Sample work weeks
July 2, 2009
One thing that I will teach you about the vending business (as with any other business, for that matter) is that time is money. Ever since I started this company (9 years ago), the vending industry has been experimenting with electronic data capturing devices to improve per machine sales, improve route accountability, and improve overall efficiencies. Any equipment currently on the market is priced beyond the reach of most companies. Even large companies struggle with the expense of such a system.
Nevertheless, if you could figure out a way to only visit a location when it is just about to sell out of a product, then that would be the most efficient time to service that particular machine. If you decide to visit locations every week, for example, you will find that there are many machines that will only require a minimal amount of restocking, or no restocking at all. That would be a waste of time, fuel, and unnecessary mileage on the route vehicle. On the other hand, if you could visit machines and stock eight or nine cases of soda without having run out of any product then that would be ideal.
I have designed my route as best as possible to not make unnecessary trips, but to ensure that I don’t have product selling out either. There are numerous accounts that I visit weekly, and many accounts that I visit bi-weekly. There are several more that only require a visit every three or four weeks. In so doing, two weeks out of the month are pretty heavy and the other two are lighter. Let me give you an example:
Week starting 6/23/09 – On Tuesday I worked from 5am to 5pm, visited 39 locations, and used 203 cases of 20oz. soda (I own another business and have three active children. Therefore, I prefer to work hard and long in order to compress as much work into a day as possible). On Wednesday I worked from 6am to 1pm, visited 17 locations, and used 102 cases of soda. This was one of my heavy weeks.
Week starting 6/30/09 – On Tuesday I worked from 530am to 5pm, visited 25 locations, and used 165 cases of soda. On Wednesday I worked from 6am to 930pm, visited 11 locations, and used 49 cases. This is an example of one of my light weeks.
I’ve scanned a copy of my deposit slips for each of the two weeks to give you an idea of the type of money this route is making. The first slip on 6/26/09 only reflects a deposit of bills. I did not have time to deposit the coins. The second deposit on 7/1/09 includes all cash collected this week and the coins from last week.
SUMMARY
As you can see by the example I’ve given for the last two weeks, I worked 34 hours total and deposited $15,500. If you want to look at it this way, I made $456/hr. Do the math and you will see that the revenues I’ve listed in the previous post are actual.
[...] 2, 2009 If you will read my previous post with the deposit slips, you will see that my gross revenue over the last two weeks was $15,500. Since I only put 34 [...]