Once you find locations along your vending machine route, you will need to make a proposal to the property owners for usage of their business space. They may plan on charging you a hefty percentage of the gross monthly take. This percentage could push the 30% mark. That would drastically reduce your return on investment, depending on the number of machines you have.

One option you have at your disposal is to affiliate your vending business with a charity. You would be helping others and therefore, the property owner may be persuaded to help you along this endeavor as well. This is optimal, as you would not have to count the coins and pay out “X” percentage per month to the property owner but you would be able to make a small ($1.00 per machine/mo) donation to the charity you affiliate yourself with.

To start, you will have to contact a charity of your choice and see if they currently offer a vending machine outreach program. If they do not, you could try to set up a recurring donation agreement with them. The agreement should consist of how much you plan to donate, whether it be “X” amount per gumball machine or one lump sum, when you plan to make the donations, etc… Once that is agreed upon, you should offer them space on your gumball machines in which they can place their stickers to advertise their charity. Make sure you receive documentation of your affiliation agreement as this will help with the property owner and your agreement with them.

Affiliating yourself with a charity is a fantastic way to not only make donations to your favorite charity, but could help out your bottom line as well. Two good things at the same time!