Servicing And Repairing of Vending Machines

Usually, vending machine operators concentrate on factors like product and the location of the vending machines while setting up their vending business. A factor which may often be ignored is the vending machine services. You must understand that this is a significant component to ensure efficiency in machine operations.

Planet Antares Inc provides vending machine services to its operators but this does not undermine the need for you to have some basic knowledge in this regard. After all, you don’t want to be helpless in a situation where the customer waits in front of an inoperable machine. Here are a few tips for maintaining your vending machine.

Hire a Helper
If you have more than one vending machine, hire a person who can take care of the machines at all times. For busy people with other businesses running alongside, it is a big headache to keep track of every machine’s condition. So, getting a third person to do the refilling, repair and maintenance can reduce your burden as well as ensure that the vending machines are frequently stocked, updated and capable of continuous functioning. As compared to specialized services, the cost of hiring a third person is very low.

Self Service
Before calling a professional, you can try to fix the vending machine’s problems yourself. Small troubles may keep arising with minor faults in the machine. Calling a specialist each time can result in excessive repair costs that ultimately bring down your business profits. For example, a product may be stuck in the exit leading to a dispensing problem. Similarly, coins or quarters may be stuck in the coin receptacle. You can simply open the vending machine door and remove the erroneous candy or toy or coins rather than going through the professional service route.

Call a Professional
At certain times, your vending machine may face complex problems or even breakdown. Then, it is best to call a specialist to deal with the problem. You can take care of the basic issues but there are various technical or mechanical issues which may be beyond your capability. Planet Antares Inc provides professional services for all sorts of vending machine issues.

In the end, your vending business is just as good as your vending machines. So it is very important to keep them in good condition and functioning well.

Planet Antares Inc Offers Vending Tricks And Tips

When you purchase your first Planet Antares vending machines, get ready to establish a vending route for the same. It is important to make the right decisions to ensure successful running of your business.

This can be done by acquiring information about the vending business. You can find such information on the internet or by talking to other vending operators for first hand account of the vending experience.

An effective vending route will include
• Quality vending machines
• Prime locations
• Right product supplier

Planet Antares vending programs can help you setup a successful vending route. Initially, you will be running your vending business from home. Until you have a large number of vending machines, there is no need to rent a warehouse. This results in minimal investment at the beginning of your vending business.

When you start looking for your first vending location, equip your self with information about various types of locations that will be suitable for your Planet Antares vending machines. Ask for tips from vending operators in your area so that you can go out on one of their servicing trips.

By observing the working of vending operator on the route, you can get first hand information. While using the services of a locating service company, make sure that they allow you to inspect the location on your own before finalizing the location on your behalf. Preferably, you must set up your own vending route as it will teach you the essentials of finding good locations.

Look for a supplier who offers a variety of products to be kept in your Planet Antares vending machines. If a new product is put in your vending machine, it will boost sales. Try to find a supplier in your area so that you don’t have any trouble transporting the supplies to the vending machines.

When your vending route is running successfully and your business experiencing growth, it will be time to expand your Planet Antares vending business. To do this, you must add new vending machines in the same locations or look for new locations.

Such moves will prove to be profitable for any vending operator and must be undertaken wisely for successful vending.

Planet Antares Vending Machines For Small Locations

With technological advancements come greater efficiencies as well as additional cost of operations. Along with efficiencies in business operations, business people hope to offset added expense and eventually cut down on costs related to sales.

This is a profitable proposition for small location vending, which have not been lucrative for most vending operators. Now, you may be wondering if technology can actually make vending a profitable business.

Yes it can!

Small location vending is a market that has great potential and is yet untapped. Basically, these are places with a population of about 10 to 50 people. For vending operators with limited overhead, this can be a suitable option.

The challenge of providing sufficient return on investment can be overcome through electronic, preloaded shelf systems for Planet Antares vending machines in locations that offer limited sales potential. As the economy enters one of the most difficult phases ever, vendors are showing more interest in such systems.

As a Planet Antares vending operator, you can test new alternatives for small location vending, a continuing industry challenge, with the economy not providing much relief to account downsizing, more operators are exploring the potential of small location vending.

You must understand that being successful in small location vending is not a quick or easy process for existing vendors as well as newcomers. A successful Planet Antares small location vending program requires commitment, proper planning and great amount of sweat equity.
Currently, the demographics of the American workplace are changing. Over 90% of the American businesses employ less than 50 people. The conventional vending systems are not economical or lucrative anymore, especially in such small locations.

