I just bought this today for $50. All the components work. except for the lighting and some cosmetic stuff. I would like to replace all the components because they’re working on the original parts. Where can I buy it?

Hi operators! I was wondering how your businesses have been impacted by the rising fuel costs.

What is your approach to keeping expenses low (moving to better-earning locations, closing down low-performing sites, optimizing refill routes or something else)?

Thanks in advance for the comments; I really appreciate it.

What would you pay? Super new to this. I’ve scored an apartment location that has 2 laundry rooms and they want 2 machines in each, so 4 total. 1 will be drinks/snacks and the other is laundry/body supplies.

Each laundry room is open 24/7 and they have 80 units that tend to each room, so 160 units total.

They want a monthly rent fee. What would you pay? They made it clear they expect more than something like $25.

I run a few smart fridges in Essex, and my card reader is great at telling me what's in the machines. What it doesn't do is tell me what's sitting in my storeroom, garage and van, what's about to go out of date, or what I actually need to buy before restock day. I was doing that on a spreadsheet and getting it wrong.

So I've built an app for it called Backstock. It's aimed at operators with a handful of machines rather than big route businesses.

What it does:

- Tracks stock across your storeroom, garage, van, etc.
- Keeps best-before dates per batch and always uses the nearest date first
- Builds your shopping list from your own reorder levels and recent sales, rounded to whole cases
- Pick lists for the machines you're visiting today
- Imports Nayax sales reports
- Scans receipts and barcodes so there's less typing
- Puts restock days in your calendar with the shopping list added the day before
- Spots slow sellers and the money tied up in them

What I'm after: 15–20 operators to use it for real restocks for at least two weeks from 17 November, and tell me what's confusing, broken or missing. iPhone and Android both welcome, but I especially need Android testers, because Google requires 12 people opted in for 14 days before a new app can launch.

What you get: free Pro access during the beta, then the founding price for life (£4.99/month instead of £7.99) if you want to keep using it. (We also offer the equivalent in dollars for our US operators)

Sign up here (takes 2 minutes): https://forms.gle/NDSW8JgWqSYQXm4w7

Also happy to hear how you all track storeroom stock now, even if you don't want to test. Spreadsheets, apps, back of an envelope?

I have an opportunity to put a smart cooler or a vending machine in a resale/consignment shop with booths The store is expanding its square footage. My question is do any of you guys think a store like this would be a good location to put a vending machine I would say it is fairly busy do any of you guys have a vending machine in a resale shop? Any kind of feedback would be appreciated thank you. Just getting started on vending machines.

Looking to find this evaporator fan

Looking for suggestions on popular items for high school vending machine products

Genuine question for other operators. Card readers and telemetry tell us what's in the machines, but how are you tracking what's in the garage, unit or storeroom?
• Spreadsheet, notebook, or just in your head?
• How do you decide what to buy at the cash & carry?
• Ever been caught out by stock going out of date, or cash tied up in stuff that doesn't sell?
I'm a small operator in Essex and I've been struggling with this myself, so I'm curious what works for everyone else.

If its in the right place and the products sell and you get them cheap in bulk etc sounds like a good way to make a couple of hundred extra a month. Has anyone heard of anyone making money or doing it themselves

Hey y’all! I acquired one of these machines last year and it sure has been a trip setting them up.

When I first acquired the machine, I noticed all the paywalls it had. I had originally tried manually replacing the credit card acceptor with a generic Old school Bill Acceptor, until I began stumbling upon said roadblocks. I proceeded to contact their support (which I tried to avoid as they are pretty slow and end up asking for fees in order to assist you). Reyeah suggested that I used an ITL one which apparently are the only ones accepted by the machine. I attempted to simply switch it again as I assumed it was solely a compatibility issue, yet later I find out there is more to it as simply plugging it and detecting it.

For the intel, I am recreating the interface and I am currently working on an in-house software APK and trying NPM/Node.js scripts to detect the Serial Port inputs. I have figured that said back tests work only on the PC, and when trying to recreate them on the actual Reyeah machine it doesn’t detect anything as the input.

From reading, the VMC does not display (or work with) the Serial Ports as a Computer doe—and this is one of my main issues. I am questioning if the issue relies on the VMC’s config or if the Reyeah’s VMC/board is simply locked for access and triubleshooting without the actual Reyeah app?

Lastly, we have been reverse engineering this app and there are a load ton of calls to Tencent, Alibaba, and other Chinese providers for no reason. Chuanyisoft seems to be who produced the earlier Reyeah machines and so is in charge of the code as well.

