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over his service area from greater Seattle, WA to central Oregon and in between operating the same as other operations. "There are no back doors here," he joked about his employees using the same systems, reports and technical support number as the rest of the country including paying the same service fees as everyone else. As time went on, the revenue numbers truly put in perspective for Brinton the importance of diversi- fying his operation. "It took me 35 years to develop 30 percent of my business revenue [vending, OCS and used equipment] and only 5 years to develop 70 percent — micro market sales," explained Brinton. Despite being a smaller percentage, he hasn't seen vending shrink that much. There is some attrition when adding micro markets, but most of his micro mar- kets were and continue to be new workplaces that did not have vending or transitioned from operators who did not endorse the micro market con- cept early on. "In the past, work environments have shut out vending, but were not big enough for a cafeteria," said Brinton. Evergreen Vending was able to meet the needs of these cus- tomers by offering micro markets under Avanti Markets Northwest. Brinton continues to add about 150 micro markets a year. Location land grab Brinton frst went after locations he felt were low hanging fruit. They either weren't being serviced at all or adequately served by vending. The type of workers, blue collar ver- sus white collar, was not one of his main considerations as he had seen the micro market concept work with multiple types of locations. The num - ber of employees and existing service were the main drivers. Brinton believes that right now is an important time for the micro market division of his company, and The fee tradeoff While Brinton is also the president of Avanti Markets Corporate, the nationwide supplier of Avanti micro markets, the micro market side of his operation has the same proftability model as any operator. "My staff call the same support line number and I still pay service fees," said Brinton. Ongoing service fees are a hurdle Brinton hears from many operators. He believes that they are comparable to some of the fees in vending that get overlooked because operators are so used to them. "First, vending machine credit card fees are higher than micro markets," indicated Brinton. Also, taxes are more transparent for the customer, saving some money per transaction. For example, in Washington there is a high sales tax, which needs to be added into the price of vending items while balancing the price point customers will actually pay. In Oregon there is a bottle deposit that must be paid. In micro markets, both those taxes are added in at the kiosk, just like other retail environments, so the price of the product doesn't have to be adjusted. Add to this the cost of vending management systems, service calls, as well as cash shortages or product spoilage for vending machines compared to micro markets, and the money is pretty comparable in Brinton's estimation. Commissions are another large cost area for vending that is eliminated (or should be eliminated) with micro markets, according to Brinton. Brinton's micro markets carry both branded food and private label. 14 Automatic Merchandiser VendingMarketWatch.com December 2015 O P E R A T I O N P R O F I L E