What problems can i meet when i will put a vending machine in a school?

Question

-how can i convince the director to put my vending machines in his school?

-is the vending really succeseful in schools?

Answer 1

Well the main question of the hour is if this is a public school or a private school.  Public schools are not a sound investment these days because of all the health food rules in schools, right now Coke and Pepsi are loosing tons of money because they had to pull all of their sodas out of the the public schools.  Now the private schools are a different story, they can do as they please.  

Answer 2

What are you thinking,   Run, Run, and Run,   I see by your current answers that no one answered who actually owned and filled vending machines in schools.     I have had many of them and they all turned out to be a loosing proposition.   I do not care what the agreement is when you put them in there,  it will change.    You can have an agreement to put in any thing you want, it can be on 24/7, located in the Middle of the cafiteria, and have it all locked up with an Iron clad contract and you will not be able to make your payments within one to two years.

Here is the problems.   Teachers, Principals and school board officials do not have the nads to stand up to compaining parents.   It is easyier to give them their way then to stand up to them.  

It doesn't matter how many advantages you can think of in your sales pitch. It is all wiped out by one parent that complains because their child spent their lunch money on a candy bar and a bottle of pop.  

The food service providers for the school are usually done by subcontractors and for every student that doesn't each lunch they loose money.   So when they see a line up of students infront of your machine they will start complaining.  ( There are federal laws that control vending in schools and these will stop you in your tracks if the foodservice people are aware of them.)

There is no end to the list of problems and I could go on and on but what whould that solve.  

So what can you do.   Of all the schools we did vending in most of them finally settled out on this situation.  

They would allow the snack machine to stay, most cases in the cafiteria ( just because of space), However it could only be turned on after school and evenings.   You always had to pay them large commissions, which removed much of the net income.   They will want to controll the items you put in, trying to get healthy snacks to appease the complaining parents.  

My advice to you, is don't.   Walk away,  you will not make enough to pay for the equipement befor they start giving you a rash of sh** about something.

Coca Cola and Pepsi in most cases do the soda vending in schools.   If they are not in your schools they will in the future.  

Answer 3

It's quite widespread. You can lease the machines and they are replenished for you. Probably highly competitive. One or two machines probably wouldn't be very profitable.

Answer 4

my school has recently put in new vending machines.

Vending machines would be a very successful idea in a school, here's why, you could say that....

- the profit from children paying for use of the vending   machine is likely to be very high.

-the concept of having snacks readily available to the students in a school will be hugely effective and could also improve the concentration level of the students as they are getting more energy at regular intervals.

- a vending machine could also provide less hassle for the school as it is a self serving process.

at my school, students seem a lot happier and believe it or not more well behaved since the vending machines have been fitted, this is probably because they are receiving more energy and releasing more endorphins as they eat, they have become less tired and this also has an impact on the amount of sport they play, so you could say that vending machines also have health benefits but that may be a bit far fetched.

Problems you could encounter when trying to convince someone to use your vending machines are....

- space, they may take up more space than the school has, you can counter argue this by saying that a vending machine is of course a lot smaller than any shop or cafeteria that could be fitted, therefore being better in the long run.

- time, for them to be set up and the time it takes for having to keep refilling them, you could counter argue this by saying that the refilling process is hugely easier than any cooking process and would actually save time, as well as vending machines being fairly easy to install and position.

- the whole "what's in it for me", just keep pointing out that many schools have already benefitted from the use of vending machines and if I were you I try to say things like "in a school with vending machines, children are more likely to concentrate due to the constant energy and vitamin renewells available which means that they have the potential to achieve better results", this will make him feel that it could potentially make his school look better, which in all honesty is probably what he's thinking about.

I hope that helped :)

-nickie xx

Answer 5

We have a vending machine in our school that vends ice cream and everyone uses it so here its succeseful.

Good Luck:)

Answer 6

Yes it is very successful. I go to a small high school (about 800 kids) in Australia, and we have two vending machines. One sells cold drinks/chocolate and the other sells just cold drinks. Because we are in Australia, which is a hot country, we cant really have coffee machines.

I did a project involving this very topic. I counted the amount of students who use the machines at lunch/recess and calculated the profits. The results are as followed

Cold Drinks/chocolate machine

Before School-3 Students used the machine

Recess-22 Students used the machine

Lunch-27 Students used the machine

After School-7 Students used the machine

Lets say the profit is $1 per item so the school makes $59.

And lets say the other machine makes the same and a teacher's one makes $12 per day (which is right), so it is $130 per day.

5x130 is $650, so you will be making $650 per school week and around $26000 a year.