Water vending machines provide a perfect example of how changing trends in nutrition awareness have translated into opportunities in the vending machine industry. Two major types of machines are available on the market. The first type is designed to vend bottled spring water, often alongside soda pop, juices and other chilled drinks. The second type is a drinking water vending machine, which customers use to fill their own water containers with fresh, cold water for a relatively inexpensive price.

Water Vending Machines and Branding

While vending machines designed specifically to market branded bottled water are still relatively uncommon, it’s a growing segment of the $40 billion-a-year vending machine industry. As water brands such as Dasani and Evian continue to increase in popularity, vendors are latching on to consumers’ name recognition of those brands and turning the bottled water craze into a significant and reliable source of income.

Bottled water provides an excellent alternative for health-conscious consumers who prefer to avoid the sugar, caffeine and chemicals contained in commercially prepared soft drinks. Especially in large urban areas, where tap water is usually recycled through a filtration system and highly chlorinated to meet high demand, many people prefer the taste and purity of bottled water, and they’re willing to pay extra for the luxury. By combining intelligent vending machine placement with widely recognized brand names and logos, water vending machine operators can realize significant profits.

Water vending machine operators are also cashing in on the recent trend towards ensuring that only healthy foods and beverages are offered in public schools. Consider the following facts:

• In the year 2000, only 8 percent of U.S. states outlawed the sale of junk food and sugary drinks in public schools. By 2006, that number had risen to 32 percent.
• Over the same period, the percentage of schools offering bottled water for sale in vending machines jumped from 30 percent to 46 percent.

These numbers continue to rise, and are generally indicative of trends outside the public school systems as well. People everywhere are making healthier choices, and vendors who offer those alternatives are enjoying the benefits.

Important Details About Drinking Water Vending Machines

Machines specifically designed to fill customer-provided containers (usually gallon jugs) with fresh drinking water are also becoming increasingly popular. These units typically cost several thousand dollars, and are coin-operated, requiring little in the way of service. They are automated to deliver fixed quantities of water, using a mechanism similar to what’s found in a gasoline pump. In fact, most vendors need to do very little upkeep other than collect deposited monies and refill the machine’s water tanks.

However, there are a couple of things to keep in the forefront of your mind when considering purchasing and operating a drinking water vending machine. First, and foremost, these units are not designed to vend anything but drinking water. While many vending machines offer more versatility (and therefore have a higher profit potential), these do not.

Secondly, it’s essential that vendors perform regular tests to check the levels of bacteria in the water for sale. Early studies being conducted suggest that because the water stands for a longer time, the bacterial levels can be higher. Fecal coliforms and Pseudomonas aeruginosa are the two bacterial culprits you need to watch for.

If properly maintained, these units can perform very well wherever travelers gather or stop to rest: campgrounds, rest stops, national and state parks and any place with few or no sources of drinking water and a high volume of thirsty traffic.

Owning and operating newspaper vending machines can be a reliable way to supplement your income or, if you’re ambitious and conscientious, earn a living. With relatively low maintenance costs and the modest time commitment required to service them, newspaper vending machines can return healthy profits without requiring a burdensome capital outlay. In addition, the rise of specialty publications has created even more opportunities for newspaper vending machine owners looking to diversify.

Newspaper Vending Machines That Sell More Than Just the News

Periodicals of all sorts can turn a profit when marketed properly through vending machines. Beyond local and national newspapers, vendors offer a wide range of other publications, including:

• popular magazines
• specialty newspapers (sports newspapers, local real estate, automotive and employment guides)
• city guide books and periodicals
• trade publications

Of course, the determining factor in deciding which additional publication types to offer will depend strongly upon the market you’re servicing. For example, a booming, up-and-coming community will likely attract many new residents who may be unfamiliar with the area’s real estate market and want to do some simple poking around to get their house-hunting started. Such a municipality is likely to have a relatively high circulation rate of local real estate guides, which are frequently compiled by publishers who round up the area’s real estate listings. This is especially common in smaller communities that may not have their own daily newspapers where current real estate listings can be published. The end result is opportunity for a periodical vendor.

