In this day and age, many people rely on convenience and efficiency, gone are the days when people go outside to buy a chocolate bar or a bag of chips. Often times, consumers rely on using a vending machine nearby to curb their hunger and cravings. This blog is a guide for entrepreneurs looking to buy a vending machine for sale.
Tip 1 on How to Buy a Vending Machine for Sale: Do Your Homework
Although you don’t need “training” to get into the vending machine industry, you still want to commit to spending time researching the industry. With your research, you are bound to have an idea of how much time you’ll have to put into your company, the amount of money you’ll likely need to invest, and how long you’ll have to work before seeing a return on your investment.
Tip 2 on How to Buy a Vending Machine for Sale: Choose the right Vending Business
When starting a vending machine business, you can either open a new company or buy an existing business.
If you want to start from scratch, you would have more flexibility in controlling how many vending machines you want to operate, and slowly increase that number as you get better at operating the profitable vending machine business and maintaining revenue.
If you choose to buy an existing company, you will save time on scouting locations and doing research. However, it’s more important to talk to the seller about their revenues and make sure you actually visit the vending machine location to ensure everything is running smoothly.
Tip 3 on Buying a Vending Machine for Sale: Choose the Right Locations
Choosing the best snack machine locations will make all the difference in the world. Look for locations that have the following qualities:
- Locations that have high traffic throughout the week such as airports, train stations, shopping malls, government buildings, event centers, and schools.
- Office buildings with a large number of employees.
- Locations that have few to none competitions like restaurants and/or cafeterias
Tip 4 on Buying a Vending Machine for Sale: Know the Startup Costs
As with buying any types of businesses, there are costs involved with buying a vending machine for sale and they are:
- Vending Machines – First and foremost, you have to purchase the vending machine. The amount to spend on a machine will vary based on where you purchase the machines and whether they are new or used
- Insurance and Taxes – Find out about tax licenses and liability insurance policies before starting
- Rent & Royalties – Rent and royalties will vary month to month
- Maintenance – Sometimes machines break and malfunction, so make sure you factor that into your budget before investing in a vending machine business
- Hiring – Not everyone needs to hire staff for their vending machine business, this is a cost-effective strategy as you can manage the machine yourself and don’t need to hire staff
Tip 5 on Buying a Vending Machine Business for Sale: Choose Your Products
Most vending machines have common snacks such as chips, candy, and soft drinks but you might still want to scout out other vending machines and look at what popular options there are for your own machine. Having more product selections and popular choices in your vending machine will definitely be more beneficial because people will be inclined to choosing your vending machine versus others.
Tip 6 on Buying a Vending Machine for Sale: Invest in Your Business
Once you’ve decided that the vending machine business is for you, you should look into getting a small business loan from a bank or other financing options like:
- Inventory Loans
- Equipment Financing
- SBA Loans
- Merchant Cash Advances
- Business Line of Credit
Types of Vending Machines To Buy
Here is a list of the types of vending machines that’s available on the market right now:
- Cold Food vending machine
- Coffee vending machine
- Snack vending machine
- Beverage vending machine
- Frozen food vending machine
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