Chasing Passive Income, Americans Turn to Vending Machines

[pram]

I looked into doing this in the 2010s and it’s really an enormous pain in the ass to scale. A lot of the turnkey options were pretty much scams too. Machines that vended DVDs were popular back then.

You have to find the hot spots, negotiate for the space, deal with any vandalism, reload the machines, respond to problems. Not what many would consider “passive”

[Swizec]

> You have to find the hot spots, negotiate for the space, deal with any vandalism, reload the machines, respond to problems. Not what many would consider “passive”

I’ve spent a lot of time in various solopreneur, micropreneur, and indie hacker communities. One thing you have to understand is that for a large majority of people (we’re talking 90%+), the alternative to not-quite-passive income, isn’t a cushy software engineering job or even a job in tech. It’s working grueling hours under the heel of some asshole manager or owner jerking you around 12 hours per day while you sweat your ass off in unpleasant conditions.

All the hassle you described sounds like a beach vacation compared to stacking boxes in a warehouse or cooking brunch in some greasy restaurant or bar.

I used to mentor an ex head chef who got into software engineering through a bootcamp and the stories she would tell … wow. She said that just being able to take a bathroom break whenever felt like a luxurious perk.

[coredog64]

When machines were cash only you could theoretically avoid taxes on some of the income, something that might have offset some of the hassles. With credit cards and electronic payment that’s not really possible.

[masteruvpuppetz]

I guess the Gold Vending Machine in Dubai is not for you then :)

[https://whatson.ae/2023/08/the-uaes-wildest-vending-machines...]

[CydeWeys]

The only kind of vending machine low maintenance enough that I think it can count as passive is digital vending machines that only take electronic payment, e.g. a Bitcoin ATM. There's no physical goods to restock so once it's in place, you're hopefully good for a long time. But as you point out, even getting the location, the machine, and then installing it, is enough work to potentially not fully count as passive.

[kirkarg]

I wonder how much of a difference there is in the quality and reliability of Japan's machines and countries where is not common. I've worked at the Madrid airport in Spain and every single day we have a problem with this things and that would destroy the concept of "passive income". On the other hand, it's not that easy to find a good user interface, or at least to me.

[nothercastle]

This isn’t Japan half the cost will be in securing the machine from vandals and thieves

[downvotetruth]

One would think there would be a higher rate of vandalism in Asian societies as all it takes is one with a crowbar[1] and the more prominent mask wearing culture.

1 https://japantoday.com/category/crime/charges-dropped-agains...

[nick7376182]

The next rent-seeking scam to pitch to the incoming generation. I'm surprised Fannie and Freddie aren't offering financing for vending machines too.

[vundercind]

This was already an “entrepreneurship” fad pretty recently. Maybe 15 years ago.

[cozzyd]

I hope we reach the vending machine density of Japan.... Was extremely helpful to have a vending machine every 10 m when it was 40C outside with extreme humidity last summer when I was there.

[csa]

> Was extremely helpful to have a vending machine every 10 m

There used to be more vending machines, but the prevalence of convenience stores every 200m (or so it seems) makes them less viable financially.

It is a sad day when a favorite vending machines that sells something unusual just vanishes. Usually this is something like a type of seasonal beer that vending machines will have in stock longer than the stores do.

Whole large banks of vending machines in Shinjuku have gone the way of the dodo. Sadness.

[ethbr1]

The most surreal thing about Tokyo (and there were a lot) was having Tommy Lee Jones' grizzled visage staring back at me from every street corner.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=japan+boss+vending+tommy+lee+jones...

[jauntywundrkind]

Anything to disrupt the everything-via-cloud model. Yes, please, more, don't stop. Fine good useful nice stuff & stock it in bizarrely accessible places.

If anything I'd believe demand is mostly gated on having fairly low expectations of what's available. I fully believe this could expand up & out, that vending machines could provide much much more, if they maintain their well-stockedness & are expansive enough so that we get some curatorial interesting nice shit from our local machines.

[deegles]

The trick is to sell the vending machines and parts.

