Best Firing Practices

1) Be calm and professional. Do not fire an employee in a way that will embarrass the individual or make him/her angry.

2) Time is right. Do not fire on a Friday or at the end of the day. It means that you will be sending that person home with nothing to do but complain which can increase the likelihood of legal claims. This is the last thing that you would want for your Antares vending business.

3) Set realistic standards upfront. Let the employee know your expectations, then hold fast to those standards. It makes it easier for you to decide when to terminate the employee who is not performing well in the Antares vending business. You should have solid grounds for your decision.

4) Reprimand when necessary. Do not let performances lapses in your Antares business go unanswered; address them as they happen.

5) Avoid formalistic rules. Avoid having a list of work rules. Such lists are often incomplete and also encourage employees to do just enough to get by. Managers often think they need a list of specific rules as a basis for firing someone. But you create an expectation when you set behavior rules. If you must have rules for your Antares business, make them broad rules that will encompass a variety of desired conduct.

6) Avoid the need to terminate. If an employee is having performance issues, discuss them with him or her before it is necessary to terminate them. Tell the employee to make a commitment to improve his/her performance.

7) Be straightforward. Be honest in telling the employee the reasons why he or she is being fired. Half truths are the common fodder for employment discrimination lawsuits in termination cases.

8) Keep the reasons confidential. Do not discuss the reasons why an employee was discharged with other employees. This can lead to more hurt or angry feelings on the part of the employee. Thus a greater likelihood of litigation

Always be tactful when there is a need to terminate employees from your Antares business. The last thin you would want is a lawsuit that will bring a bad name to your business.

Vending Outlook for 2006

Operators reported that economic conditions remained strong in the first half of 2006, indicating that the growth that had began in 2005 will continue.

The department of labor reported that the rate of unemployment in the first half of the year, gradually continued to decline to about 4.6 percent in June. Operators reported no sign of a return to account downsizing and more account added workers, although not in large numbers.

Rising employment carried a downside in that it placed more pressure on wages. In 2006, it was harder to find quality help. Hence, the very trend that increased the demand for vending in the last year has put additional pressures on available labor. This has had an effect on Antares vending businesses as well as other businesses.

Rising gasoline costs continues to concern Antares vending operators as well as other operators. Gasoline prices approached $3 a gallon in June, causing many operators to wonder whether consumers would begin watching their spending more carefully. Some operators noted that rising prices encouraged customers to buy items from vending machines rather than going out to eat. This brought in good business for Antares vending operators and others.

Health and nutrition has remained a concern in 2006. More states and localities have announced school nutrition requirements. This has made some Antares vending operators opt for healthier products in their vending machines. Schools have laid heavy stress on healthier products, but they still remain a small part of the vending customer base. At the same time customers are these days more health conscious and are asking about healthier options today than ever before.

The big challenge Antares vending operators are facing today is in making long term investments needed to operate more efficiently. This can easily change when you make use of the Natural Choice vending program that can guide you on the decisions you should make concerning long term investments.

The bottom line is that vending operators need to be willing and able to invest in new tools. Some Antares vending operators have already been successful in doing this, and this has helped them to meet the long term challenges that many vending operators continue to face.

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DEX: Improved Inventory Control

Apart from controlling labor better, DEX allows greater control of inventory. Most software packages that support DEX include reports that offer input on product mix based on individual product sales. These reports can improve sales in your Antares vending business and allow you to eliminate items that are not good sellers.

You can reduce your inventory by selling only items that are good sellers. This will bring the added advantage of requiring smaller vehicles and servicing more locations in less time. Reducing your Antares business inventory will alleviate capital tied up in the warehouse. Forecasting what to put on the trucks for the next day’s delivery will reduce truck sizes or provide the ability to service to more Antares vending machines. You can also make suggestions on what to bring to the account. This will boost route efficiencies significantly.

These metrics can be identified manually, but this would mean more work for the route driver. Item level reporting would provide the basis for more efficient servicing of your Antares vending machines, which of course would come back to improving return labor. These reports will allow a supervisor to know the percent of machine inventory depleted when the driver arrived, the percent filled when he left the location, the number of sold out columns, the number of sold out products and finally the value of the dollar sales.

All of this information will allow the manager to make decisions to improve the location’s profitability. When a driver comes back to the location at the end of the day and “syncs” the handheld to the back end software, a report can be immediately printed and the supervisor can make any necessary scheduling changes. When the money is counted, you can then have another report that gives over/short data.