Planet Antares Corporation offers vending programs that can help you establish your niche in the small location vending business and guide you at each step to handle this trend successfully. The company will assist you at every step of setting up a dynamic vending business as well as learn how to make money in small location vending.

Offerings Of Customized Planet Antares Vending Machines

Most newcomers in the vending industry start with a limited amount of capital investment. This should be a reason to buy a customized vehicle for their vending operations.

A vehicle with fewer racks, more space for refrigeration or less expensive cooler using ice packs can allow you to use the same vehicle for years by adding more racks and changing the cooler options.

Planet Antares vending operators, like other vendors, have been making requests for roll up side doors. However, they often turn away after hearing the price of such features. Putting in two doors alone will cost about $2000. It also depends on how the warehouse is set up. If it has a low dock, it will be a disadvantage as the driver will have to get off the dock to load from the outside.

The new trucks with side doors provide benefits like higher efficiency, ergonomics and safety. Placing shelving systems in existing systems is better than nothing, but full benefits will come with roll up side doors. Such trucks are usually purchased by medium sized vending companies. There is also a big demand from small companies with few routes, because they have also seen the benefit firsthand.

Customization of the route vehicle for your Planet Antares vending operations will definitely improve efficiency. If a truck breaks down and the driver has to use another vehicle, he or she will still know where all the products are placed and thus, no time will be lost in searching for it.

It is preferred by certain Planet Antares vending operators to have the installation done in-house instead of sending the vehicle to a manufacturer to get it customized. Vending operators may decide to buy kits and place them in the vehicles. You will need more time to make installations on your own but you will get the exact specifications that you would want.

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Market Value Of Planet Antares Vending Business

Like any other business, Planet Antares vending business is valued for the cash flow and predictability or stability of that cash flow. After all, if the cash flow is predictable, the assets and the franchise responsible for its creation will hold considerable value.

As a Planet Antares vending operator, this may not affect you much. However, vendors considering an exit strategy or buying a business to enhance it and sell it may become interested in increasing the value of their business.

While considering the market value of your Planet Antares vending business, you first have to think about the new and existing locations, not just for their past performance but also for any trends that may have an impact on their future performance. For example, the future value of your vending locations depends on the risk involved. Low growth locations have more tisk.

Apart from this, you will have to quantify the average life span of your vending machines and its replacement value. These details will be required by any potential buyer of your vending business.

Thus, it becomes crucial to purchase quality equipment like those provided by Planet Antares Corporation. Buyers will also ask about your customer retention rate and growth rate in recent years. These figures add or deduct from the stability of your cash flow stream.

Moreover, you need to look for alternatives of enhancing the predictability or stability of your cash flow by “locking in” your accounts. A buyer will immidiately place a higher value on a vending route backed up by one or multiple year contracts. On the other hand, you can have some form of exclusivity to offer the customer like an unusual brand or price on a specific product.

Just remember that if you are able to maintain a stable or growing cash flow in your Planet Antares vending business and have good locations and customer retention rates, it will go a long way in establishing a successful, comfortable vending business.

Such a business will definitely be a valuable commodity in today’s investment environment.

Fat Free Snacks In Planet Antares Vending Machines

In the beginning, you may not be sure whether it is profitable to keep fat free products in your Planet Antares vending machines. When fat free snacks were introduced in the market, positive response to it was really slow.

However, things have changed now as more people gain awareness regarding the benefits of fat free snacks. They want to lead healthy lives and the best way they can do it is by eating nutritious food.

Americans love snacking and now most of them are overweight. For people who are interested in reducing fat in their diet, it is essential to have the choice of being able to purchase fat free snacks. This has led to millions of consumers enjoying the benefits of these fat free snacks. Planet Antares vending business owners must leave some shelf space for fat free snacks that will serve those snackers who are conscious of their weight.

Several industry observers think that there is no future for such snacks. They believe that these snacks have not performed as well as they were expected to. Some of the reasons for these are:

1. These items are quite expensive, making them less affordable to a number of people.
2. People are generally not interested in fat free snacks. Even vending consumers in the west coast, where healthy living and fat free food are more a part of daily lifestyle than anything else, are indifferent towards fat free snacks. This is something that has changed over time. These days, people are more conscious about what they eat. This presents a great opportunity for your Planet Antares vending operations.

