Vending Machines
The Japanese have multiple vending machines on most street corners, as well as in most office stair wells, schools, hospitals, post offices etc. You would think that by now they would have hit saturation but if you do then you probably have not seen the amount of choice available in vending machines in Japan.
The great thing about this as a business is that it is much cheaper to get one machine up and running than it would be to say open a newsagent shop. It also requires minimal labour cost as you can fill up with new stock and collect the money in your free time (before or after work each day) unless you build a network that is too big to manage.
The key to this business is both location, and product. For example there would be little point having a childrens' toy vending machine in a bar, and equally you would not put a vending machine that serves alcohol in a school. What you need is the right product in a high traffic location.
If you think like the Japanese then every stairwell, and every street corner are game for you to exploit. Start looking in your local neighbourhood for areas which have a lot of people walking around, and which are well lit at night (to avoid vandals) or better yet which get locked up at night.
Great locations would include Hospitals, Schools/Universities, shopping malls, outside supermarkets and fast food restaurants, In the stairwells of office buildings (providing there is enough space not to be a fire risk), outside 24 hour taxi ranks, stations, bus stations, arcade game centres, internet cafes etc. etc. etc. Your job is to persuade whoever owns these locations that you should be able to site your machine there, and that they should allow you to plug it into their power supply. In return for which you will provide the machine, stock it, empty the money, keep records and pay them a %age of the profits not the takings if you can get away with it.
Many of the landlords and business owners that you talk to will not have thought of this, or have thought of it but don't want to pay for the machines, or could happily do both but don't want to employ someone to fill up, take money etc. You may well be just the little cash cow they have been waiting for. After all 15-25% of a profit is better than no profit and the only cost is a minimal usage of the power supply.
This is not a business where there are huge choices in terms of your methods of distribution, or how you contact your chosen clients. You need to do the legwork and speak to people. Fortunately it is relatively easy to find out who manages buildings, if not owns them, and finding the manager in a commercial concern is also relatively easy. More difficult projects might include hospitals, council offices etc. where a tender process will have to be initiated, but if you are the only player willing or able to operate in that location, or if you can get close enough to the decision process then you may come out of this with one or two good locations.
There are two elements here, the stock that goes in the machine and the machine itself. Many of you may be thinking already that this will be too expensive to get involved in because of the machine, so lets start there.
Brand new machines can be purchased for as little as US$350 for a bar top type model. Think about that, persuade your local bar to let you take care of specific snacks, chips etc and split the profit with them. No more wasting staff time for a bag of Fritos or some pork scratchings, and if there are any problems with the machine they can call you immediately to sort it out. Oh and if that is too much money down for you then think about something like gumball machines which can go for as little as US$60 each.
Searching in Google or on www.alibaba.com will find you dozens of companies who specialise in manufacturing and supplying machines. If you want more information on running this kind of business then check out www.vending101.com
In terms of your stock, you can initially just pick it up at the local cash and carry. The mark up on Vending machines is healthy and will leave plenty of profit for you and your site owner. As you get more machines you may want to start purchasing directly from wholesalers or even direct from food distributors (candy makers, coca cola etc).
The downside of this business is that it can get labour intensive as it grows, there are strategies for managing this, which you can read up on but if you are prepared to put the hours in where others will not you may stand to make more in the long run. Everyone wants the quick clean buck, if you are prepared to chase the slower dirtier version there will undoubtedly be less competition.
Make sure that if you are buying from overseas you remember to check the electrical fitting style is compatible and that it operates on the same current as your country.
The absolute best locations are probably already taken, but you can still get good grade B or even C locations, and this may mean less regular collections which equals less man hours collecting.
Once you get to a certain mass of sites up and running and can show regular cash flow you should be able to leverage the business by borrowing to buy more machines.
If you have to pay a %age of takings make sure that it will be worth your while in terms of gas money, your time, mark up etc. There is little point taking $100 a day but spending $99 to get it, especially when you spent money buying the machine in the first place.
This is not a "fun" business but if you are happy to put in the hours you can get started cheaply, and can make good money on top of a regular job until you build it up big enough, by which time someone may offer to buy the whole concern off of you.
If you get a bad location remember that you still own the machine, just shop around for another site until you find something that works. Landlords will not want a machine that generates no cash sitting around doing nothing for them, so you should have no trouble closing down your existing agreements.