If an Antares vending machine is only 30 % depleted when the driver arrives to service it, then that means that you may be over servicing the location. This would be a waste of time for the driver. By rescheduling the location for service as a higher depletion level, you can end up saving up on labor cost without compromising service.

Candy, Snacks and Confections Growth

In 2005, candy, snacks and confections sustained the improvement they had posted in 2004. This means that Antares vending operators experienced revenue gain, since they vend candy, snacks and confections. There was a 2.8 point revenue gain in this segment that almost kept pace with the overall industry growth rate. Most operators reported higher cost increases in 2005 than in 2004. This means that the segment was more challenged from a profitability standpoint.

The price increases were noticeable in the candy category, since this was the largest segment in the candy/snack category. One way Antares operators were able to raise prices, was to replace traditional size candy bars with large size bars. These were introduced in 2004.

The top selling candy/snack/confection products that were sold by Antares vending operators as well as other operators did not change significantly in 2005. This information was based on data provided by Management Science Associates, which tracks machine level sales. However many operators reported changing suppliers in order to minimize their exposure to higher prices.

Many operators noticed that requests for healthier products in vending machines had increased in 2005. While most operators did not find any significant difference in the type of products purchased, they gave manufacturers high marks for improving both the variety and quality of health oriented products in 2005.

The number of candy/snack product introductions jumped close to 30 % for the second consecutive year in 2006. This has been a plus point for Antares vending operators. These are one of the reasons why vending operators have opted to vend snacks and candy. They have remained the most popular with Americans till date.

Meat snacks posted a double digit sales increase in 2005. This is the third consecutive year that this category has increased sales. The growth for this product has been attributed to the popularity of low carbohydrate diets.

Valuing a Vending Business

The vending industry has struggled in recent years through tough economic times. Right now it is difficult to find any operator, distributor or supplier who has not been challenged to maintain the financial integrity of their organization over the past years.

As s result of the difficult business environment, there are some operators who are contemplating selling their business. The Natural Choice Vending Program by Antares Corporation has been providing operators with the right choices for their vending business, and as a result they have generally been successful with their vending business

The need of a sound valuation method

Their expectations do not always match reality. The difference in what the buyer is willing to pay and what the seller is willing to accept can be a point of contention and frustration to both parties. The final selling price of the transaction should be determined by thorough negotiation between the buyer and seller of the Antares vending business.

Step 1: gather information

You can do this by listing five years of income statements and then enter the income statement so that the results of each year can be compared side by side.

Step 2: make adjustments

This is to normalize the earnings of your Antares vending business, which means adjusting the income statement to generally accepted accounting principles and industry standards. Another item to consider during the normalizing process is a transaction that can distort earnings because the owner of the business is also the owner of another separate company which the vending company conducts business.

Step 3: project cash flows

Here you will need to convert normalized earnings to net projected flows for your Antares vending business. To do this is to make adjustments for gains, loses and expenses that do not affect the cash flows of the operation.

Step 4: capitalization rate

On this step you will need to determine the capitalization rate. There are many ways to do this. In one method an Antares vending operator can develop, with some help from his or her accountant. The method is called the Build Up Model. The formula assumes constant earnings, and if the earnings are expected to grow, a growth factor needs to be deducted from the expected return.

Vending Operators Slow to Invest in Technology

Operators have yet to take advantage of new technologies that are offering the vending industry significant growth potential. Remote monitoring and curbside polling have provided the ability to schedule service at the most opportune time, increasing per stop collections at your Antares vending machines and thus improving return on labor.

Cashless readers have proven that they have the ability to improve Antares customers’ satisfaction and at the same time offer higher priced products and improve machine level accountability.

Line item tracking in your Antares vending machine allows operators the chance to meet customer demands more accurately and better determine the most popular selling products. There is no point in selling products that are not popular in your vending machine. If nobody buys them, they will probably get outdated in the vending machine and that means that you will go at a loss. This technology will help you know which products are popular in that particular location.

These technologies offer significant potential for your Antares vending business and of course many other vending businesses. These technologies require high capital and that is why many vending operators choose not to use these technologies. At the same time there are a number of vending operators who have decided to invest in these technologies and have received a significant return on investment (ROI).