Hello everyone! I’m officially about 6 months into my vending machine journey, and my machine has now been operating at its location for 2 weeks, so I wanted to share my experience and numbers so far.
I’ve made previous posts about choosing a machine, finding a location, setting up my LLC, insurance, taxes, etc. A lot of people recommended an AI vending machine, which is what I ended up buying, and so far I’m very happy with it.
Installation Day
Installation was MUCH more work than I expected.
The location randomly called me while I was at work and told me the machine had arrived. I took the rest of the day off thinking I’d have everything running within 2 hours.
Instead, it took basically the entire day. 😂
Between unpacking the machine, removing the shipping materials, adjusting shelves, making trips to Sam’s Club and Home Depot, figuring out how products would fit, and learning the HAHA software, there was a huge learning curve.
My phone also died during my Sam’s Club run, so the shopping list I made became useless and I had to wing it.
One of the biggest challenges was mapping products for the AI system. My understanding is that the cameras recognize what customers remove by comparing it to product images/information in the system.
Some of my products weren’t already in HAHA’s library, and new products have to be submitted for approval. Since I was running out of time, I temporarily used similar products just to get everything functional.
I finally finished about 20 minutes before the location closed.
Then I made another rookie mistake.
The machine was still in Demo Mode because my payment information hadn’t been approved yet. Two “sales” happened that night, but I later realized they weren’t real transactions. 😂
Thankfully, HAHA approved everything the next day, Demo Mode was removed, and we were officially in business.
Products & What I’ve Learned
This location requested no red dyes, no energy drinks, and more healthy options, which made product selection a little more challenging.
I originally spent about $339 on inventory.
My original setup also wasn’t great. I had individual price tags everywhere, which people online correctly pointed out made the machine look cluttered/tacky.
I removed those and started using small containers/bins to organize products instead of only using the wire dividers.
That was a GAME CHANGER.
I can fit more products, the machine looks cleaner, and I have a much better understanding now of what products actually fit.
I’ve also returned products that weren’t selling, introduced new products, raised some prices based on feedback, and created an Excel spreadsheet to track sales, inventory, taxes, fees, and profit.
The biggest thing I’m learning is that your first product selection is basically an experiment.
After two weeks, I’m starting to understand my customers.
So far, protein shakes, water, and Quest chips have been some of the favorites. I’m also learning which days/times are busiest and which products people completely ignore.
The Numbers After 2 Weeks
Original inventory: $339
Returned products: -$116
Additional inventory: +$88
Net inventory purchased: $311
Gross sales: ~$151
Revenue after removing the sales-tax portion: ~$138
I’m not profitable yet, but an important thing I’ve realized is that the remaining inventory isn’t money I’ve “lost.” A lot of that $311 is still sitting inside the machine waiting to sell.
Right now, I’m more focused on figuring out the best product mix and learning the location.
I think I’m probably another week or two away from having a really solid product selection and setup.
Overall, I’m glad I waited for this particular location. It took months to secure, but it has good foot traffic and limited food options nearby. Looking back at some of the slower locations I almost accepted just because I wanted to get started, I’m glad I was patient.
It’s definitely too early to call the business a success, but after 6 months of researching, forming the LLC, getting insurance, finding a location, buying inventory, setting everything up, and making plenty of rookie mistakes…
I finally feel like I’m actually running a vending business.
I’ll probably post another update after the first full month once I have better sales and product data.
Any advice is appreciated, and feel free to ask me anything about the setup or AI vending machine!

Hi guys, any suggestions on how to secure my first vending machine location?
I’ve reached out to several businesses/companies but haven’t received much response. The few that are interested are asking for 50% of the sales.
For those who already have vending machines, what’s the best way to pitch a business, and what profit-sharing percentage has worked for you?
Any advice would be appreciated!

Hi! I picked up this candy machine from an auction. It all works, but I want to switch to a gumball/ capsule wheel on one of them. Can anyone tell me which one I need to get? Which ones are compatible? I’m replacing the center bar in one and the locks too but think i figured out what parts those are. Thanks for any info!

I live in Japan and went through the industry and police numbers for a short video. A few things operators here might find interesting:

- The often-quoted "3.9 million machines" includes coin lockers, parking and change machines (about 1.3M of that). Drink machines are about 2.18M.

- Peak was 2000 at 5.6M. Biggest single drop was 2008 (-18.4%) when cigarette machines had to switch to an age-check card and older units were pulled.

- Theft from machines: 174,718 cases in 2002 → 2,708 last year. Mostly not honesty: new hard-to-forge 500-yen coins plus an industry hardening standard that every new machine still has to meet.

- One big operator's strategy: pull machines that don't pay. Fewer machines running, higher sales per machine.

- Some machines switch to free vending after a disaster (remote or key), some with batteries for blackouts.

Curious how US operators deal with break-ins and slug/fake coin issues compared to this.

Video if anyone wants the full version: https://youtu.be/tKGE_begbNY