Vending machines are everywhere these days and you can get almost anything from these vendors, from machines that vend potato chips and other snack vending machines to refrigerated cases that can hold everything from ice cream to frozen yogurt and cold sandwiches. There are candy vending machines at nearly every office building or public place that we go as well as coin operated cold drink machines that we can spend seventy five cents or a dollar at our leisure to enjoy a chilled coca cola on a warm day.

The business of vending has been around for quite a while. In fact the history of vending machines goes back to 1880, when customers could buy postcards in London in return for a coin, and these eventually evolved into machines that sold books, invented by a bookstore owner of course. Automatic retailing was introduced to the America in 1888, selling sticks of bubble gun in the Subway. About fifteen years later the grandfather of what is our modern bubble gum machine was born. Soon, everyone had automatic retailing machines.

Today these type of retail outlets are a great business to be in, because they can hold nearly everything and require almost no overhead. Bars implement cigarette vending machines and condom vending machines and you can buy soda, candy or chips in almost any building you go into. Some buildings even feature a virtual kitchen in their employee cafeterias with a wide assortment of vendors that feature many different types of food and drink. Vending has become one of the most successful automatic businesses in the world.

If you are looking at buying machines or getting a vending machine route than you should first know where you are going to place your vendors. This is possibly the hardest part of a vending machine route, because most places already have their own, or are allowing another vending entrepreneur to set up there. However, in most locales there are a few spots left and if you can find a busy location where you can set your machine up, you may just be able to rake in the cash each week. You may have to pay a commission or a leasing type fee for the company allowing you to make money there however, so keep that in mind.

As far as purchasing machines, you can often get them used for a small investment. Of course, this depends upon the type of vending machines that you are planning to purchase. Large machines that hold snacks or soda run about $5000 for new ones, and $1500-$2500 for used ones. You could also go with bulk vending machines, such as bank of candy, toy or gumball vendors. This will depend entirely upon your budget, what type of machines you prefer and what kind of space you can procure. However, with the right spot and the right machines, you can easily make a decent income with the vending machine.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 11:42 pm and is filed under Vending Machine, Vending Machines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.