Is a 24/7 vending center a lucrative idea?

[IHaveRespawned]

Assuming a community to open one up has a low crime rate that is.

Where I live, there are no longer 24 hour grocery stores. Many convenient stores also close at midnight. The only 24 hour places are travel stops and pharmacies, like Walgreens and CVS, but even their 24 hour stores are dwindling.

I thought about making my own vending machines with mini single-item cabinets that open, controlled by strong magnetic locks, and perhaps with a touch interface. An entire store someone can walk into, under surveillance with walls lined with the machines. From candy to crackers to otc meds, first aid, toiletries and beyond.

Yes

No

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[AI Opinion]

A 24/7 vending center can be lucrative, but only with careful planning and tight cost control 💡

Rent, electricity, machine maintenance, payment processing fees, restocking labor and shrinkage all eat into profits. You need high foot traffic, limited competition at night and products with strong margins, like snacks, drinks and basic toiletries.

Placement near hospitals, campuses, nightlife or transit hubs tends to work best. Your smart-lock cabinet idea adds novelty, but start simple, validate demand, then scale the tech.

[msc545]

I once owned a company that had about 12,000 payphones. These are essentially vending machines, although what they vend is just communication as opposed to an actual product. However, I will tell you from hard experience that the breakdowns and the resulting maintenance are incredibly expensive and tedious. You'll have to hire a lot of people to do this, and you will have labor trouble as a result. Also, the vandalism is unbelievable. I would estimate that about 20% of our phones were down and not functional at any given time as a result of vandalism. Keep in mind that there is no real product being vended that could have been stolen, and yet we still had this much vandalism. You will have more, I suspect. It will cost you a lot of money. If you plan to install the vending machines in stores or really wherever the people that actually work on that property or the people that are leasing that property are going to want part of the money you make. There's no getting around this. You will also have competition from other vending machines. Again, no getting around this. I would strongly suggest you not do this. It's not worth it.

[slatyb]

How do imagine you will protect the vending machine from vandalism and theft?