I just wish that there will be no more break-ins on my vending machines.
Statistically if you have hundreds of vending machines these kinds of scenarios will happen.
Break Ins
Mahcine Damage cause by people who do not know how to use a vending machine properly
Coin Mechanism Malfunction
Occasional Leaking Soda Pop Machines
Dreaded compressor breakdown
Worst case scenario kicked out on a location
Lost Sales Due to New Coins and New Bills
I have tackled the problems indicated above on my other helpful articles and here is the short summary on how to find a solution to all these problems.
BREAK INS
I recently had another break in on a location that is in the vicinity of E Hastings which is very notorious on petty crimes with a lot of police sirens 24 hours a day. I do not live in that area but I solely do it for my business and of course everyone has to survive and this is the only thing I’m doing on my daily life – Vending.
At times, it is an eyesore but we as vendors needs great concentration and focus and need to do things methodologically and must be extremely efficient when you are in these kinds of area which you knew inherently that you have to be on the lookout and make sure that everything is secure.
If you have break-ins it is suggested to look into the location if it is performing up to your standards. If you are happy with $50 a week then by all means have it repaired for unbreakable poly carbonate glass and steel grills.
Here in Vancouver, BC the costs of all of these is around :
Labor $125
Polycarbonate $150
Puck Lock $150
Steel Grill $150
(Recommended Vending Service Contractors here in Vancouver, BC.)
This incident that took place is the second time around with the same person that is living inside the apartment. The police have taken him into custody but was released after 1 day. I talked to the management and they will undergo a process which takes a few months and will finally evict the person who is responsible for the crime.
I do not have anymore remorse or any regret into filing charges on people trying to break in my vending machines since I believe that it will happen again and again on people who are under the influence of drugs. Opioid crises in Vancouver, BC is so serious that certain things have to be implemented.
People Who Doesn’t Know How to Use Vending Machines are the ones who are destroying it.
I have a very nice see thru bottle drop on one of my premier locations. The place is constantly giving me problems on a perfectly good machine and ended up being damaged.
This is not caused by vandalism but people who doesn’t know how to use a vending machine sometimes damaged it accidentally and not following instructions on the screen.
This is another unforeseen expenditures like the recent damaged done on the delivery bin which I need to spend another $200 for a simple fix on installing a large washer on the side.
I did not order a new plastic delivery bin anymore for the bottle drop machine since this place doesn’t know how to use a vending machine properly. I will just hope that they will respect the usage of the machine and hoping that it will not happen again after this incident.
This happens when people forcibly pull the delivery bin when it is not yet ready for the drink to come out.
COIN MECHANISM MALFUNCTION
This happens too maybe once or twice in a month when the people in the location insert one too many coins that the same times jamming the coin mechanism. They will surely blame that the machine is trash but in reality it is again that some people who do not know how to use it properly.
Common knowledge tells us that we have to insert the coins one at a time and wait for the coin to register on the vending machine and insert the second coin or whatever to complete the transaction.
This instances are not frequent but as a vendor when you open the door of the vending machine, the first and foremost important thing is to check the coin mechanism if it is not jammed and if there are enough change or else customer will call you if there is not enough change inside.
At this moment in time. It is not urgent for vendors to upgrade the coin mechanism because there are not many shiny loonies out there yet.
The coin counters in various establishments and coin parking meters are still rejecting the new loonies and I guess the owners of such machines are reluctant to upgrade the coin mechanisms at this moment in time.
For me personally I will slowly upgrade the coin mechanism to accept the new loonies only if I have spare time since the ratio of the new loonies that I collect for $500 dollar coins comes with only 5 to 8 pieces shiny loonies and the percentage is 8 pieces divide by $500 = 0.016 or 1.6 percent which is very negligible for me.
BILL VALIDATOR UPGRADE
I have noticed that there are more and more new $10 dollar Canadian bills that are in circulation. This is not overly alarming to me yet. But the ratio I received from the banks on $10 bills is 30% new and 70% old $10 bills.
The cost of upgrading on the bill validator will be around $30 which is available at BrokerHouse Burnaby.
This another way in order to solve this problem on bills that are always being updated. Since the onset of the population is geared to towards debit credit card usage, it would be wise just to remove the bill validator and upgrade into the recommended Nayax Debit Credt Reader which only costs $400 and this device is immune to new bills that comes out.
I have a very insightful review on which cashless device that can be upgraded to your existing MDB complaint vending machine which hold true also only exclusively for snack machines but can be used for POP machines as well.
With a debit credit card on your machine, it will increase sales. On my own personal experience my sales have increased by 20 to 30%. Do not be mislead that the sales will increase by 50 to 60% on what other people say.
I’m a real vendor with a multitude of machines that I can truly verify, and my figures are accurate.
I’m fine with 20 to 30% sales increase and I will be immune to new bills and constantly upgrading of bill acceptors which can be very time-consuming.
LEAKING SODA POP MACHINES
For the moment I do not have this problem anymore, but during the early acquisition of accounts that was sold to me I had some pop machines that are not maintained properly and had to pay an expensive price to change the compressor.
But I have numerous pop machines that I can have a temporary solution and here is the simple solution on how to fix a leaking soda pop machine.
KICKED OUT ON A LOCATION
There are so many numerous reasons why you are kicked out of a vending location. Here again are the primary reasons according to my real life vendor experience.
Location boss does not see you sexy ( lol )
Some other vendor offering a huge commission
Competition offering a new spanking machine
Offended someone on the location
Here is a link on my early vending days on how I got kicked out on a location.
I was happy I had some cash last week but most of it are gone after visiting Costco.
I had some calls again in Coquitlam and they are very heavy into the snack machines. For some reason when I visited the location the coin mechanism is not properly functioning and I would like to point out that the Guardian Coin Mech made by coin co’s coin sorter door sometimes pops open by itself inside the vending machine.
Another simple solution is to apply a small adhesive tape on the door so that this will not happen again. This is happened when the customer constantly press the COIN RETURN button and somehow the Gurdian Coin Mech door gets dislodged and opens.
If this happens then when customer inserts the coin into the vending machine then the coins will just goes thru the reject coin return and you will be loosing sales.
Why are people not careful and complain that windows are being smashed? Here are some pictures that I took when I was out doing my vending machine route.
Easy prey and wanted to attract robbers?
This is what you get for leaving things unattended.
Going back to the location that my vending machine was broken into, I had a quick swap to a POP machine instead.
Do you still think owning a vending machine business will set you to be filthy rich?
Statistically there will always be :
Moving charges
Maintenance repair
Machine Upgrades
Unendeding Updating on devices
Work Van maintenance
Till next time!
