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Finding the best location to put your ice cream vending machine could mean the success or failure of your business. Even the most innovative ice cream vending machine would not do well at all, no matter how state of the art, if there’s nobody to walk by it to begin with. When starting a business with your own automatic retail equipment, the single most important decision you have is equipment location.
Understanding Your Target Audience and Foot Traffic
First, the basis of successful placement of any vending machine, knowledge of who your customer is, and where it is. Ice cream is an impulse product, people don’t typically shop for ice cream three hours in advance. A successful machine should be placed at the points of potential customer presence.
There’s the traditional route of the high foot traffic environment. High traffic areas such as shopping malls, cinemas, and amusement parks can give visitors that are already in a leisure state of mind and can increase the opportunity of making a impulsive buy. The obvious alternative, schools and universities have guaranteed foot traffic all year round
When inspecting sites, monitor foot traffic at different times of day and day of week. A site that's hopping on weekends could be deserted on a Monday morning. You'll want even foot traffic instead of bursts when your ice cream vending machine is up and running all the time.
Assessing Site Accessibility and Infrastructure
When it comes to your machine's location, even a great location that’s hard to get to will be of little use and may result in a lower sale rate. Think about how customers will access your machine. Is there enough room around the machine to ensure long queues don’t block access ways? Can it be easily seen from far off or tucked away in a side alleyway?
Next on the list of important aspects is the power source. Power supplies can be very important when choosing an ice cream vending machine, as most require a constant and stable source of electricity to run your equipment, such as your freezer temperatures. Most machines, as standard in the vending industry require 220V with appropriate amperage. Before deciding on a location be sure it is able to support your vending machine’s power needs. Our machines are compatible with both 220V and 110V power supplies, so they can be used directly in regions with 110V power without the need for a transformer.
Weather conditions are an important consideration when setting up your outdoor machine. Although our machines are weather resistant, if placed in an overly sunny or extremely hot area our machines could become to overheat and affect product quality. If you wish to get maximum years out of our machines, placement in covered location or inside would usually be recommended.
Evaluating Competition and Market Saturation
When choosing a spot for your machine, look for ice cream competition. Even if there's tons of foot traffic in a spot, if there are three ice cream shops (or other vendors) around the corner from it, then the ice cream you make could be shared by many.
Identify markets with unmet demand in areas such as, Office building without food service or dessert facilities, Hospitals, with food service limited to visiting hours. Public transit centers.
Also, think about other machines! Smart retail machines work well when grouped together where people have many options. Perhaps your ice cream machines could be located in the same space as some coffee machines or some machines with candy or chips, a mini "refreshment center".
Considering Operational Efficiency and Maintenance Access
Aside from accommodating customers, the location should also work well for you. To ensure that your machine continues to run efficiently, it will need consistent stocking and maintenance. Are you able to reach the site quickly in order to replenish the machine ingredients and retrieve your earnings? Will you be able to perform machine inspections and cleaning without interfering with any other on site operations?
A machine’s smart design can make a big impact for a vending business. Sunzee’s machines have embedded systems which enable tracking sales, managing stock and monitoring machine performance via mobile apps, helping vendors to ensure they can optimize inventory for faster refills and catch problems before customers ever notice.
One operator has made vending machines work well at entirely remote sites with no staff present at the machine at all. This is often because it is operating at a business park or student accommodation block where there is a defined, regular user base.
Summary
Where you put your ice cream vending machine is key, consider foot traffic, ease of access, potential competition and practicality. In the expanding world of smart retail kiosks there are opportunities to create your own lucrative business if you are prepared to invest your time wisely into location scouting . With Sunzee intelligent ice cream vending machines featuring remote management and rapid 30 second service you can place your unit in an ideal position to turn an excellent profit.
