Snack vending machines come in all shapes and sizes. Some are small enough to hang on a wall and some are
full size floor models like one I had. Some are electronic that you plug into an electric wall socket. Some are manually operated that don't require any electricity at all. There are snack vending machines that offer user's chance to buy a coffee right out of same machine, while others can vend soda and other cold beverages. There is snack vending machines that do all three! That's right, these machines offer customers chance to buy coffee, cold beverages and snack products out of same machine.
I've seen a snack vending machine that sells cigarettes.
I've seen a snack vending machine that sells hockey cards.
I've also seen a snack vending machine that sell bus passes to access local transit system.
And I've even seen a demo where one of my local distributors showed me how he could vend a can of three (3 ) tennis balls out of a snack vending machine! That actually impressed me.
So what does this all mean and how do you choose right kind of snack vending machine?
You need to have as much flexibility with your snack machine as possible. I wanted my machines to be able to have maximum flexibility to sell my customers whatever they wanted (within reason and legal parameters) and I needed to have machine that was capable of doing that.
This meant I needed...
Pricing flexibility. I needed to be able to raise or lower my prices according to my supplier costs or customer demands. That meant I needed to have snack vending machines that gave me that option without any additional equipment upgrades. That meant mechanical was out, you just don't have kind of pricing flexibility with mechanical as you do with electronic. With electronic you can raise or lower prices of individual selections and do that within seconds. With a mechanical snack vending machine you might have a customer stand in front of your machine with a pocket full of coins but your mechanical machine can't sell her anything because it isn't configured to accept certain coins.
