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Work At Home Business Opportunities That Can Be Better Than An Online Business

For obvious reasons, many people strive to develop a home business. The thought of having a more flexible schedule that allows the business owner to spend more quality time with his or her family is a worthwhile goal that many seek to achieve.

The growth of the Internet has delivered the greatest hope for most people who seek out their own home business. But the truth of the matter is that most people who start an online business will fail. The Small Business Administration suggested the 95% of all online businesses fail. That is a number that makes the potential of creating a successful online business a very remote possibility.

Contrast that with the SBA numbers for a normal brick-and-mortar small business. The Small Business Administration says that 65% of ordinary small businesses fail within five years.

There is one industry that is perfect for the small business startup that delivers a much brighter outlook on the business survival front. According to the Department of Commerce, only 5% of vending machine businesses fail.

Against the 95% of online business failures and the 65% of offline small business failures, the 5% failure rate in the vending machine industry shows that this is one of the safest, if not the safest bet in home-based business opportunities.

Getting Into The Vending Industry

Getting started is as simple as buying machines and product, then getting machines placed in locations where people will use them.

The product range in this industry is phenomenal. This industry got its start in 1926 with cigarette vending machines. Since, the industry has moved into soft drinks, water, milk, energy drinks, snacks, energy foods, sandwiches, newspapers, stamps and more.

While it might make sense to get started in this industry with pop machines or snack machines, one has to find a place where the machines will be accepted. New apartment complexes and shopping centers make the most sense for getting soft drink vending machines placed, but depending on where one lives, the waiting time might be lengthy.

For many who are looking to get into this industry, it might make more sense to target product lines that no one else is serving and to get those machines placed where others might already have drink vending or snack vending machines.

As with any business model, the trick to gaining early success is to find a niche that is being under served and exploit that niche to the fullest extent possible.

Work-At-Home Explained

It is true that you will not be setting up your vending machines in your back yard, but for all intent purposes, a vending business can be operated as a home business.

Vending machines will be placed at various locations, but one can store additional product in the garage or a spare room in the house. All other business processes can be handled from a home office.

Keeping the books, ordering new product, and processing bank deposits can all be done from a home office. Product storage can be done at home or even in a rented storage unit.

Either way, most vending machine business operators only leave their home to get new product, deliver products to their machines, and to go to the bank to make bank deposits. On occasion a vendor may also leave the office to meet with property owners to arrange new locations for their vending machines, but frequently, a lot of that process can be handled over the telephone.

Commitments To The Business

The time away from home office for business operations will depend entirely upon how many machines the business owner has in the field and how many transactions those machines are doing on a regular basis. For many small business owners in the vending industry, the average time away from home amounts to only a few hours a day.

Most people who enter into this market find that they can make a decent living working only a few hours per week. As with any other home-based business or otherwise, the amount of money that can be earned from the process is directly proportional to what one puts into the business.

Getting Started

Small business owners tend to start their businesses on a part-time basis. In fact, according to the Vending Connection website, 70% of new vending operators work their startup business in the evenings and on the weekends. 85% of those vendors who work their business part-time in the evenings and on the weekend will go full-time within two years.

Don't worry if you are not getting started in soft drinks and snacks right away. Getting started is the most important thing to do, and then as your business develops cash flow and resources, you can then expand into the more competitive markets such as soft drinks.

As a new vending business owner, it is important to be able to identify under served niche markets and then to arrange your entrance into those markets.

One of the newest products that is starting to attract a lot of attention is Buzz Bites(r) Chocolate Energy Chews. The size of a coffee machine, the Buzz Bites(r) vending machines are designed to sit on the counter right next to the coffee machine. But once consumers learn that the Buzz Bites(r) product offers more energy than a cup of coffee, sales of the Buzz Bites(r) grow to the point that nearly half of all coffee-consumers will stop using coffee to get that energy boost.

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Lou Gubitosa is the owner of www.VendingSystems.com



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