Firewood vending

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woodshax

ArboristSite Operative
Joined
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Messages
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Location
Texas
OK guys,

Tear this apart. I welcome all questions and criticisms.

Attached are a couple of pictures of one of five of our first production model of Firewood Vending Machines. In addition to these 5, we have 4 of our prototypes out at Texas State parks in north Texas. I owe the state parks another 20 machines in our area who want them and we are making them as fast as we can.

This is a modular system that can have as many 8 compartment modules as required....we have found that given available space, that a 6 module system is about as large at it should go and if there is more demand, we just place another machine at another location within the park. Our contracts with Texas Parks and Wildlife require us to give 10% of gross sales (before tax) to the parks every month. We make, set, and maintain the machines, and provide product for all the machines.

The production models have outdoor rated touch screens and a 3G cell phone based telemetry system that goes directly to the bank for credit card/ debit card verification and sales...it takes all forms of credit and debit along with apple pay, android pay, contactless, etc.....NO CASH (and in over a year we have had no vandalism).

It is very simple...make a selection....swipe your card and a door opens up...they take the product and shut the door...that compartment will not vend again until we refill.



In addition to firewood (1 cuft or 2 cuft bag, although you can't fit 2 cuft of wood in a 2cuft bag) we sell cases of water, charcoal, wood chips for smoking, small covered grills, and anything else that campers are interested in and do not want to leave the camp ground to purchase.

We have real time sales data through the credit card processing company so we know when we need to go and restock.

So we are selling firewood for about $1200 a cord. In April (spring break month) we sold over $4,000 in firewood in four machines at three small state parks.

Let me know what you think....after 25 years in the Army I have pretty tough skin
thumbnail_IMG_20160523_170908134.jpg thumbnail_IMG_20160523_170841746.jpg
 
Exectly....fastenal is already doing that for work sites...they are using an upgraded version of candy and snack machine
 
Get a patent, if possible. Some middle school kid just patented his first-aid kit vending machine idea (you may soon see one in your state parks next to your firewood machines) and he just declined selling the patent for $30 million. Granted, he can put these in more places than firewood, but there're are lots of public and private campgrounds out there.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/10/technology/recmed-taylor-rosenthal-techcrunch-disrupt/
 
Do you sell only one type of wood, or both hard and soft? If only one, then you may want to experiment with both, see which sells best and/or gives the best profit margin.
 
Get a patent, if possible. Some middle school kid just patented his first-aid kit vending machine idea (you may soon see one in your state parks next to your firewood machines) and he just declined selling the patent for $30 million. Granted, he can put these in more places than firewood, but there're are lots of public and private campgrounds out there.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/10/technology/recmed-taylor-rosenthal-techcrunch-disrupt/


Awesome! The kid wants to go to college - WHY?!?!? He's already got his foot in the door in a big way. He just bypassed college, IMHO.



Do you sell only one type of wood, or both hard and soft? If only one, then you may want to experiment with both, see which sells best and/or gives the best profit margin.

I would think campfire wood makes no difference. People will burn any old junk. They want cheap, not quality for roasting their s'mores. Just as long as it's dry.
 
The bundles are about $12 each? I sell them here for $5 each, or 5 for $20. I suppose location is everything though, if you are already at the campground and forget to bring wood it's either buy the overpriced wood or drive into town.
I have a local campground that buys my bundles and they split them in half and sell them for $10 each, so basically $20 a bundle. I guess they sell

I looked into the vending machines and the cost was just too high for the volume I move at the price I sell them at.

I have had a "self serve" where people just take the bundles and put cash in a container and that worked out well. Never had anyone steal from it, if anything they put in extra $$.
 
We sell mostly oak with some pecan. Over priced....is up for debate....if someone buys your product and then sells it for twice as much, your product might be under priced. The return on investment on a 4 module machine in a State park with at least 50 campsites is 100% in less than a year. So, it is Memorial day weekend but Texas thunderstorms have dampened the demand a bit. For Friday and Saturday with 8 machines we are at $1400 in sales (one camp ground is closed due to flooding).....raining now but should clear up soon.
 
