How to Get the Most Out Of a Vending Machine in Orlando

Posted by Jason Norman on January 26th, 2021

Vending machines require a lot of skill to be made profitable. The average Joe might look at a vending machine and think, well, those must be easy to handle, aside from the frequent trips to restock the inventory and retrieve the money. Well, once you’ve got a good location, that may be the case, but it takes a lot of skill to maximize location, just as is the case with any sort of retail business.

 “Location, location, location!” That’s the mantra for everyone in the entertainment, retail and service industry. So, how can you get the most out of a vending machine in Orlando? What about Orlando, exactly, should you consider when choosing both your inventory, and your location?

First of all, let’s emphasize now that beverages are going to be the most profitable thing for you, unless you’re in a hotel or in the theme parks themselves. It’s very hot and humid in Florida, even in the winter, during the day, it gets rather warm. People who have been sweating a little bit in the Florida heat, will see the crisp, refreshing advertisement for a cold beverage, and they will often impulse buy it in attempts to relieve their discomfort. This goes for tourists and locals alike, and I can vouch for the latter, absolutely.

Appealing to Tourists

If you want your Orlando vending machine to appeal to tourists, you need to offer significant diversity, as you’re marketing to people from around the world. You can approach this in one of two ways, by offering a wide selection of drinks that appeal to people from various parts of the world, or focusing very narrowly on brands and particular flavors of drink that are popular across the globe, such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi and several of their other products.

If you want to appeal to tourists, though, you need to be near the theme parks, and in and around hotels and the greater Orlando area. You can’t focus on downtown Orlando, as the tourist people very rarely venture into downtown Orlando. You have to reach out to places like Lake Nona, Kissimmee, St. Cloud, etc. for this. You should definitely reach out to Lake Nona, as you also run a chance of picking up some of that college student traffic due to the campus located there.

Appealing to Locals

For locals, you can definitely spread into other areas, and approach the downtown area as well. The demographics in Orlando are primarily Caucasians, African-Americans and Hispanic people. So, a general range of classic American drinks and snacks is definitely a safe bet as a result.

However, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that setting up vending machines that offered Latin drinks or snacks would be a very profitable thing in the Orlando area. The large Latin population there would relish the opportunity to conveniently by their favorite drink or snack from their nation of origin from a vending machine. It would also be a rather nice gesture, with their culture being celebrated that openly and that conveniently.

So, running a vending machine Orlando is common sense, if you pay close attention to this sort of advice, and bare your demographics and location in mind.