SMALL
OP
ADVICE AND KNOW-HOW TAILORED TO THE 1 TO 4 ROUTE OPERATION
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A well-structured service card ensures product sales match money collected.
How to maintain
inventory and
pricing controls
By Dominic Finelli, Contributing Editor
Focusing on asset management is a must, even if the
small vending operation isn't yet ready to invest in
vending management software.
I
have always believed that there
is no right or wrong way to
operate a vending company,
but only whatever way works
for each particular operation.
However, after more than 40 years of
running my own vending company,
I have found there are a number of
things that everyone should do to
make their company successful. One
of the most important aspects to success is to have inventory controls in
the stockroom, in the route trucks
and in the vending machines. Moni18
Automatic Merchandiser
toring these areas allows operators to
control waste, cash and the number
of SKUs they carry.
Technology is not a one size fits all
We have been bombarded in recent
years with all kinds of new technology to help us achieve proper inventory, reduce waste and create cash
accountability, but there are vendors
who can't afford the upgrades or have
volumes half a million or less, which
might not warrant the investment.
This article is for them.
VendingMarketWatch.com
February 2013
If an operator is planning to continually grow his or her business,
then technology is great, and he or she
should get on board now and make
handhelds, machine monitoring and
other innovations part of the strategy for growth. For those finding it
hard to grow, or who can't afford to
incorporate all the new technology
yet, it is still possible to have very
tight controls of inventory and cash
by doing some very basic things.
How to start asset management
The first thing an operator needs to
do is to take inventory of the stock
room every week, on the same day, by
product and price point. Make sure
the route drivers are charged with the
product they take out of the stockroom on a daily basis by product price
point. Operators should also make
every route driver take inventory of
the product they have on their trucks
on a weekly basis, on the same day
as the stockroom, also by price point.
Understanding price points
What do I mean when I say 'by price
point'? Start by taking a look at the
vending product list. Let's say there
are five different price points. For
example, all gum and mints are one
price, all candy (and I would include