money in the long run. Clean compressors once every 3 Months - Coin Mechanisms and Bill Validators should be cleaned every once every month.
Are goods priced and tagged with easily identifiable price tags and flavour cards?
Products
If you find you have a slow moving product, try leaving the Price Tag correctly priced BUT change the price to a lower figure via the control board. In this way your customers tend to think that the machine is “over-paying” change and hence they will purchase that particular line. This is also a good exercise to test the honesty of people at a site?
Create demand on products by purposefully removing them from a machine for a week & upon the following visit “double or triple column” the very same product and watch it “fly “out the machine.
Remember to chase the Specials, Watch the newspapers for supermarket specials.
Smart Tips
To be profitable in today’s competitive vending market, know your customers better than they know themselves.
It’s a fact: Customers who receive voice mail when there’s a problem are less satisfied than those who reach a person. Solve this problem by ensuring that you carry your cell-phone with you at all times & ANSWER it ?
Beware empty spirals are the sworn enemy of operators.” If it’s merchandised properly, there will be the right amount of chips, chocolates and sweets, for what people are buying.
Fun Facts
Between one-quarter and one -third of all vending companies are one man or one woman businesses, according to Vending for Investors, by longtime industry guru G.Richard Schreiber.
84% of consumers surveyed say they would be more likely to increase vending purchases if more brand names were available.
Generation X ers are the largest consumers of handheld foods?
Remember Demand Cannot be transferred from one category to another. In other words a customer looking for a chocolate will not buy a salty snack instead, ensure your vending machine is well categorised, eg Salty snacks together, Chocolates together etc.
Toolbox
A good vending operator ALWAYS carries a well equipped toolbox on every service call, this toolbox should carry cleaning cloths and window cleaner amongst your basic tools which you will require for “on-site” minor repairs such as a Starpoint screwdriver with a long handle and a short handled star point screwdriver, pliers, calculator, prestik, business cards, extra price labels and flavour flakes.
There is no substitute for being courteous and civil to your customers, Remember that whilst you might only see them once a week - They SUPPORT your machine every day!!!!