Choosing the Best Location For Your Smart Vending Machine

Like any other business, a vending machine business is designed to make a profit. However, before you can plan your route or choose which products to sell, you need to find the best location for your vending machine. Location is the most important aspect of ensuring your business is sustainable and profitable. Even with the right research, big profits aren't guaranteed anywhere, but you can definitely increase the odds in your favor by following the important guidelines listed below:

High-traffic areas such as shopping malls, entertainment, or residential areas

Large offices or multi-business office parks, manufacturing plants, schools and universities with at least hundreds of people

Locations with few or no other dining options, such as parks, prisons, motels, gas stations, and service businesses

Places that require a lot of waiting, such as auto repair shops, airports, bus and train stations, hospitals, medical centers and salons. From this point of view, even a public library is a good location.

When deciding whether to place a particular vending machine in a certain location, consider not only the surrounding area, but also who the target customer is. Different products are better for different groups of people - kid-friendly snacks, gum or candy with pictures of football players or cartoon characters will work best near schools, while healthy snacks, protein bars and dried fruit will be the first choice for smart vending machines in the gym

Use vending machine location services to do the research for you

All they have to do is find a location owner or manager who is willing to install a vending machine in it and charge you for it. They have absolutely no responsibility or warranty for how your product will be sold in this region. As a vending machine owner, you have no data to go on, and you can't collect information on sales, profits, and expenses until the machine sits there for a few months.

If you wish to avoid all these problems with a locator service, you must pay special attention to finding a reputable locator service. They are useful if you don't have the time or ability to determine the best location for a vending machine on your own.

One of the best ways to find a good vending machine locator service is to ask others in the industry which vending machine locator services they have used successfully in the past. Honest reviews and testimonials can help you decide. They should be willing to sign contracts in writing and clearly outline everything they are responsible for and every task they will accomplish. If you don't understand any part of the contract, they should be willing to discuss it with you or allow you to speak to a lawyer. Some of the information that should be covered includes all fees and commission payments (if any), payment terms and legal relationships, and basic information such as your general area of interest, the number of vending machines you want to place, and even their products and preferred customers .

Find vending machine locations on your own

If you don't have the funds to rent a location service or want to get more hands-on with your vending machine business, you can certainly go out and find a good location yourself. In the end, the success or failure of your business is ultimately your responsibility, and since a large part of this is where your machines are located, you may want to tackle that part without any outside help.

When looking for a lucrative location for your vending machine, you can reach out to new business as well as existing business in the area.

1、Exposure to new business in the region

When it comes to businesses entering an area, the first vending machine business to make sound recommendations may outperform others. If you wish to be yourself, it makes sense to follow the business ebbs and flows of companies in your area. Business journals and online bulletins can help you stay informed so you can offer to meet their vending needs before other suppliers contact them. In smaller towns and rural areas, local newspapers may have more information.

2、Seek opportunities from existing companies

Unless it's a brand new building, there's a  good chance the venue already has vending machines run by competitors, but you shouldn't miss the opportunity to place a machine anyway. Talk to the venue manager or business owner and try to place your machine.

Once you have your vending machines where you need them, you can start delivering great customer service while optimizing your operations - scheduling and streamlining your daily vending routes, tracking inventory purchases, critical inventory levels and expirations day, calculate average product cost and tax, determine quantity and profit of best-selling products, calculate profit and loss, etc.