As usual i’m getting ready for work this morning and suddenly i got an email on my vending location. The email states that it is restricted to donate to a religious organization since the place is a public school.
I was very shock and this is a first time in my life that schools here in Canada doesn’t allow the vendor to donate to a religious organization.
The organization that i choose was actually the only charity that helps impoverished children from third world countries located in Africa, Latin America and maybe some parts in the Philippines.
I stumbled the organization when i was in Surrey. The organization is Compassion Canada and my real purpose was to help the children in poverty and maybe a few dollars here and there from our vending machines will help some of them.
So today was a real shocker.
The email states that the machines are to be removed immediately and also it states that the partial proceeds should have been donated to the institution instead.
Ever since the acquisition of the public school location the previous vendor never mentioned that i have to pay a monthly commission of some sort. We started servicing the location since July 2015 till present. Nobody in the office mentioned that we have to donate a portion of the sales which is normally 10% of gross sales.
I was caught unaware, so i immediately wanted to have this resolved. We are just small potatoes and it seems that doing business here is somewhat unstable.
It seems that the vending locations here seems to be like a ticking time bomb.
Sometimes you think vending business is truly stable and great. This might not be the case and a lot of other vendors feels the same way. I have empathy towards the fellow vendors.
You are always racing in acquiring more locations just in case a location had a setback.
Small business dies all the time here. I was lucky enough that i still maintain connections in Asia. People in authority doesn’t have empathy towards small people who are making an honest living.
If they don’t like you, out you go. It is indeed very strange here when doing business.
Back home in Philippines, all the businesses are very diplomatic and always make things work out even thou there are some issues. That is the reason i was able to have 12 brick and mortar stores and have survived.
After all the economy back home is emerging and thanks to the attitude towards small business owners.
Going back to the story here in Canada.
I quickly wrote an email and stated that i was unaware of the commissions issue. I hope tomorrow will be another fine day and such a small issue can be resolved.
The commissions will be handed out immediately on our next visit to the location and hopefully everything will be back to normal.
This is the first time i encountered such a peculiar circumstance.
If you are the vending machine operator, what will you do to alleviate this situation ?
Update :
I received an email today Friday March 16, 2018.? It seems that everything is in order.
