I'm in college and I have a bit of money saved up and most of my expenses paid for until summer/fall
If I bought a basic vending machine for like $300, (used) how much could I expect to make?
I live in a biggish city so I'd have some options in who I approach, but it'd likely be a local business, laundromats, barbers, etc.
And probably snacks or other items rather than drinks
is it stupid to just buy one?
Not OP but bumping this, also interested.
Bump
>how much could I expect to make?
Its entirely dependent on how cheap you get you products for, and where you actually put this vending machine. Even if you got all of your shit for free, you won't make shit if no one is around to use it. Vending machines/ATMs need to be in REALLY high foot traffic areas.
most important thing is location
how much does it cost the electricity to keep it running?
don't do this. if you want, do candy machines that require no electricity. they are much easier to place in buisnesses.
Bump
Bump
>$300
I'm sure those things are at least $1000
It's marked for $350 (down from around 600 ) on letgo, I could probably get it for 250-300
It's not too big either. So it wouldn't take up too much space but it's also not too pretty, I'm willing to fix it up a bit but everything works fine
put it in a high school cafeteria. say that you represent a charity, and the proceeds are going to that charity, minus overhead. 'overhead' includes your wage. there should be at least 1ยข left over for the charity, and then your good.
One last bump
bump
this does not seem too profitable. You need to take into consideration the cost of candy, cost of finding it a spot, cost of hauling this damn machine around (youll need a truck), frequency of people buying stuff to make a profit, break ins. Is it really worth the trouble?
Most people saying it's not worth the effort
I guess it's only worth it if you have multiple machines and great locations eh
A lot of people say they aren't worth it but they are all over the place so they obviously bring in profits, you just need to make sure you can get the goods cheap
The vending machine industry is very cutthroat and saturated. There are already machines in all locations with enough traffic to make it worth it. Unless you have the connections it's not worth it, I would go about making those before buying a machine
all these people telling you not to do it lmao it is $300 plus what, another $100 for initial stock? just do it.
Would Sam's club be fine?
There are a lot of local businesses here though
I know a few laundromats that are constantly occupied by at least 5 people which lack a snack machine , one that's open 24/7
try to find one where poor people frequent. you want dumb enough to buy from vending machine but not so poor that they only have ebt or try to steal from your machine
Ah, the wonders of the vending machine "industry".
Enjoy the constant theft from customers and employees (luckily you have to be pretty big time to worry about the latter) just to giant, heavy bag of quarters and dimes that many big branch banks will no longer convert to usable money. Also the IRS will be up your ass every year because, depending where you live, the mob loves using vending machine businesses to launder money. That also means you could be stepping on the mob's toes depending where you put these things which will lead to the inevitable destruction of your machine.
Its just too much hassle for a measly profit. If you have a few a trustworthy CDL employee and a 26,000 lb GVWR truck with existing warehouse space I suppose you could run a decent operation, but that borders on being a waste of resources.