Anticipate a High Pedestrian Volume When Placing Newspaper Vending Machines

The secret to achieving a steady income from the operation of newspaper vending machines is really little more than simple common sense: put them where people gather. However, if common sense were common, everyone would have it, and many don’t. Here are a few things to keep in mind when choosing where to place your newspaper vending machine:

1. Is the vending machine easily visible to pedestrian traffic?
2. What attractions, businesses or services are nearby that promote a steady traffic stream? For example, newspaper vending machines and bus stops or subways stations are a match made in heaven. Ideally, you want to look for a constant stream of potential customers who might be in the market for something to read. Transit terminals (i.e. bus or train stations) are also good bets.
3. Are you locating the vending machine somewhere people are likely to be carrying change? Outside drugstores, supermarkets and strip malls are wise, popular choices for good reason.
4. Are there nearby businesses which also sell newspapers and periodicals? If so, you may want to locate your vending machine in an area where you’ll have more of a stranglehold on the immediate marketplace.

Typical Features of a Newspaper Vending Machine

Most newspapers feature an interlocking door device that is connected to a coin slot mechanism, which provides a single release when the correct amount of currency has been fed into the machine. While these reliable, standby models are still being produced, manufacturers also offer machines that employ more up-to-date technology, and these are becoming increasingly popular. At the low end of the more modern models are vending machines that accept paper bank notes and make change, so customers don’t need exact change in coins to complete a purchase. Furthermore, today’s vending machines come equipped with tools that can help you analyze sales trends, storing time and date of sale data for vendors to review at their discretion.

Invest wisely: research the various newspaper vending machines available for sale, perform cost-benefit analyses on the various offerings and know your marketplace. If you put the right newspapers in the right place, the profits will soon follow.

What was initially looked upon as a mere novelty is now becoming a viable business, as live bait vending machines are becoming more and more common. Offering fishermen the convenience of round-the-clock access to fresh night crawlers and other creepy-crawlies, bait vending machines can both draw a high volume of business and charge a premium, above and beyond the bait shop price for fishing worms.

As vending machine technology improved, refrigerated systems that permitted proper storage of live bait became viable for the first time. Bait is generally sold in Styrofoam containers, which can be stored in the same individual chambers designed to hold chilled drinks in regular soda vending machines. Vending machine manufacturers now also offer specially designed models with cooling and storage systems created specifically for delivering live bait.

Bait vending machines are attractive to fishing shop owners who want to offer their customers access to bait outside of normal shop hours. It simply takes a relatively meager initial investment to add this significant revenue stream. A fully functioning unit typically costs several thousand dollars, with costs varying depending on the availability of units in specific areas. However, as a case study of one Georgia bait shop shows, it’s fairly typical to expect business to pick up steadily once the machine is operational.

In Georgia, a bait vending machine unit cost about $4,000 when the client purchased it and set it up outside his shop late one spring. He’s in the business of selling and renting fishing equipment, and his store offers live bait for sale during regular business hours. By the end of the summer, he was selling more than 800 units of bait per month–at a rate of $2.25 for a dozen minnows and $3.75 for night crawlers. His machine more than paid for itself within 12 weeks of operation, and the client says he expect his current sales rates to double within the next 12 months.

One Pennsylvania entrepreneur took the concept one step further. After acquiring his first bait vending machine in 1993, the man then reinvested his earnings to finance the purchase of further machines, building an arsenal totaling over 30. He’s now moving more than 10,000 bait units a month, generating an average of about $5,500 in income. With relatively few costs and a modest investment of his time, he manages his network of machines, which have been earning him a living for almost 15 years.

Ideal Locations for Bait Vending Machines

Store owners who normally sell their own bait aren’t the only ones profiting, either. Bait vending machines are making profits in parking lots near popular fishing areas, on docks, piers and boardwalks, and particularly in waterfront boat and fishing equipment rental businesses. They provide early-morning anglers with a convenient solution to a common problem, and customers are generally more than willing to pay higher rates for bait if it means they don’t have to bother digging up their own.

If you’re considering investing in a bait vending machine, expect to part with a few thousand dollars, or to finance one through a manufacturer’s financing or layaway plan. Shop for a unit that can keep the internal temperature at 40 degrees Fahrenheit and operates on 110 volts of electricity.