So... I had been thinking about candy machines for a while. I just graduated with my business finance degree and I want to be a business man. What does a business man do? Candy!
I checked on eBay, froogle, google, and the rest of the web for the best deal on candy machines. Sure you can buy them used on eBay, and hey, that may be a good idea once you get into the candy business but here is the reason I bought them new.
1st. I didn't want to start off my candy machine business bringing in shabby looking machines.
2nd. The more confidence you have about your machines the easier they are to sell.
Also, I would like to say that after much contemplation about the type of machine to buy I went with the triple head and chrome stand. They look good, they vend 3 types of candy, and they are cheap! Well I got mine BRAND NEW for $95 each. And I'm going to tell you where to get them for that price too.
I drove to Miami to pick them up. Miami is about 2 hours from where I am, Naples Florida on the west coast. I got them from this company. http://www.gumball-machine.com It is basically just a warehouse with a kid running it, nice guy by the way, and I paid $95. But for that price I had to pick them up. From personal experience and from what he told me it costs about $15 to ship one of them so you can probably talk him into $110 shipped if you buy 10. I drove a ford escape over and 10 barely fit into the back. I also bought like 3500 gumballs while I was there, he sold me on it ; ) They were just over 2 cents each.
That was all yesterday, today I set two of the machines up. It is not that difficult. It takes about 15 minutes to assemble them and it's easy although I had to call once because I had an idiotic question. I went out and bought two other types of candy at Wal-Mart. I got M&M Peanuts and Reece's. I went to SAMS to get a membership but I checked out the in store prices and they weren't much lower than at Wal-Mart. And if you calculate in the $40 membership card it really just isn't worth it. Maybe if you have 50+ machines it would be worth it but not until then. I have 10 and they are all in my house and garage, I don't need a SAMS card yet.
I cleaned them out, put M&M Peanuts, GUMBALLS, and REECE'S into the two machines and then cut out logos from the empty bags of candy and taped them to the clear plastic outside of the machine. I also found a picture of a child with cancer and put him along with the children's cancer society logo on the gumball portion of the machine (I assume people will know they are gumballs. Anyway, the machines look OUTSTANDING. I couldn't be happier.
Tomorrow I am going to make some fliers and go into local businesses and try and find a couple locations for my candy machines. Locator's charge like $50 to locate just one machine, so I'm just going to look at it like I'm making $50 each time I find a spot for one of them. Wish me luck!
Toss me a quarter,
candyman can
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