Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Commission Systems for Employees

Commission, (incentive) systems work very well in environments where the employee has a great deal of control over the rate of production, based upon his ability to work harder, smarter, longer or faster. If you have a sizeable Planet Antares vending, you would be required to hire employees to help you out with your vending route. These employees can be paid on a salary basis or on a commission basis. There are some employees that are paid using both systems.

Commission System should increase productivity
If you have a route driver for your Planet Antares vending business, and he is paid on a commission basis, he would know that the harder he works the more he will earn. The route driver should then learn how to fill and clean the Planet Antares vending machines as quickly as possible. This will be an easy task for the route driver since the vending machine is designed in such a way that allows for easy loading and cleaning. A route driver that is working on commission should also reduce the amount of time spent at each location, with the hope that he will have more time to service more machines and thus, collect more money each day. Up to this point, a commission system is a win-win situation for you and the route person. In this situation, the employee can earn more commissions and the company can earn more profit. A survey that was conducted revealed that most operators pay drivers some type of incentive.

Downsides of commission systems
There can be several downsides to commission systems as well. Since a route driver would want to service more vending machines, he may decide to drive too fast; perform less than 100 percent of the machine sanitation requirements; ignore simple mechanical procedures, such as removing a paper clip from a coin acceptor; or he may choose not take the time to coin test a machine after filling it. These conditions can easily interfere with the effectiveness of a commission system.

Pay plan has no bearing on schedule
A commission system, in and of itself, will not teach a route person how to schedule his route. The key to improving the route productivity of your Planet Antares vending business is to schedule the route person to service a vending machine only after the machine has made enough sales to profitably justify the cost of service.

Monday, February 26, 2007

Securing an Income through Vending

It is a well known fact that a vending business is a great way of earning an extra income. For years vending operators have made plenty of money with their vending businesses that they were even able to do so much with the income that they got from their vending business. Starting a Planet Antares vending business can be a great way for you to secure an income.

The best thing about a vending is that, you don’t need to make it a full time business. If you have a full time job or even a part time job, you can still go ahead and start a vending business that you will take care of during your free time. People who are not sure of how their vending business will turn out in the first year are also the ones that make their vending business a part time business. They don’t quit their full time job, just incase things don’t work out well for their vending business. With a Planet Antares vending business you can start earning a high and as your income from the vending business increases, you can decide to make vending a full time business. Vending machines are money making machines, which can easily give you a greater income than what most people get with regular jobs.

A Planet Antares vending business is easy to run so long as you are willing to put in some effort. All that you really need to do is place the quality vending machines in the right location with the right products. Once you have done that, all that you would need to do is to service the vending machines whenever they need refilling and when you need to collect money from them. Using the Planet Antares vending program, it won’t be long before you will be able to pay off the initial investment you made in your vending business. When that has been paid off, you will then start earning the kind of income that you never thought possible. It is great way of earning a living, because you will now be in a financial position to do the things you had probably been planning to do, but just didn’t have the money to do it. The income that you get from a vending business can be stable if you place the vending machines in the right location. There are some days that will be very profitable and there other days that you’re vending business may not do to well. This is normal with any business. The only thing is that the bad days should not be every other day. If that happens to you, it simply means that you would have to review your strategies.

With a vending business, you will always be able to enjoy the income that you earn. This is because vending, unlike many other businesses, is a business that will only take a few hours of your week to run. That will leave you with plenty of time for your family, friends and your leisure. After all, what good is money if you don’t have the time to spend it?

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Helpful Vending Information

Starting out a Planet Antares vending business, can turn out to be the most lucrative business decision that you will ever make, if you use the right approach in running the vending business. Before venturing into the vending business, there are a few things that you would need to know about the vending business.

If you are a current vending operator or are new to the vending business, you should always be on the lookout for the “too good to be true” opportunities. There are quite a number of vending scams that are going on everyday, which have resulted in people losing thousands of dollars. This is why you need to go for the reputable vending companies that will provide you with effective vending programs that will actually work. Planet Antares Inc. is one such company. This company will provide you with quality snack and beverage vending machines that have high capacities and are well designed for problem free delivery of the items. A vending machine has to be in good working order so that your sales are maximized.

Once you have the vending machines, it will then be time to look of suitable locations to place the vending machines. A snack and beverage vending machines does well in high traffic locations where people are passing through or waiting for several minutes. Location is of course of primal importance in a vending business. When you are looking for a suitable location, take a tour of all the local vending locations so that you can get a feel of which locations would be ideal for your Planet Antares vending machines. The next step would be for you to engage a local supply that will provide you with all the snacks and beverages that you would want in your vending machine. A local supplier would be your best option since they are locally based. There is no need for spending more on fuel just to transport products from a supplier that is not locally based.

Every 15 minutes, over 3.5 million coins are inserted into vending machines in the U.S. alone. Approximately 8 billion snacks and confections and over 5 billion beverages sell through vending machines each year. This is the reason why having a Planet Antares snack and beverage vending business would be very profitable if you run your business with a good business sense.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Outdoor Vending Machines

There are all types of locations for vending machines these days. Almost everywhere you go you usually find vending machines. Outdoor locations are ideal for certain kinds of vending machines. Planet Antares vending machines can do very well in outdoor locations because they are snack and beverage vending machines. These kinds of vending machines are ideally suited for locations such as motels, gas stations and any other outdoor location that has high traffic.

