r/vending

I am looking to start a side hustle and have been looking into the ATM business. Does anyone have experience in it and was it profitable? Any advice on how to get started? I'm thinking about it like this if you could get a refurbished machine for like $2k and you find a new location that does on the low end 100 transactions a month at $3.50 each that $350 a month then you give the owner a percentage and the cash vaulter a percentage you ate still looking at like $200 a month which would pay off the machine in less than a year

New to this industry, curious if holiday weekends boost or slow down machine revenue.

Not sure if cold beverage demand surge during this summer holiday.

Is there a general rule for how much % above cost to price items in a vending machine? Just bought my first HAHA Pro and I’m not sure the best way to price things so I’m making enough profit to offset the higher monthly fees & costs associated with the machine, while also making sure I’m not pricing things too high so people don’t buy anything. Appreciate any insight.

I’m preparing to start out and have no idea how to find a proper sport.

What flavor sells the best for you?

Hello, I just got my first location at a trucking company that runs 24/5. I got it through one of the locator services that will move the machine of ot doesn't meet it's quota. The quota is 500-1000 per week and as of now I'm only making $35 per day but the machine just got there Tuesday.

Has anybody used on of theses services before and are they normally pretty close with meeting quota? I feel like they would be since they don't want to go through the hassle of moving it if it doesn't meet it.

Is it normal for a new machine to have a slow start while you optimize inventory based on what they want?

I'm kinda hoping that they have people off for the holiday week and that's why it is so slow.

Don’t want to waste money early on, need real warnings from veterans.

Running multiple machines alone, looking for proven route hacks from veteran operators.

New to vending and trying to understand how the pre-auth works with the HAHA vending machines. If my machine’s pre-auth is set to $10 and a customer takes multiple items totaling more than $10 then what happens? Does the payment just charge the full amount or can the transaction fail? & if I want to sell one item that would be at a higher cost $35 but I don’t want the pre-authorization to be more than $10 since that would be the only higher priced item I’m offering. How does that work?

tbh I was getting so sick of location scouting. every gym owner wants like 30% commission and half the office breakrooms in my area are still an absolute ghost town. The grind is just exhausting lately

But I just landed a spot that kinda surprised me. Local health dept set up this massive mobile medical trailer in a huge church parking lot out in the county for a month long community clinic thing. I drove by and realized there is literally zero food or drinks within 3 miles of this place

The staff is stuck there for 10 hour shifts, plus all the people just waiting around. Talked to the site coordinator and wheeled a refurbished combo machine right under their main awning the next morning. Already had to restock it twice this week

definitely going to start looking for more temporary or mobile work sites instead of fighting over the same tired laundromats. anybody else do short term placements like this?