Vending Tubz products nearly sent me bankrupt.
I vended Tubz sweets and Pringles for 18 months and my experience suggests you need to seriously consider what you need financially before investing in this franchise and calculate the actual net profit that each tower or machine will deliver and approx. how often.
Otherwise, you can end up in serious debt with next to no income. If you want to do it full time and need an above average salary, you're going to need at least 150 sweets / toys / Pringles towers etc. all selling out at least once per month. For example, a sweets tower holds 81 tubs of sweets costing £1 each to the public.
The sweets wholesale between 30 p and 45 p + VAT (which you can't claim back because you can't charge VAT). After all costs including stock, delivery, fuel, car depreciation, the compulsory 20% commission paid to the venue manager on every visit and tax (if you ever breach the threshold that is) - a sold out tower delivers a maximum of approx. £30 maximum with a mix of premium and cheaper sweets.
And trust me, if you use your personal car, get ready for constant bills for tyres, suspension, servicing and plenty of other costly wear and tear due to all the mileage and weight in the car. You need a van that you're not bothered about the mileage, wear and tear.
Plus there's all the faffing around counting pound coins and having to get them changed and physically paid into a bank etc.
I had approx. 70 sweets towers and 10 Pringles towers across 68 sites (an average site sold out every 3-4 weeks) and was working 6-7 days a week and did around 20,000 miles working mainly in the West Midlands and I was permanently knackered. The income after all costs was barely enough to pay essential household bills. I had to take a long mortgage break to remain solvent.
Looking back, there was no need to spend well over £5,000 on the first-tier franchised 10 x sweets tower and stock 'bundle'. If you know the right people, you can buy good quality second hand towers for £100 - far cheaper than the £312 Tubz charge for a brand new sweets tower, plus you can still order stock from Tubz without being a licensed franchisee.
I'm afraid my experience (and the experience of several of my vending colleagues) of the Tubz company itself is dismal. Basically they're only interested when you're spending large sums of money with them on stock and machines. If there's a fault with a machine or a technical problem, they don't want to know. There are NO technical people to talk to at Tubz HQ, the account managers just refer you to some old DIY videos on the Tubz website.
If a tub gets stuck in the barrel, it often means taking the tower segments apart and refilling it with stock on site - which takes up valuable time and effort, plus it's inconvenient in a packed pub or venue.
Tubz HQ offers no training e.g. business development, marketing, optimising sales, site finding or customer service skills, they just send you a pallet full of towers and stock, tell you where to site them and leave the rest up to you. They don't even give you a business card or promotional flyer, I had to ask for them to be designed!
Previously I worked in marketing for 25 years, including for corporate and SME organisations and I've never come across a company that offers so little added value to its customers (i.e. its franchisees) particularly as several vendors spend thousands of pounds with Tubz every month.
I don't blame the account managers, the lack of added value and pure focus on sales and profit comes from the top. The reason they can operate like this is because they have ONE very small UK competitor with a poor brand image i.e. Tubz is pretty much the only game in town and they don't half capitalise on it! Avoid, unless you don't mind being a busy fool and spending every penny you have!
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