Making the Leap into MicroMarkets Makes Dollars and Sense

Vending Operators are losing business to MicroMarkets and in some cases they are experiencing revenue losses of hundreds of thousands of dollars. They are in danger of being left behind in an industry that is evolving to better answer customer needs. In order to compete, Vending Operators need to seriously consider adding MicroMarkets to their product-offering portfolio. MicroMarkets fill the space between traditional vending machines and cafeterias or going out to lunch.

“The sheer volume of products that MicroMarkets can offer makes them more appealing than vending machines,” said John Veit, Sales Director at 365. “If you do MicroMarkets right, you can put more SKU’s out there, sell higher priced items and keep people on campus more often. All of that means more revenue, profit and higher customer satisfaction and productivity.”

We spoke to one of our customers who has recently made the leap into MicroMarkets to get his experience on becoming a MicroMarket Operator. David Byard, the owner of BCH Vending Services in Germantown, Tennessee has been in business since 2007 and opened his first MicroMarket April 1^st of 2015. Prior to last year, BCH serviced 250 vending-only locations. He currently services two MicroMarket locations and says that his customers love them (MicroMarkets) so much that he’s made 450 new best friends. Beyond the promise of new friends (or satisfied customers), there are few other reasons to add MicroMarkets to your offerings:

More Products Equals More Money

MicroMarkets give you the ability to offer 3-10x as many products and because you have more SKU’s in your inventory, the potential to make more money increases exponentially. “Our revenue tripled at our existing locations with the existing employees,” said Byard, “We have an opportunity to increase sales at the locations we already have and it opened up the door for us to compete with the national vendors.

Less Service Calls

Vending machines can be faulty; chips can get stuck, dollars can get eaten, etc. What’s nice about MicroMarkets is that the open flow ensures that you’ll never have a ‘stuck chip bag’. Change is not an issue, when customers can pay with credit cards and stored value accounts that they can access with their fingertips. “MicroMarkets are easier to operate,” said Byard, “I receive a lot less service calls with MicroMarkets than I do with vending machines.”

Health, Wellness and More

MicroMarkets give you the ability to get really creative and expand your SKU’s outside the realm of chips and soft drinks. Offer your customers fresh foods like salads and sandwiches, frozen foods like ice cream and microwaveable meals. And if you want to get REALLY creative, consider mouthwash, aspirin, Chap Stick, even windshield wiper fluid. Your imagination is the limit with what you can offer with MicroMarkets.

But what about theft?

Theft is generally a nonfactor because of the types of locations that MicroMarkets service best. Byard says that one of his locations has 1% shrinkage. “One thing I learned is that the more cameras you install, the lower your shrinkage will be,” he said, “We don’t use them to catch people, we use them to prevent shrinkage.”

The Balancing Act

Many operators like BCH Vending Service have both vending machines and MicroMarket locations. “You can definitely do both. A lot Vending Operators will incorporate their MicroMarkets locations into their normal routes, said Veit, “And if your MicroMarket business takes off and gets big enough you might want to dedicate more resources to them.”

365 is making it even easier for Operators to implement MicroMarkets into their business by giving them the tools to manage it all in one system.