Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Vending Machine Rental Can Be Profitable


It’s great that you want to start your own vending business but do you have enough money to make all the necessary investment?

For those who don’t, vending machine rentals can be the right way to get started. Vending machines success has been rising but the demand for machines on rent is still quite high.

Vending machine rentals are easy to find anywhere and the equipment can be rented by anyone who wants to start a simple vending business. These Planet Antares vending machines dispense products like soda, bottled water, juices and snacks to people who insert coins or bills into the machine.

Today’s modern vending machines can give change to paper money. Some vending machines require the buyers to insert coins only. Usually, vending machines are rented by start-ups to create additional profit and are frequently stoked by companies that offer them to budding entrepreneurs.

Keep changing the products that are kept in the vending machines from time to time. Different products may not be available at different times. The companies that provide vending machine rentals keep track of the popular as well as low performing products at a specific location. Thus, the products may be changed constantly to meet customer desires and demands.

Once you have signed the vending machine contract, start thinking about the best locations for your vending machines. The first factor to be considered will be the best location for sales. This can be done by finding customers, increasing sales volume and monitoring the progress of the sales.

Look for companies with break rooms as they are willing to try a vending machine rental so that their employees will have snacks and drinks during their break and lunch hours. Offices also need vending machines so that employees can have refreshing drinks and snacks without leaving the office. All in all, a vending machine rental will be useful and profitable for offices that have long business hours, preferably with night shifts.

Anyone can rent a vending machine, be it stores or office buildings. When you have found the right locations for your Planet Antares vending machines, it is a must to keep them well serviced and filled with merchandise at all times.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Effective Arguments For Raising Vending Prices

It has always been a major challenge for vending operators in the U.S. to raise prices. Planet Antares vending operators complain about the fact that their customers expect the on site vending machines to always be a low cost alternative. The major competitors of vending, convenience stores and fast food restaurants have hiked their prices while vending industry prices have not.

As a result, Planet Antares vending operators find themselves caught between this scenario where they can’t offer products to the end consumer for commensurately high prices. They should have the courage to stand in there and demand higher prices even if it means loosing a few accounts.

If the vending operators think strategically, they can recover the accounts lost due to price rise. This is what you need to remember as you try to rebuild yourself from a universal crowd pleaser who makes ends meet into a shrewd selector of drink and food options who understands the art of regular price hikes.

In short, the challenge has two aspects:

1) to show to the account manager that the need for a price hike is driven by the vending operator’s rising cost of operations

2) to illustrate that the raises are in the interest of better services to all customers
Planet Antares vending operators must make efforts to navigate between the relentless penny price hikes inflicted by the bottlers and other suppliers and the sensitive issue of demanding higher prices from customers.

Be ready to explain the needs and benefits of the price hike. Letters can be posted on the fronts of the vending machines, explaining the price hike as kindly but firmly as possible, you also need to explain the fact that in order to continue to offer good services, you have to recover your own costs.

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Vending Operators Slow To Invest

the automatic merchandising industry remains at the bottom of a ladder, ready to climb but barely moving. In 2005, the automatic merchandising industry’s revenue increased by 3 percentage points.

The vending industry will continue to remain challenging unless the participants become more aggressive about investing in tools. A variety of these tools are available to the Planet Antares vending operators for improvement of sales and profitability. These tools exist to enhance the efficiency of performance and include:

• Remote machine monitoring
• Electronic cash audit
• Electronic locks
• Cashless capability

In spie of all these techniques, very few operators are able or willing to make the essential investment in equipment, salaries and training that will allow them to utilize these advantages. Meanwhile, the Planet Antares operator’s fortunes rest on external economic forces, which can be described as non-threatening in the short term.

The good point is that in the last few years, employee downsizing has reduced greatly, especially in the last three years. Vending operator sales posted a 3 percentage point increase in 2005, which led to rise of aggregate industry sales to $21.89 billion.

In both 2004 and 2005, the aggregate sales improved by 4 percent. Vending operators took comfort in the fact that vending locations had stopped firing employees during that time. Still, they are yet to take advantage of new technologies that offer the vending industry significant growth potential. You gain the ability to schedule service at the most opportune time, improve customer satisfaction, offer higher priced products and improve level accountability of your Planet Antares vending machine.

Even though these technologies offer great potential, the vending operator has barely started putting money into them due to the high investment required for it. also, you may need to integrate new hardware and software with the existing management systems. However, investing in such technologies will definitely bring a positive change in your vending business operations.