Traditional indoor locations have become saturated, which has forced vending operators to try out other kinds of locations. Historically the vending industry shied away from outdoor locations for a number of reasons. One of the main reasons is problems with vandalism and theft. When vending machines are in out door locations, they are more susceptible to these problems. This is not a major problem anymore because today you can place a Planet Antares vending machine in an outdoor location and protect it with security enclosures that will keep miscreants away. Technology has also played a major hand in protecting vending machines from theft and vandalism.

Planet Antares vending operators no longer have to wait for a request-only basis, to install a vending machine in an outdoor location. Technology has also given vending operators reasons to reconsider their view about outdoor vending. Some operators’ attitudes after all, are based on 10-year-old experiences with outdoor machines. The main problem of outdoor vending is vandalism and exposure to the elements. Cold beverage vending machines which comprise of a majority of the outdoor vending machines now have components that are coated with ultraviolet-light resistant powder, which will prevent damage to the vending machines that is caused by exposure to outdoor light. In addition, coin mechanisms are now made with electronic components which automatically disconnect as soon as they come into contact with any liquid substance.

Recreational sites
Outdoor recreational sites, such as theme parks, water parks and campgrounds, have become more accepting of vending as a way to capture sales. These are locations that can be highly profitable for your Planet Antares vending business because vending machines have proven to be an effective remedy for long lines at concession stands.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Investing in GPS for your Vending Business

Vending operators have been investing in new technologies such as cashless vending or state of the art vending equipment. Others are also investing in satellite based fleet monitoring, known as Global Positioning System. This is one technology that can prove to be very useful for your Planet Antares vending business. It would be especially useful if you have a large Planet Antares vending business.

GPS technology can provide you with current information on driver and vehicle activity such as service stops and variations in routes. If you are considering a GPS system for your vending business, it is important that you first consider whether it is worth investing in. There is no need for you to invest in technology that will cost you more than you make. The GPS system has to be financially beneficial for your vending business.

A GPS system consists of two main types, namely “active” and “passive.” When it comes to the active system, data is presented via cellular telemetry to the main office or to a website where the subscribing company can view its fleet activity in real time. In passive system, the data is stored for retrieval and uploaded to the main fleet computer once the vehicle returns. There is also a two way tracking system that utilizes low orbit satellites that will allow communication between you and the drivers.

The vending truck that you use for your Planet Antares vending business uses fuel to move from one point to another. If the vehicle is being misused in anyway, the GPS technology can help you to monitor the company vehicle movement to make sure that it is not being misused. This will contribute greatly to your vending business. It will also allow for more efficient routing by letting the managers to know how fast the vehicle is traveling so that no fuel is wasted on excessive speeding.

Some of the benefits for this system are faster response time, improved customer service, cost savings, increased reliability, improved employee accountability, decreased vehicle wear and tear and increased revenue for your Planet Antares vending business.

The upfront cost for investing in the GPS system may be quite high but it is worth investing in, since it can increase revenue for your vending business. The system will also allow you to meet the needs of your customers, which is very important for the successful running of your business. If you are able to earn high profits in your vending business, it means that you can save more money, which in turn will make you more financially secure.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Category Management Improves Route Productivity

Decades ago, vending operators that used to run nine-column candy machines, allocated four or five of those columns to best selling branded confections that would be offered in every location. The remaining slots were left available for items that are chosen by the route driver to meet particular location preferences. Vending warehouses inventoried about 15 products, stock keeping units (SKUs) to give those drivers a good variety of options.

The advent of glass front multi product machines like Planet Antares vending machines has led to a tenfold increase in the SKUs that an operator must warehouse. This has made it difficult for route drivers to remember and act upon specific location preferences.

Category management is a technique that was developed by the retail industry to take advantage of the continual flow of information from electronic cash registers to central computers. As the vending industry installs more sophisticated tools for collecting line item sales data from each machine in the field, these systems generate a similar flow of accurate sales data that can be applied to maximize the sales volume of your Planet Antares vending machine.

Category management will allow you to make periodic adjustments to menus in your Planet Antares vending machines, by replacing the slowest moving items with others that sell better. This technology also permits rationalizing inventories and reduction of total number of SKUs in the warehouse which would result in increase purchase efficiency and inventory turns.

The snacks and beverages in your Planet Antares vending machine can be analyzed into a manageable number of categories. Each location will include a certain percentage of purchases of each category. This means that you would need to make sure that items from each category are made available. The task of category management is to determine the relative popularity of categories and the number of items that are offered within each category. You can then adjust the sizes of the categories accordingly, depending on your sales.

The time is right for vending operators to get on board and reap the rewards of category management increased sales from an efficient variety in every machine. With this system, there will also be a dramatic reduction in potential sales lost because a product is out of stock and there will also be increased room in machines for the fast moving items.