The last new technology that made a big difference to the vending industry was the bill validator. This was a much easier technology for the operators to accommodate. The industry adopted this technology within a few years of its introduction in the early 1980’s.

These technologies require the vending machines to have compatible hardware and software. For the introduction of remote monitoring or curbside polling, the Antares vending machine needs to be DEX capable and also have hardware and software that will support this feature. Depending on the route accountability software used, operators need to be sure remote data collection software is compatible with existing systems.

Cold Drink Vending Trends

COLD DRINK COMEBACK

In the past years there was a dip in the sales of vending machine cold drinks. This is not the case anymore. There has been a gain in the sales of cold drinks since then. Bottled cold drinks have made the biggest gain in recent years since bottled drinks appeared on the vending machine market in the late 1990s.

Although vending machine cold drink cans like those in Antares vending machines remain more profitable, consumers still prefer bottled cold drinks from vending machines. They are more fashionable, and that is why they are a preferred choice. Consumers preferred bottles because they could sell the bottles again. The problem with bottled cold drinks is that they are more expensive for vending operators. As a result, the percentage of can versus bottles sold is a reflection of the vending machine company size with smaller vending operators selling fewer bottles than cans. In Antares vending machines you will find cold drinks in cans and juices in bottles. Cold cup beverage vending continued to decline despite its potential to be very profitable. Increased placement of vending machines also helped to expand vending machine cold drink sales.

GLASSFRONT COLD DRINK VENDING MACHINES

Glass front cold drink vending machines have helped to boost cold drink vending machine sales. Antares vending machines are glass front. Despite this the proportion of closed front vending machines remains higher than glass front vending machines. Glass front vending machines must be front loaded and thus usually have less capacity. An Antares Refreshment Center has quite a large capacity even though it is a glass front vending machine. The advantage of glass front vending machines is that they increase cold drink vending machine sales because they can showcase a larger selection of beverages than closed front vending machines.

Despite gains in cold drink vending machines, vending operators have always found it hard to keep up with the retail carbonated drink sector. One reason for this is that bottles have been more prevalent in retail outlets than in vending machines. One thing that will remain undisputed is that cold drinks in vending machines have brought in incredible profits for Antares vending operators as well as other operators.

Technology, Diversity and Vending

Vending operators have adapted more of their vending machines to accept higher denomination currency. It was also reported that nearly 10% of all bill validators offered dollar coin payout and nearly 25% of all vending operators switched from 3 tube coin trays to 4 and 5 tube coin trays. Investing in higher denomination bill acceptors proved to be beneficial to vending operators.

In 2004 vending machines operators invested in cashless payment options and many other technologies. State of the art tools such as DEX handhelds allow vending operators to account faster and more accurately for cash. It also gives operators such as the Antares vending operators more control over product placement and variety in a location. This will be beneficial to Antares vending operators as customer preferences have become more diverse. This diversity in customers preferences have been contributed by the public’s higher awareness of nutrition and more diverse customer demographics.

Many school districts have imposed restrictions on products in vending machines, but still the trend and demand for nutritional vending has expanded to other accounts. In 2004, vending machine operators addressed consumer demands for low carbohydrate products. Antares vending operators responded by placing nutritional products in their vending machines. Other vending operators followed suit as well. They also used sales tracking software to keep a track on what products are selling and which ones are not.

This technology has been able to offer Antares vending operators insight about customer preferences. Vending customers have become more diverse in age, gender, ethnicity, race, occupation and income. By tracking sales and understanding their client base, vending operators are able to maximize their sales and product selection.

Vending Correctly

1. Many people charge right ahead into the vending business without really checking out a company or its owners. Be sure to ask the right questions when talking to any vending machine company. Questions like:

a) How long have you been selling the machine you are currently offering?

b) What are the names of the owners of your company?

c) Have the owners of your company ever had any legal problems in the past in regard to vending?

Antares Corporation offers you all this information first hand, so you will have the answers before you even ask the questions. This is the sign of a reputable company.

2. Think before you buy a cheap machine: Many are advertising for machines in a seemingly low price range. Don’t get deceived by them. Most of these guys work out of their home and the machines come with a 6 month- 1 year warranty. This warranty is given by the manufacturer and not from the guy you are buying from. Price is one thing. Cost is a life time investment. Go for a reliable Antares vending machine and keep locations happy.

3. Use credit card to purchase the vending machine. In that way you will have “credit card protection” through your bank.