[jurassicfoxy]

I want to make a vending machine that sells vending machines. It'd have to be real fuckin' big.” — Mitch Hedberg

[phroxen]

selling shovels to the gold miners

[oskapt]

https://archive.ph/ls2fx

[xp84]

Reading this on WSJ is interesting. Having been raised in a very working-class family, but now being fortunate enough to have a stock portfolio, I'm struck by how romantic a business like this (or the other small business entrepreneurs I see on YouTube, such as a guy who runs laundromats and car washes) is to me -- I guess just by how straightforward the business model is and how it appears (at first glance) to be something one man can just do all by himself.

It's inexplicably intriguing to me to consider doing a side hustle like this -- even though in terms of both risk and reward I have to acknowledge it is probably no better than what my savings is doing right now in various stocks and funds.

[abnercoimbre]

> it is probably no better than what my savings is doing right now in various stocks and funds.

From a numbers perspective sure. When we talk about social ramifications and future business potential — the calculus changes entirely: this guy got a cover in the WSJ, for example.

[mrtron]

In 1998 I went to a seminar on vending machines and the numbers didn't work.

I would love to see some details from a Japanese owner where vending machine usage is more common, but also there are zillions of machines.

[booleandilemma]

I wonder if he makes more money from his YouTube channel where he talks about vending machines.

[Animats]

Whatever happened to those little automated convenience stores people were talking up a few years ago? There was a startup called "Bodega".[1] Automated convenience stores the size of a shipping container were a thing in China, but they now seem to have one employee. There's "venhub.ai", but it comes across as a ploy to get VC funding, not a retail operator.[2]

Serving locations too small to staff, such as small apartment buildings, doesn't really pay. If you have fresh food items, the location has to be serviced at least once a day, and expired items must be discarded. Plus you're competing with Amazon and Doordash.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/25/bodega-once-dubbed-america...

[2] https://www.venhub.com/

[dsq]

Perhaps a good business would be running a vending machine 'compound' or 'center', basically a big empty room with electrical sockets and some CCTV cameras. Preferably somewhere next to a parking lot.

You rent out spots to vending machine owners.

[MilStdJunkie]

Have people not heard of depreciation, maintenance, restocking?

Oh. Oh waitaminute I see the angle here. Mining company shares to goldbugs, substandard shovels and rations to 49ers, stakes in stablecoin exchanges to the common techbro, and now, at last, "ISO-Certified Vend Automation Accreditation Training" where you can get all the tools you need to STRIKE IT BIG. Then you can rope in more people with the scam, and they can rope in more people yadda yadda yadda

Another goddamn grift . . did we really need another? . . in search of the last dregs of pocket change lost in the American cushions. Looking for actual returns that aren't sacked with fees and conditions, everyone wondering, with an ever-growing suspicion, that all the new clever retirement "vehicles"[1] they've been dumping money in their entire lives will grow mysteriously inaccessible, in a suspiciously timely fashion, until they are all dead.

Shit. Put up a vending machine that dispenses Quietus pills, then you might get some business.

Forgive my cynicism, please. It's not a luxury I can afford at the moment.

[1] Which not-so-coincidentally inflate the market valuation of the same industries employing them. Jesus Christ, did anyone think for twenty seconds about the follow-on effects of that? Whelp. Too late now.

[gruez]

>Looking for actual returns that aren't sacked with fees and conditions

The Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF[1] has 12.0% annualized returns over the past decade, and only charges 0.03% in management fees.

[1] https://investor.vanguard.com/investment-products/etfs/profi...

[ineedaj0b]

The Japanese have numerous vending machines of high quality that offer decent prices with good selections of food.

Perhaps it is in our Future in America too

[Spastche]

as someone who has looked into this extensively and even owns a few machines, the biggest cost of machines besides "rent" is credit card devices and fees. there's coin op mechanisms, but nobody carries money so you get much less sales. unless the feds redo the coinage system... good luck

[ChumpGPT]

https://archive.is/ls2fx

[planet_1649c]

Considering how much people steal in walmart, i dont see this going well unless this is mainly added in secured places

[CydeWeys]

It's much harder to steal out of a vending machine than it is to grab something off a shelf in a store and walk out.