According to a survey of various vending operators, a similar disinterest and disappointment in fat free snacks was discovered. These are vending operators who have tried to sell these snacks at their locations and not generated good results.

However, it is not necessary that you will face the same circumstances in your Planet Antares vending business, when you decide to sell fat free snacks. There are certain snacks that are very popular among consumers and when placed at strategic locations in vending machines, they will generate huge sales and profits.

Importance Of Well Stocked Vending Machines

As a Planet Antares vending business operator, you will always need to make sure that the vending machines are well stocked. This will require servicing of your vending machines on a regular basis.

Vending machines are all about the products dispensed by them. That is where the money flows in. Your products need to sell for your business to be profitable. Usually, people start running a vending business with one or two vending machines. You would not want to go in over your head by taking on more than you can handle.

Once you have set up your Planet Antares vending business, keep them filled with adequate amount of products. This is much easier to do with one or two vending machines.

In high traffic locations, a snack and beverage vending machine will be ideal. These locations include schools, hospitals, subways, train stations, shopping malls, etc. generally, these places have high traffic and are ideal for Planet Antares snack and soda vending machines.

Choosing the right location is critical for achieving high sales and profits for your vending business. This becomes possible with high quality services and well maintained vending equipment. If a customer doesn’t find his favorite soda/snack in stock, they will feel frustrated.
Some products always sell faster than the others in different vending locations. You need to keep a watch on the items in your vending machine to ensure that it is well stocked.

Pick one or several days of the week to service the vending machines. This way, you can get to know how the products sell in your vending machines. When you know how the products sell, it will determine the quantity of the products in your vending machines.

I would suggest that you choose a local supplier for vending products and check his credibility.

They must be able to provide you with a bulk stock of products that you want in your Planet Antares vending machines. By making bulk purchases, you can keep extra stocks so that your machines don’t run out of products.

Optimal Product Mix For Your Vending Machines

Vending business owners need to ensure that they offer the most popular, in demand products through their vending machines. In short, you must develop an optimal product mix for your vending machines.

If some employees are responsible for filling of the vending machines, make sure that they place the right products in every vending machine. It is also important to keep rotating the products frequently to offer a large variety to the consumers. To accomplish all this, category management will be required.

In simple words, this is a system that simplifies product selection at the route and warehouse levels and also enables you to control the machine menu. Certain products may turn only quarterly and this costs the company in terms of tying up the warehouse space. That’s why category management is implemented by experienced Planet Antares vending operators.

Some vending operators hesitate in using category management because it needs a different way of selecting products from the traditional practice. The problem with the conventional product selection based on the prejudices of the owner or route driver is that it is costing the operators more in sales and profits.

Planet Antares vending operators, among others, must prefer using category management for product mix selection. This allows you to save in many aspects, like the following:

1. Higher profitability resulting in increased location sales

2. Lesser cash investment in inventory from a reduced number of stock keeping units in the warehouse

3. Greater labor efficiency and higher productivity

In order to ensure high sales for your Planet Antares vending business, select the fastest turning products. As the inventory level reduces, so will the amount of investment in fewer but faster turning products. Eventually, you will have to handle lower amount of items and face lesser burden of inventory.

Confections And Snacks In Planet Antares Vending Machines

Basically, your vending machines can achieve high level of sales by ensuring customer convenience and snack variety in confections and snacks. There has been a rise in the assortment of snacks offered in vending machines, which has blurred the distinction between snacks and food items.

Planet Antares vending products commonly replace meals as people have no time to sit down in a restaurant for a meal. The demand for vending machines in certain locations was partially due in part to the popularity of “energy”, “breakfast” and “meal replacement” bars.

In the current times, the dominance of glass front machines remains and has even increased in vending locations. A new trend has been found in the willingness of consumers to pay a higher price for premium products.

This is a great opportunity for Planet Antares vending operators to raise the prices of their products without worrying about the customer’s response. Not only will this enhance business profitability but also serve wider customer segments.

Technology in vending machines has enabled vending machine operators to automatically collect data on vending machine sales. You will find that implementing technology will help your vending business to be more successful.

Machine and location specific Planet Antares vending machine sales can help operators to monitor the movement and profitability of products being offered. All vending operators are aware of the fact that Americans love snacks and soda.

Vending machines offering these products attract all kinds of customers whether young, old, female or male. This fondness of snacks and confections works in favor of vending mahcine business owners.