R.M. Blackledge ©Copyright 2005

Okay, you're online now and you've made a decision that you want to earn a few extra dollars just like people do in all of those late-night infomercials.

Congratulations, you've just gone through same basic decision-making process that thousands, if not millions, of home-based entrepreneurs have done before you.

Believe it or not, manner in which this first fateful conclusion is arrived at often times determines whether or not each home-based business will succeed or fail. { at least, until entrepreneur acquires a better understanding of online business game, through painful trial and error. } Unfortunately, many people go online with a vague, undefined notion that they are going to earn some extra money for themselves, without really realizing, exactly what they've gotten themselves in to.

That kind of lack of focus can doom an online newbie before they even get started.

The first rule of online home-based entrepreneurship is that it is not a hobby. Okay, it can be a hobby if you want to put up a personal site, place a few banners ads, and maybe earn twenty or thirty dollars a month in commission, just as something fun to do. These individuals we are not addressing. Such persons regard being online as just fun, because their personal site is meant only to impress a few friends, and serve as a conversation piece. Or even as a convenient place to post some juicy gossip!

If you are online with express intent of earning money, then you are an entrepreneur, not a hobbyist. You can never approach your online business as a hobby. This applies whether you're intent is to work at your online business full-time or part-time.

Soda vending machines have lots of capacity. Even my old one that I paid too much for had a capacity of over 500 cans with 7 total selections. That's a lot of soda which also means that it could be possible that you don't have to visit a location too often if you are looking to vending as a part-time business.

The large capacity of these machines coupled with reasonable product costs and retail price can produce a decent business with healthy margins. I was paying an average of $.40 for a can of soda (tax and deposit included) and retailing that same can for $1.00. So with a $.60 margin multiplied by 5 machines each selling 200 cans of soda a month = a pretty nice little monthly return that doesn't require a lot of work because machines have lots of capacity!

In theory at least.

Here is what else I learned about soda vending machines...

All soda machines plug into a wall because that's how compressor works to keep soda cold.

Older machines may not be multi-price! They may have a coin mechanism inside machine but that doesn't mean that you can change price of your product easily. If you insist on starting your vending business by dealing with Rip-off Bizop Vending Company because they give you location with your machine, ask salesguy to show you how to change price of your soda machine.

Newer soda vending machines can sell bottled product that is either glass bottles or plastic. The glass bottles don't break.