Making Money with Vending Machines

When you purchase a vending machine your goal is to make money from it. Before investing large portions of money make sure that you have done your math so that you can calculate your return on investment from your vending machine.

First consider the price you are paying for the vending machine. Remember to include any shipping and handling costs in your calculations along with any necessary sales taxes. Watch out vending machine shipping and handling can be expensive! These numbers will make a difference; don't leave them out. Next find out the cost of the product that you will fill your vending machines with. Do consider that candy that doesn't sell may have to be thrown out if it goes stale.

The total price of the vending machine is your fixed cost. Whether or not you sell a single gumball, you paid for the machine. The more candy or toys the vending machine sells, the lower that cost will be factored into each sale. Next calculate how much profit a single sale will return to you. If you paid a penny for one item and it sells for 25 cents you have netted 24 cents. Now you need to factor the cost of the vending machine into the sale. If you paid $100 for the vending machine and only sold 100 gumballs, obviously you are going to lose money. At about 417 gumballs you'll break even. How long is it going to take you to make that many sales from a single machine?

Make sure you do these gumball machine calculations yourself -- don't let a gumball machine salesman do them for you. Make sure that the work you do and the money you invest in vending machines gives you a better return on your money than if your money was sitting in your bank -- while you were doing nothing.

Vending machines probably won't make you a million dollars, but this income source may be one step along your journey to financial independence.

To help calculate your potential sales check out Monthly vending machine business revenue.

©2004