Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Planet Antares Honor Box Vending

With greater competition and tough profit earning capacity, the honor box market has become the exclusive domain of a few specialists. The increasing costs have forced many of the Planet Antares vending operators to ignore locations with less than 100 people. However, one segment of this market, the honor box customer, continues to hold on. With the rise in product and labor costs in past few years, even honor box snack operators have explored new business areas.

In the meantime, the honor box vending market remains the exclusive domain of a small group of operators who have learned how to survive the demands of a high annual account turnover, high employee turnover and practically, no means of product accountability.

Many times, vending operators are called on to take over the honor box accounts. As the owner of a Planet Antares vending business, you can take up an honor box account and serve the small population.

Of course, you will have to stay focused if you want to be successful in your Planet Antares honor box vending business. Part of this focus needs to be on account turnover, new sales, cash flow and labor.

In fact, cash accountability in this business hardly exists. If a box comes back to the office $5 short, there is no way to know if it was the customers or the route driver who has taken it. This is obviously a challenge for a vending operator who is handling an honor box account.

On the other hand, the labor shortage is also an issue of concern as it can hurt the honor snack business in the form of the quality of employees at customer locations. If there are employees who are stealing from the snack box, there is a chance that they may be taking things from the employer too. Thus, it is essential to look for trustworthy employees while searching for personnel in your vending business.

Placing branded products in your honor box machine is a good idea. If consumers don’t identify with any of the items, it means that they will not buy them. So, choose an attractive product selection to ensure high sales and profitability in your Planet Antares honor box vending machines.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Latest Technology In Planet Antares Vending Machines

Planet Antares vending machines have incorporated the latest technology. This allows the vending machines to operate more efficiently. Of course, this has made the vending business more efficient and more profitable as well. Apart from machine features, technology is also used in the operation of vending business. With the rise of competition from other operators, you will have to look for new ways of staying ahead of them.

As a vending business owner, you have a limited space to merchandise your products. Within that space, you will need to maximize sales. In spite of the profitability of vending business, vending operators face difficulty in achieving maximum profitability from time to time. Some of technological innovations can be adapted by you to improve the profitability of your vending business.

The vending operations of many vending business owners have undergone changes with the use of technology. The sales from vending operations have increased after implementation of technology. The operators are also able to keep track of the sales that were made from the vending machine.

Category management has helped vending operators to select the right products for vending machines and restock vending machines in time. All forms of technological advancements are available for improving your Planet Antares vending business. To determine the most appropriate form of technology for your business, you must consider the size of your vending business.

By using technology in your Planet Antares vending business, you will be able to sell more and spend less in your vending operations. The vending machines are already equipped with the latest technology, so all you need to do is implement other forms of technology in your vending operations. This can help you save up to two hours per day per route by employing technology. Moreover, you will have higher percentage of sales increases from the same machines through a better understanding of location preferences. Through cash audit functionality, shrinkage will be virtually eliminated. To implement technology, you just need to have enough funds to finance the innovation.

Technology will ensure smoother operation and efficiency in productivity. It is important to be aware of all the latest technologies coming in the vending marketplace if you want to survive and thrive in the vending industry.

Friday, May 16, 2008

Guide To Choosing A Planet Antares Vending Supplier

While beginning your own vending business, it is important that you know where exactly to buy the vending machine. Obviously, you would want a quality vending machine like those provided by Planet Antares Corporation, so that you can start your business on the right foot.

The person who caters to all your vending needs is known as a vending supplier. There are a large number of different vending machine suppliers and they provide all kinds of vending machines. If you start a small vending business, you must know what kind of products the people in the area would prefer. This is imperative because you will need to understand which product will give the maximum earnings to you.

Today, the hottest and most popular item in the market is cold food products. People like to get something instantly, so if you offer cold food in your Planet Antares vending machines, these will definitely be a hit.

In turn, this means higher sales and more business for your vending machines. There are products that are in demand by a large section of the customers. You must search for such products so that these can be stocked in your vending machines.

Remember that when you go to a supplier, ask for a manual on how to start a vending business. From this, you will get to know the different methods of earning money from the vending machine. The manual can teach you a lot about the vending business.

Even for maintenance, there are many different vending machine parts and supplies available that are sold by the supplier of products. You need to get in touch with these people.

Beware of fraudsters to avoid any costly mistakes in the long run. Make sue that the vending supplier has a good reputation. In order to verify this, you need to check the profile of the supplier before buying vending machines and products from them. Additional information can also be obtained by asking previous owners of a vending business. They will provide information about their experience with the supplier of vending products.

It is a good idea to have a vending machine tested before buying it. This will ensure that it is in proper working condition. Planet Antares vending machines will not give any trouble to you. It will prove to be a worthwhile investment.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Maintaining Profitability In Planet Antares Vending Business

There has been a massive rise in the level of competition among vending operators. It has become quite a challenge to remain profitable in a vending business and survive the ups and downs of the dynamic market. Achieving profitability will not be difficult if you use a vending program, like the one offered by Planet Antares. This can show you the ways in which you can remain profitable by using some of the strategies listed below.

