[0:00]Hello, welcome back to the channel. My name is Matt. Today, we're going to be talking about how to start a vending machine business from A to Z. I'm going to take you through all the steps that it takes to find a location, to buy a machine, to install a machine, to fill a machine, to grow your business, to scale your business, to make a lot of money with your vending machine business. And it is a great business to start on the side while you're working a full-time job or while you're going to school, or if you're retired and you just want to make a little bit of extra income. This is a great business to start. Before we get into it, I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Matt, and I've been in the vending machine business for about eight years now. I started when I was 23 years old. I found a vending machine business for sale, and I called the gentleman up. I met with him, and I bought his business. Now, it was 20 machines that I bought from him. I bought them all cash. I just had the money saved up. And I decided to just jump in with two feet into this business, and I loved it. I grew it to almost 200 machines across the state of Michigan and then decided to sell the business and move to Florida. Now, I'm going to teach you all the tips and tricks and everything that I learned throughout my eight years of owning my vending machine business, so you can go out there and you can be successful and you can start your own vending machine business and grow it as big as you want. So let's get into it. First things first, you're going to need to figure out what type of machine you're going to want to purchase for your business. Are you going to want to buy a snack machine? Are you going to want to buy a pop machine? Are you going to want to buy a combo machine that has snacks and pop in the same machine? Are you going to want to buy a healthy vending machine, like a fresh food machine or a coffee machine? There are so many different varieties and types of vending machines that you can go out and buy. You just need to decide which one is going to fit your needs the best. Now, the reason why I recommend starting with a combo machine is because it makes it so much easier to find a location. When you're calling a business, they don't want to have to find room for a snack machine and a pop machine. If you can just tell them, hey, I'm going to bring one machine in. It's going to take up 3 ft by 3 ft of space. It's going to have snacks and pop in it. They're going to be so much more inclined to buy a machine from you. Or to let you put a machine in their business, and it's just going to make it a lot easier for you to grow your business. Now, after you've decided what type of machine you're going to want to get, you're going to need to decide where you're going to buy this machine from. Are you going to buy it new? Are you going to buy it used? Are you going to buy it from a private seller? Are you going to buy it from a vending machine company? I recommend starting with buying a used vending machine. The reason why I say that is because it's going to save you a lot of money and the depreciation on the machine is already going to be gone. So a new machine, let's say a new combo machine, is going to run you anywhere from eight to $10,000. Now, a used machine is going to run you anywhere from $2,500 to $4,500. Now, that's a huge price difference right there. And the main thing is, is the machine is still going to do the same exact thing. It's still going to vend products, and it's still going to take people's money and give them their product. Now, you can buy these machines on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, OfferUp, eBay, just search for used vending machines. And there are also vending machine wholesalers that you can find online, that you can contact, that you can go and look at their warehouse full of vending machines. You can pick out the one you want, and they'll usually deliver it right to your location. They'll even install it and make sure that it's working properly for you. So after you've found the machine that you want and you've purchased it, now it's time to find a location for that machine. This is going to be the toughest part of starting your vending machine business. It is not easy to find a location, but it's not impossible. There are so many businesses out there that would love to have a vending machine in their business. You just need to find the right person to talk to. Now, I recommend looking for businesses that have at least 50 employees. If a business has less than 50 employees, it's not going to be worth your time to put a machine in there. Unless it's like a laundromat or a hotel or something like that, where there's just a lot of foot traffic. But for the most part, you're going to want to focus on businesses that have at least 50 employees. So how do you find these businesses? You can literally just Google search businesses near me. You can look on Yelp, you can look on Google Maps, and you can just start calling these businesses. Now, you're going to want to make a list of businesses that you're going to want to call. So let's say you pick out 20 businesses in your local area that you want to call and you want to try and get a machine into their business. Now, you're going to call them up. You're going to ask to speak to the owner, the office manager, or the general manager. You're going to tell them who you are. You're going to tell them that you have a vending machine, and you're looking to place it in a local business. You're going to ask them if they would be interested in having a free vending machine placed in their business for their employees and for their customers. Now, when you do that, you're going to get a lot of no's. You're going to get a lot of people that say, we already have one. We're not interested. We don't have the room. You're going to get a lot of reasons why they don't want a vending machine, but you're also going to get a few yes's. And that's all you need is a few yes's to get your business started. Now, I recommend calling at least 100 businesses before you even get a yes. It is a numbers game. You have to call a lot of people to get a few yes's. So after you've found a location, you've decided on the machine, you've bought the machine, you've installed it into the business. Now it's time to stock your machine with products. So you're going to want to find a local wholesaler for your snacks and for your pop. Now, the reason why you're going to want to buy from a wholesaler is because you're going to get a lot cheaper price than if you just went to a local grocery store or a local big box store. So you're going to want to search online for local wholesalers near me. You're going to call them up. You're going to set up an account with them. You're going to tell them that you own a vending machine business, and you're going to ask them for their pricing. Now, you're going to get a sheet with all their pricing on it. You're going to compare prices with other wholesalers to make sure you're getting the best price for your products. Now, after you've gotten your products at a cheap price, you're going to go to your machine and you're going to fill it up. You're going to make sure that the machine is working properly. You're going to make sure all the snacks are filled. All the pops are filled. You're going to make sure the bill acceptor is working and the coin acceptor is working. If you have a credit card reader, make sure that's working too. You're going to want to do a test vend on each one of the items to make sure that they're all vending properly. And then you're just going to make sure that your machine is nice and clean. You're going to put your sticker on the machine with your name and your number. So if anybody has any issues with the machine, they can call you directly. Now, after you've done all that, you're going to go home, and you're going to be excited because you just placed your first vending machine. Now, the next step is to grow your business. You're going to want to repeat that process over and over and over again. You're going to want to start with one machine. Get that machine up and running. Make sure it's making money for you, and then you're going to go out there and you're going to find another location. You're going to buy another machine, and you're going to put it in that business. You're going to repeat that process over and over again until you have 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 machines. It's all up to you how many machines you want to have, and it's all up to you how big you want your business to grow. Now, I recommend keeping good books for your business. Make sure you're keeping track of all your income, all your expenses, how much you're spending on products, how much you're spending on gas, how much you're spending on insurance for your business. Make sure you're keeping track of all that because at the end of the year, you're going to need to do your taxes. And the main thing is, is you want to be able to know how much money your business is making and how much money you're taking home at the end of the day. Now, the vending machine business is a great business to start because it's mostly passive income. You're going to go to your machines once a week, maybe twice a week if it's a really busy machine. You're going to fill it up. You're going to collect your money, and then you're going to go home. And that machine is going to be making you money 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You don't have to be there to make money. That's why I love the vending machine business. It's a great business for somebody that's looking to start a side hustle, to make some extra income. Or if you're looking to replace your full-time income, you can do that too with the vending machine business. I hope you guys enjoyed this video. I hope you got a lot of information out of it. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below, and I'll be sure to answer them. Don't forget to like and subscribe, and I'll see you guys in the next video. Thanks for watching.