What is really worthwhile? - The best products for your vending machine.

It's already obvious - if you fill your vending machine exclusively with unattractive products, sales will be limited. It doesn't matter how good your location is or how good your marketing measures are to increase awareness of your vending machine. This means that you should invest just as much effort and time in defining your product range as you do in considering the optimal location for the vending machine.

Product selection should never be considered in isolation, as it is closely linked to the location of the vending machine. Let me explain this with an example: If you place a vending machine full of sweets and soft drinks in front of a gym, your vending machine will most likely not perform too well as most gym visitors are looking for a healthy and balanced diet. However, if you place the same vending machine near a school, the vending machine will boom. The keyword here is: target group.

1. Snacks and drinks: They are the classic. When we think of vending machines, we automatically think of vending machines filled with snacks and drinks. They work almost everywhere, but are already very widespread and compete with supermarkets, for example.
2. Healthy products: People are more health-conscious than ever and the awareness of eating a healthy and balanced diet continues to grow. This makes healthy products in vending machines an attractive alternative to conventional snacks and drinks. Oat bars, salads or bowls in bowls, protein bars, nut mixes, fruit, vegetables, yogurt or smoothies are particularly suitable. You should make sure to offer high-quality products that are clearly recognizable as healthy and have the appropriate seals, such as the organic seal.
3. Regional products: This product category is particularly suitable for farmers, butchers, fishermen or other groups of people who produce their own products. Small, unmanned wooden huts, which are operated on a trust basis, can be seen again and again on the roadside or near farms. In other words, everyone has access and can take as much as they want, trusting that the appropriate amount will be deposited in a till. But as the saying goes? Trust is good, control is better. Vending machines are an attractive alternative to these huts.
4. Non-food products: Non-food products such as batteries, charging cables, headache tablets or other items that you often don't have with you when you need them most are also a great option for filling a vending machine. However, we would rather see such products as a supplement to food products. Unless you operate a highly specialized vending machine (e.g. you are a pharmacist and set up the vending machine in front of your pharmacy and fill it exclusively with medicines or a dedicated secret-pack vending machine), a combination of food and non-food products is the way to go.

The categories and products described above are all standard products that many vending machine operators already use as their product range. You can also be very successful with these products, but if you really want to stand out from other vending machines and serve a gap in the market, it can be worth thinking outside the box. The following product categories are a small excerpt of what you can also fill vending machines with:

1. Flowers: Flowers are a popular souvenir or gift for a loved one. A resourceful vending machine operator has decided to set up a vending machine in the pedestrian zone of a large city. The vending machine is very, very well received and is likely to generate high sales. This may be due to the fact that flower vending machines are hardly or not at all established in the vending machine landscape in Germany.
2. Secret Packs: Secret Packs are a trend that we have already written our own blog post about, in which we go into more detail about the trend and explain what this cryptic term means(to the blog post). Many of our customers are successfully taking advantage of this trend.
3. Grave candles: grave candles? That's right, grave candles. We couldn't believe it ourselves at first, but in Austria it seems to be the absolute hit. Set up near a cemetery, relatives and visitors to the cemetery like to use these machines.

There is no general answer as to which of the above ideas is the best and most profitable. Basically, however, the higher the margin (sales price - purchase price), the higher the profitability and therefore your profit.

For products such as snacks and drinks, where there are many suppliers, the margin is often lower because the price pressure is higher. On the other hand, higher prices can be charged for products with few suppliers, as there is less competition and price competition is lower.

The right product selection and well thought-out filling are crucial for the success of your vending machine. By knowing the needs of your target group and incorporating trends such as healthy snacks or exotic options, you can significantly increase the appeal of your vending machine.