4. Some companies give the names of locators to call. Some of these locators sound pretty good on the phone because they only want your business. Check out the locating companies with the Better Business Bureau in the cities where they are located.

5. If you are uncertain about the vending business then purchase one Antares vending machine and see the quality for yourself. The machine will speak for itself.

6. If you have the option of vending machines, then go for snack and drink vending machines like those provided by Natural Choice USA. The machines are reasonably priced and the profits that you will gain are incredible. A snack and soft drink vending machine are always in demand in most locations.

Vending done correctly is wonderful. You just need to get started with the right company, right machines and the right support system for you and your family.

Safety of Vending Machines

When using a vending machine, you will always need to be careful. There are some accidents that have occurred to individuals while using a vending machine. These accidents have been the result of intentional misuse and abuse of the vending machine. This is usually done by tipping, shaking or rocking of the machine.

Possible steps need to be taken to avoid or reduce the number of such accidents. The owner of an Antares vending machine has to determine the safety of the location of the vending machine and also has to be on the lookout for the manner in which it has been installed. Such things can be the cause of accidents.

The vending program by Natural Choice USA, provides guidelines to Antares vending machine owners, so that they can place their vending machines in the right location as well as in the right manner. As business owner you, may not be aware that you are doing anything wrong when placing your vending machine. This is why you will need guidelines.

As the purchaser of an Antares vending machine, you should immediately take steps to be sure that the risk of accidents caused by the machines put on location by you should not occur.

Make sure that the location of the Antares vending machine is well lighted and that the vending machine is securely anchored to the floor, wall or other stable fixed building component.

Accidents will never occur if the Antares vending machine is located in a place where it is accessible when there are no attendants in close proximity, or if the facility is closed for other business. You will need to take precautions to ensure that the vending machine cannot be tipped over. Vending machines in such locations should be anchored to the floor, wall, and post or by attaching two or more machines together

To warn customers about the danger involved in tipping or rocking the Antares vending machine, you can affix a decal on the vending machine, which will warn them about that.

What is New in Vending?

The vending industry is very competitive and challenging to say the least. We see some very exciting new entries in the market place every month. The new entry will either be a rapid hit or will die quickly. When the New Antares Refreshment Center was introduced, it was, and still is quite popular. Existing vending equipment are constantly being enhanced and updated, making the old versions obsolete.

Popcorn vending machines have been in the market for quite some time now. However a new machine is being introduced in the USA and is about to change the way popcorn has been offered in vending machines. This is just one of the many new concepts that are coming up in the vending industry.

New advances are being made in snack and beverage vending as well. These are the most popular vending products that you can find around. We are yet to see so much more from snack and beverage vending machines in the future.

What is also new is the use of occupancy sensors and controllers in vending machines that will reduce power requirements during long periods of non use, such as overnight and weekends. Antares vending machines are non electronic and that means that you will never have to save on power!

The advances that have been made in Antares vending machines, as a non electrical machine, sets them apart from other mechanical vending machines. The vending machines have been improved to serve the customers.

Always be on the lookout for what is new in the vending industry. There will always be something new coming up.

Vending Questions and Answers

The vending business opportunity is the most sure fire ways to make an outstanding living and be totally independent. “Cash is King”, as it is said, is absolutely the truth in this vending business. Below are some questions and answers that you may ask yourself, if you are thinking of starting an Antares vending business.

1. How safe is investing in the vending business?

This business has a 90% success rate. Antares Corporation offers an excellent vending program that will lead you to this success. There is virtually no overhead, i.e. advertising costs, rent, employees to pay etc. An income can be maintained just by working a couple of hours a week.

2. How soon could I expect to see a financial return on my investment?

You should expect this between one and two years depending on which machines you have and how good your locations are.

3. How will I know if the market is saturated in the location?

Depending n where you live, there can be literally hundred locations in your city. There is NEVER a saturation point.

4. Is there warranty on equipment?

Antares vending machines come with a warranty to cover them.

5. Do I need a license to be in the vending business?

Some states would require that you register your business depending on what type of vending operation you do. Please check with your state authorities like a “State Comptroller” to get the specifics.

6. What taxes do I pay for the sales I make in my Antares vending business?

You should be paying state tax for the sales that you make from your Antares vending machine. However some states waive sales tax on something like the “Bulk Candy” business. This question is best directed again to the State Comptroller.