Yes, we have 2 patents on it and the 4 module machine would retail for $8900 plus shipping but we are about 6 months away from outside sales so that I can fill the need for Texas parks
 
Good luck, it looks clean, simple, and fulfills a "want" if not a need. Then again, rarely do people need to camp.
On a typical restock visit, do you do any clean up? Leaf blower or vacuum cleaner. I like the idea. Hope you are still posting when you turn your first $Mil.
 
We sell mostly oak with some pecan. Over priced....is up for debate....if someone buys your product and then sells it for twice as much, your product might be under priced.

Like I mentioned it's either buy the overpriced wood or drive into town. I don't think they sell much, I've only sold them maybe 50 bundles in the last 2 years.
Going rate locally (most every gas station and grocery stock sells them) is about $5 for 1 cu ft bundles.

I'd consider a vending machine if it were in the 2-3k area. Much over that just wouldn't be a smart buy for me.
 
Valleywood, 2 to 3k won't get you much especially anything with electronics on it. I assume the 4 module unit is 16 doors? Gotta be is a real good location for that payback. Your wood supply would have to be close too and a student with truck to fill the doors, it would start to add up quick too.

I will have over $1000 in this by the time it's done and the trailer and tires are used.
IMG_20160521_105540.jpg
 
I had typed more explaining but I guess it didn't load my edit.

Figure if I bought the vending machine listed in this thread, I'd be into it about $10k or so.

I've had a "self serve" stand for a few years. Cost me maybe $150 to build. Haven't had any bundles stolen. Often end up with more cash than bundles sold even, such as $60 for 10 bundles.

The vender machine is neat but the price point certainly requires a very high volume area (or high cost) high theft area that wouldn't otherwise be manned.

John's Welding came out with a similar setup about a year ago. I had looked into it. I want to say the price was around 4-5k plus whatever processing equipment (cash reader, credit card swiper, etc)
 
That looks great, and I'd really like to know where you got your touchscreen +3g kiosk at.

How do you feel the math is going to work out? If there's more than one of you in the company, you're going to need to gross at least 300K/yr, which might be OK if camping season runs all year in TX. Up north here, the camping season is Memorial Day to Labor Day and that's it. Three months and done. So, it's hard to see the investment paying off here.

Also, that's a lot of vending machine for $8900. I've never priced out that much sheet metal and plexiglas, so maybe there's a good margin there, I don't know.
 
I am interested in offering DIY credit card payment acceptance. What are you using for that?

I've been having a hard time finding something that's for outdoor use.
 
Each module has 8 doors except the the first one which has 7 (computing, kiosk in one) so 31 doors on the 4 module....the touchscreen is IDEC...used mostly in oilfields the 3g cell telemetry on this one is USA Technologies both rated for out door use at -25C to 60C temps. Sales data is in real time so I dont waste my time refilling until mostly empty. In the South, Camping season is all year. We have a lot of camp sites in north Texas and it will take us a while to supply all the parks, but 1 person with truck and trailer can keep up with resupply. So we had a lot of rain for this memorial weekend and sales were a bit low, but with 8 machines on line we have grossed a little over $1400 for the weekend.
 
You asked for thoughts and it seems I'm one of the few (only?) Ones that sells wood for a living.

I like the idea but I think they don't hold enough and cost too much. It would need to hold 30-40 bundles and be in the $5k ballpark for I think many to consider.
Figure a 31 bundle machine would be what, $35k? ($8900 x 4)

I could never sell a 1 cu ft bundle for $20, we sell a spilling over wheelbarrow load for that, but I guess market dictates on that one.

I suppose in a high theft area it makes sense to lock up the firewood although it'd take a tremendous amount of stolen bundles to make the vending machine a good buy in that respect (like 4500+ bundles)

Having a machine to handle the cash and cards is really nice. I just have a box with a slot for cash and checks.

$1400 isn't bad, but that's also with a ~75k investment. I grossed about $400 this weekend with about $150 invested.
 

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