1) Increasing product prices
This is supposed to be one of the easiest ways to increase profits. However, it may not work every time. Before you raise prices in your vending business, you should consider other options such as removing unprofitable vending machines, charging vending machine rental fees, reducing the level of service or enhancing service intervals to vending machines. In order to increase prices of the snacks and beverages in your Planet Antares vending business, you can just go ahead and raise the prices. Still, it might be met with some resistance on the part of customers. They will only understand the price hike if you can justify the reason why you are hiking the vend prices. A good idea will be to offer incentives to customers such as price reduction on less popular products to make it easier for customers to accept the price changes. Another technique that can be used is trade-up snack marketing, where large-size vending products are sold in order to increase consumer value.

2) Reduce commissions
This is a great way to increase profits and doesn’t have any impact on the customers of your vending machines. This is a strategy that can be used instead of increasing prices in your Planet Antares vending machine business. However, you can offer profit saving concession to the location owners. You just need to decide on the kind of concession to offer.

3) Strong relations with location owners
Cooperation with location owners is essential for the smooth running of your vending business. Sharing accurate financial information with them will make the location owner more willing to cooperate with your changing needs as a vending operator. Accurate accounting is crucial in determining the profitability of an account and making adjustments to products and prices in vending machines.

4) Using technology
You will experience improved efficiency and profitability by incorporating new technology in your Planet Antares vending business. Vending machine software is capable of analyzing vending machine sales by location, machine and line item. This will help you to determine the best products to be sold. Alternative payment options may also be used to increase returns from vending machines.

Friday, May 09, 2008

Purchase Of New Vending Machines

The U.S. automatic merchandising industry is sending a clear message to its customers that there should be an end to recession. It comes in the form of equipment purchasing plans. A survey that was conducted recently indicated aggressive buying intentions despite the state of the economy.

A large percentage of vending operators are planning to buy candy/snack equipment as well as other product category machines. Of course, it is advisable to go for a quality vending machine like those provided by Planet Antares Inc when you start looking for a vending machine to buy.

The survey results are quite encouraging on the whole. It indicates that most vending operators recognize that they cannot build their companies without investing in new equipment such as those offered by Planet Antares Corporation. A significant number of operators recognize that the employee downsizing that has been a regular feature of customer locations in the past years will not continue indefinitely. These vending operators know from experience that high quality machines are needed to meet customer needs over the long term.

Planet Antares vending operators as well as other operators were inclined to hold off on new equipment purchases in the past few years. Less activity in accounts reduced usage of machines, increasing the life expectancy of machines. Many of these operators postponed the purchasing of new equipment. On their part, equipment distributors reported exceptionally slow sales of new equipment.

What makes Planet Antares vending machines so popular is their quality. This has made them quite popular with many vending operators. When you are ready to purchase new vending machines, you would prefer to purchase one that is affordable and can offer customers with the right kind of service because of its proper functioning. This is a critical factor when you are just starting out as a vending operator.

When you want a snack and beverage vending machine, then these are the best machines that you can buy, because they are durable and easy to maintain.

At present, the economy may not seem to be very encouraging but this is not something that has stopped a large number of vending operators from purchasing new equipment.

Monday, May 05, 2008

Improvement In Vending Service With Help Of Telemetry

Today, new technology is making a great impact on the vending business and turning it into a professional industry. It requires huge investment and as the market gets more competitive, only the large operators may be able to take the lead in introducing different types of technology in their vending business.

On the other hand, smaller operators having lower overheads might emerge as the ones that recognize the benefits of technology and decide to take the lead in using it. All this will only become evident in the coming future.

By using remote machine monitoring and other service enhancing technologies in your Planet Antares vending business, you will surely improve your business profitability and customer satisfaction. It may also be possible to see extraordinary growth in your business every year. The signs of a progressive Planet Antares vending operator include introduction of new customer conveniences and operating system efficiencies. After all, customer service is the foundation of a successful business and vending is no different.

Basically, technology is a tool that gives you the power to service your Planet Antares vending locations more efficiently and offer products that are demanded by the customers. Planet Antares vending machines that are equipped with telemetry can transmit sales and inventory data to a route truck in the parking lot.

With the help of such tecniques, you can know which snacks and beverages to keep in the vending machines and which not to keep. Transfer of data can be made to a remote headquarters for use in scheduling a route stop, recognizing component malfunction or verifying collection information.

Many believe that Telemetry is one of the most significant developments in vending technology since the invention of the bill changer. It has become even more useful with the advent of reliable, affordable wireless technology as well as provided a medium through which cashless payments can be authenticated.

The need for dynamic scheduling is eliminated through remote monitoring system. It determines a route’s delivery needs based in historic sales. In the end, telemetry results in the improvement of vending service by detecting product strategies, mechanical errors and insufficient change. The impact of technology on the vending industry is positive to a great extent.