Servicing Kit
Here’s a picture of my servicing kit:
I carry:
- business cards
- large packaging tape (for securing business cards and insect traps)
- large and small adjustable wrenches
- short and long phillips head screwdrivers
- small numbered zip lock baggies for coin collection
- notebook and pen for keeping track of collections
- Clorox wipes
- food service gloves (I always wear wear gloves when handling product)
- clamp for product bags
- large baggies for product
- non-profit brochures
- small Dixie cups for giving out samples
- keys
- small trash bags (not shown)
Obviously you need a way to organize your tools and transport your kit from the car to the location. Some people use plastic sliding drawers attached to a dolly, this is a nice set up that gives you a flat work service to put your heads, but I don’t like the idea of attaching and detaching the drawers for transportation, so I went with a rolling duffel.
Inside my duffel I have two soft sided coolers, one for tools, one for product with enough room in between for 2 containers of peanuts.
Here’s a picture:
A couple things to keep in mind:
In the summer you’ll need a cooler and a couple re-freezable ice packs
Once you load up your kit with product, it can start to get heavy, so be good to your back and only load what you need for each location
How Much Time Does Servicing A Vending Route Take?
When your route is well laid out, you should be able to effectively service 3 to 4 locations an hour. Like I previously stated, most of this is actually drive time. A basic servicing should take less than 5 minutes, this includes collecting the coins and wiping down the machine (don’t forget to clean the base!). Now if you need to do product changes or repairs, expect the servicing to take 10 minutes or more depending on what needs to be done.
How Often Does A Route Need To Be Serviced?
When you first get started in vending, it’s fun to go out and check your locations every 2 to 3 weeks, but eventually you need to utilize your time more effectively, especially if you’re hoping to eventually do vending full time.
When I first started, I was on a 3 week schedule, but now I’m on a 6 week schedule. It took me a little bit of time to get used to this sort of hands off business management, but trust me, your machines will be fine. Ideally, vending is meant to be a time efficient business.
Most locations are fine on a 6 to 8 week schedule. I know some vendors may service a lot less, but after two months, most machines are looking pretty ratty and the product is stale. I have all the typical vending products, Mike & Ikes, Skittles, peanuts, gumballs, Hot Tamales and Reeses Pieces and have found that all of them are perfectly fine for a 6 week schedule. After 6 weeks, the Mike & Ikes, Skittles and Hot Tamales get a little crispy and the peanuts start to get a little stale, they’re not ruined or unvendable, but you can tell the freshness is starting to fade. Gumballs and Reeses Pieces can go right past 6 weeks with minimal loss of freshness.
Note – The length of product freshness is also determined by sun and temperature fluctuations, especially heat, so try to keep your machines out of direct sunlight. Even windows with solar shades can pass enough heat and sunlight to damage your product and fade your machines.
I’ve seen some vendors with gumballs (and sometime sweet tarts) who seemingly service their machines maybe only 3 or 4 times a year and while this is definitely time efficient, I can’t recommend it. Some people think that the shelf life on gumballs is infinite, but after two month in a machine, they’re hard enough to break a tooth.
I do my best to serve only fresh candy and keep my machines looking good. After all, the business owners are doing me a favor by allowing me to put my machines in their business, so I feel they deserve clean machines with fresh product.
Those Minutes Add Up
With a small route you don’t have to worry too much about the time involved in servicing your route, but once you start running a route with 100 or so machines, every minute counts. It may not seem like a lot of time, but even just spending an extra 2 minutes at each locations adds up over time. Consider that 100 machines multiplied by 2 minutes per location adds up to 200 minutes or just over 3 hours of of wasted time and effort. This is why I always recommend trying to plan your routes and servicing schedules in advance.
When it comes to servicing, it’s drive time that will consume most of your time rather than actual time spent servicing, this is why it’s always a good idea to grow your route in the most condensed area possible. Personally I started my route around where I lived, but you could also do it around where you work if you intend to do your servicing after your regular problem. I try to saturate a zip code before I move my route further out, this way I’m not wasting valuable time driving across town to service one lone location.
When I bought my first route, it was a nightmare, the locations were all over the place. It’s just not practical or the best use of time to spend 45 minutes drive time to service only one location. While this may not seem like a big deal when your just starting out, when you get a little deeper involved, you really need to work smarter.
Triple Head Machines Vs. Double Head Vending Machines
Servicing is another area where double heads win out over triples. While triples have the back door that makes coin collection easy, they’re a big pain to do product changes on. With the triples, to do a product change you need to open the product chute and drain the product out the back, it’s not a huge deal, but again, it adds up over time and no matter how careful you are, every now and then when you’re draining a triple, product will spill everywhere, it’s a bit embarrassing and messy. On the other hand, with a double you just lift off the head and dump it in a bag. One process takes a few minutes, the other 4 seconds.
Some machines are easier to service as well, so keep that in mind as well. With most double you have to lift off the entire head, find a place to rest it while you lift off the base and dump the coins. Without a doubt the Northwestern doubles are the best design I’ve ever seen, you lift the head a couple inches twist it a few degrees and it rests on it’s own base, so you can just scoop out the money without doing any crazy head juggling. Here’s a picture:
Note – Here is a post I did on machine selection that you may find interesting, it includes a comparison of the Oak vs. Northwestern -