Just curious... I started my energy drink vending business for the express purpose of going full time within a relatively short period of time, and then growing to the point where my wife could quit her job and stay home and also to bring my son into the business full-time. As many know, I am not only vending Red Bull, but also other energy drinks in order to facilitate rapid growth.

Many on this board have started their Red Bull / energy drink vending companies for the same reason... to make it a full-time career. Some have been doing this now for several months.

My question is, has anyone been able to turn their business into a full-time career beginning with vending energy drinks? Is it really just a matter of how many machines you can buy and place in good locations over time and investing back into your company? Do energy drinks in and of themselves have enough popularity in spite of their higher price to drive enough sales to produce full-time incomes? Is anyone actually making this happen yet?

I'm just now off to my official start and I'm not discouraged by any means, just curious to see how many out there are actually living the dream.

[ 04-17-2006, 08:28 PM: Message edited by: bullman ]

Good luck… vending is a hard business. And getting people to put $2.00 or more into a vending machine is not going to be easy. It’s not like 75¢ for a can of coke. Or 50¢ for a bag of chips.

It’s new and viability still remains to be seen.

But again good luck you will need it.

I have about 10 red bull machines and 190 or so bulk candy machnes, I would have to say that teh bulk machines, only taking in a quarter at a time, are by far exceeding the redbull machines income, but I am not giving up, the locations will come. I am working as a 3rd party vendor with my local distributor so this are starting to get much better, and the bills are easier to count than the quarters. Hoping to be full time within a year

Whats the difference between someone payin 2 bucks at the counter to someone paying 2 bucks at the vending machine?
Placement is what vending is all about. Keep working hard and hopefully your labor will pay off.
Even the mightiest oak tree in the forest began as a simple acorn.

There is a difference. People are not used to putting 2 bucks or more in a vending machine. Buying from a vending machine is still not the first choice for most people. People like to go to a store and will walk the block to get there. But like any other business location location location. A captive audience is what you would be looking for. People locked in an office building or factory on the overnight shift. Places where people had to pay to get into and have no food concession. Hotels/motels. Ect.

No business is easy and I’m sure most of these vending start-ups have been sold a bill of goods of how much money they will earn.
And at this point it’s really hard to say what these machines will do numbers wise. It’s new and winter just ended. In many parts of the country it’s still damn cold.

And yes contrary to what you may believe Greg, given a choice people would prefer to pay at the counter. Human contact still counts for something.

Originally posted by Lepke:
Good luck… vending is a hard business. And getting people to put $2.00 or more into a vending machine is not going to be easy. It’s not like 75¢ for a can of coke. Or 50¢ for a bag of chips.

Thanks Lepke. I realize some people won't put $2.00 into any kind of vending machine, but at the same time, I think it would be much harder to locate pop machines because it's hard to find locations that don't already have them. You'd really have to find someplace where the current vendor is doing a poor job, get the kicked out, then pray that you found a good location. My experiece so far is that energy drink machines are fairly easy to locate... but driving sales upwards is where the challenge is for me.

You are offering something new that no one else has to offer. That has to help somewhat.
But I’m sure your mother never told you life was going to be easy.
No risk no gain.
In time people may get used to feeding the machine.
Tough business I don’t envy the work you have in front of you.
It could pay off.

As they say in the theater, “break a leg”.

Originally posted by Lepke:


And yes contrary to what you may believe Greg, given a choice people would prefer to pay at the counter. Human contact still counts for something.

When did I say that I believe people would rather have face to face interaction with someone to purchase a drink over having to face an inanimate object for the same drink? All I said was "what is the difference?" I then went on to give anecdotal support to this thesis by explaining that Coke and Pepsi used to only sell their drinks at the fountain and then went to Vending machines which has proved quite successful.
Machine take the place of someoone who can not be there whether for economic reasons, logistic resons, or for convenience reasons.

Why are you so closed minded about RB having a stab at the vending business? You seem to really have it out for them because you have rarely ever said anything positive about anyone that has had anything to do with CC or its aftermath.

As far as people wanting to have face to face contact can you explain to me the success rate of ATM's....maybe it's the convenience factor!

Originally posted by greg:
Whats the difference between someone payin 2 bucks at the counter to someone paying 2 bucks at the vending machine?
Placement is what vending is all about. Keep working hard and hopefully your labor will pay off.
Even the mightiest oak tree in the forest began as a simple acorn.

You asked what the difference was as if there was no difference. At least that’s how I perceived it.

Sorry if I freaked you out.

I don’t know about all the other stuff you say you went onto.
The post is above.

[ 04-18-2006, 12:18 PM: Message edited by: Lepke ]

I guess someone should tell the vendors vending iPods at airports, etc that their business model is doomed to failure, if we can't expect someone to pay $2 for a can of RedBull through a vending machine. But, utlimately, the sales speak for themselves. They said the same thing about RedBull in general when it hit the market. Finding someone with anything positive to say about RedBull's future when they hit US shores was not an easy task.

As for "living the dream", in our particular case, the goal was never to get the business to a point where we could trade my job for running a vending business full-time. I happen to really love my "day job". The vending business was a supplement to our existing income, and we hope to have it running as a full-time venture with staff in 4-5 years.

I guess I wasn't really looking to trade one full time job with another. We're looking more at working hard towards early retirement.

And I guess the short answer to that is...no. We're not "living the dream".

Yet...

[ 04-18-2006, 12:48 PM: Message edited by: Veruca Vending ]