A vending route is the round you make to visit your machines, restock them and collect the money. With two machines, you do it without thinking. With ten, the difference between a well-planned route and an improvised one is hours a week, extra kilometers and empty slots nobody notices. Planning it well is one of the few things that improves profitability without spending a euro.
In this guide we explain how to group the machines by area and day, in what order to visit them, how to prepare the load before leaving, what to do at each stop, how to handle the money, and how to know how much each visit costs you.
Group the machines by area and day
Put all the machines on a map and group them into areas you can cover in a morning or an afternoon. Then assign fixed days to each area. When deciding, keep in mind:
- Each location’s hours: an office closes on weekends; a gym has its busiest hours in the afternoon; a school has holidays.
- When you can enter without getting in the way: whatever you agreed with the location.
- Where to park and how much you have to carry on foot.
- What each machine sells: the ones that empty faster need more visit days (we explain this in our guide on how often to restock a vending machine).
Fixed days have another advantage: the location knows when you’re coming, and you can prepare the load the day before.
The order within the day
- First, fresh products and refrigerated machines, so the product spends as little time as possible in the vehicle.
- Then, the ones with time restrictions: those that close earlier or where you can only enter at certain hours.
- The rest, by proximity, on a route that doesn’t make you double back.
- Finish near the warehouse, or where you unload and count the money.
Preparing the load before leaving
The most expensive mistake on a route is arriving at a machine without what it needs, or loading too much and coming back with a full vehicle. The solution is a load list for each machine, prepared before leaving:
- Check what sold in each slot since the last visit, or what usually sells in that time.
- Calculate what’s missing to fill each slot to capacity.
- Add up by product what all the machines for the day need, and load that.
- Take first what expires sooner from the warehouse.
Also bring change for the coin mechanisms, bags for the money, the cleaning kit, and the basics to clear a jam. You can find a more detailed explanation, with a template, in our guide to the vending load list.
What to do at each stop
- Note what is left in each slot before restocking. That’s what will tell you how much has sold. If you restock first, that data is lost.
- Remove expired items or items that will expire before the next visit, and record them.
- Restock, putting the new items behind and the ones that expire sooner in front.
- Record what you add in each slot.
- Check that it works: prices, coin mechanism, card reader, temperature.
- Collect the money, if it’s due on this visit.
- Clean the glass and the area around the machine.
- Note any issues: a jam, a complaint from the location, a product they ask for.
It’s a long list, but with practice it only takes a few minutes. The important thing is to always do it in the same order.
Money on the route
- One bag per machine, with its name and date. Don’t mix takings or combine them with change.
- Count in the warehouse, not in the vehicle, and record each machine’s amount.
- Compare what was collected with what was sold. If money is missing, you’ll see it right away and know which machine it came from. We explain this in our guide to reconciling the cash from a vending machine.
- From time to time, change the hours when you collect the money, and don’t leave it visible in the vehicle.
How much each visit costs
Each visit costs time and vehicle use, even if you don’t pay for it out of pocket at that moment. Calculate it like this:
- The vehicle: the detour kilometers multiplied by your vehicle’s cost per kilometer (fuel, maintenance, insurance), plus parking.
- The time: the minutes spent going and restocking, multiplied by what an hour of your time is worth, or an hour of whoever does the route.
An example with made-up figures: a machine that takes 40 minutes between detour and restocking, with €6 in vehicle cost and an hourly rate of €15, costs €16 per visit. If you visit it every week, that’s about €64 a month. If that machine brings in €60 a month before visits, it loses money: you need to visit less often, change the assortment, or remove it.
Visits are one more line in each machine’s figures. The full calculation is in our guide to vending machine profitability.
Review the route every few months
- Machines that don’t pay for their visits: visit less often, improve the assortment, renegotiate with the location, or remove them.
- Machines that empty before your visit: more capacity for the best-selling items or one more visit day.
- Machines you find almost full: you can go less often.
- Seasonality: in summer, more cold drinks sell; in August, offices empty out.
- New locations: a machine near others you already visit costs very little to add; one far away may never pay for itself.
A route with good locations, well organized and with data for each machine is also the most valuable thing if you ever want to sell it. We explain this in our guide to buying a vending business, or selling one.
If someone else does the route
- Give them the prepared load list and the order of stops.
- Have them record each visit the same way you do: what’s left, what they add, what expired, and what was removed.
- Let them see only what they need: the machines and what needs to be loaded, not what you pay each location.
- Reconcile each collection with what was sold; it protects you both.
Common mistakes
- Visiting all machines with the same frequency, regardless of what they sell.
- Leaving without a load list and discovering what was missing at the machine.
- Restocking before noting what was left: then you don’t know what sold.
- Mixing takings from several machines in the same bag.
- Not counting time in the cost of visits.
- Accepting a faraway location without calculating what its visits will cost.
The route organized from your phone, with Repónlo
Repónlo (our own product) is an app for vending operators who don’t have telemetry. Before you set off, it tells you what to load for the day’s machines; at each stop you note what is left and what you add, and the sales are worked out automatically. It sorts the machines by urgency and tells you how full you find each one when you arrive, whether you visit it too often or not often enough, how long each visit takes and what each machine makes. If someone else does the route, they see the machines and the load, but not what you pay each location. It works in your phone’s browser, with nothing to install. It is free forever for one machine, with all features. With more machines, from €19 a month, VAT not included, for up to five, with no commitment. The app is available in English.
Frequently asked questions
What is a vending route?
The round you make to visit your machines, restock them and collect the money. When a business is bought or sold, the route means the set of machines with their locations.
How many machines can you service in a day?
It depends on the distance between them, how much needs restocking, and access to each location. Measure how long you spend at each stop over a few weeks and plan from that, not from a general figure.
How often should each machine be visited?
Before the best-selling slot empties or what it contains expires, and not so soon that you find it almost full. We explain this in our guide on how often to restock a vending machine.
How do I know what I need to load before leaving?
With a load list: what sold in each slot since the last visit, or what usually sells in that time, added up by product for the machines that day.
Do you have to collect the money at every visit?
Not necessarily. You can collect it every two or three visits, but always with one bag per machine and comparing it with what was sold.
How much does it cost to visit a machine?
The detour kilometers multiplied by what each kilometer costs you, plus parking and the time spent going and restocking. Add it to each machine’s figures every month.
Conclusion
A good vending route is prepared before leaving: machines grouped by area and day, a load list for each one, and a stop order that doesn’t make you backtrack. At each stop, you note first and restock afterwards. And every few months, with the data in front of you, adjust: fewer visits where they are not needed, more space where it runs short, and out with the machines that don’t pay for their visits.
Useful links
- Vending load list: what to put in the van before you set off.
- How often to restock a vending machine: the frequency for each machine.
- Reconciling the cash from a vending machine: what you collected against what was sold.
- Vending machine profitability: how much one really makes: visits in the numbers.
- Vending management software: what it should do and how to choose it.
