Playbook #079: Vending Machines
🖼️ The Big Picture
Vending machines sell anything from snacks and drinks to $800 engagement rings, CBD products, and now even fresh burgers. It can be an excellent start-up or acquisition opportunity with a low cost of entry and relatively passive income (if you hire good people,) but it’s not without challenges.
Location is the single biggest driver of whether a machine will make money, and good locations can be difficult to find. Spots with heavy foot traffic or a lot of workers (like offices, hotels, hospitals, military bases, apartment complexes, and factories) are ideal… but these locations can be hard to get as competitors likely already have a foothold there.
Pro tip: don’t buy a vending machine until you’ve got a great location locked in for it, otherwise you could be stuck with a big machine in your garage… or worse, rush into placing it in a poor location.
You can start your own vending machine business for as little as a few thousand dollars, or buy an existing business (aka a “route”) with existing machines placed in multiple locations.
This is a straight-forward but exciting business that can generate anywhere from a few hundred extra bucks a month as a side-gig to a full-time income. Let’s dive in.