The Six Figure Vending Machine Side Hustle

The Trusty ol' Vending Machine

It’s probably happened to you before. You were in a hurry and didn’t prepare for the hunger or thirst that suddenly hit you in the middle of a busy day. No restaurants or corner stores were there to help you in that moment of immediate need, and you turned to someone with a reliable and affordable solution. Well, you likely never came face-to-face with that someone, but a vending machine with delicious snacks and tasty beverages can be viewed as a stand in for the entrepreneur whose services have satisfied countless emergency cravings. 

Vending Machines as a Business

Operating vending machines is a task that we don’t think much about, especially because we generally don’t see the person who keeps and maintains it. Yet, each and every unit of this boring and mundane fixture of modern society standing in the lobby of a hotel or a break room at an office building requires someone to run and operate it. That’s where someone like Marcus Gram comes along. 

Gram, now 31-years old, was working for $30,000 a year at an assisted living facility when he moved back with his family and tried his hand at real estate in Philadelphia. While working a new full-time job there, Gram worked on his real estate venture on the side. However, it soon became apparent that he would need more money up front to do real estate in the city. So, in order to work on his side hustle, he started another side hustle. 

Side hustles have become increasingly popular in recent years. The term refers to work that someone can do on the side while they keep their primary job. In contrast with a primary job, usually referred to as a ‘regular job’ or ‘day job,’ a side hustle is done in a person’s spare time. It serves as a kind of pet project that generates some extra income on the margins where there would otherwise be none. 

The Side Hustle: Detailed

In Gram’s case, once his first vending machines found their lucrative sweet spots, they were returning an average of $1,500 a month in revenue. It cost Gram about $5,000 to purchase two refurbished vending machines which he stocked with snacks and soft drinks bought at the wholesale prices offered at Costco. 

Today, he has scaled his business up to the point that he operates vending machines in a number of locations in the Philadelphia area and beyond to four states. His company, Joyner Vending, brought in over $340,000 of revenue in 2021 from 25 vending machines. Once Gram achieves his income goal with the vending machines, he wants to pursue his original plan of investing in real estate so that he can retire early.

According to Gram, it is a semi-passive income business because the sale of the products is passive, but it requires diligent maintenance on the part of the operator to keep up consistent sales and understand customer preferences. The vending machine operating market itself is quite decentralized with the top four operators accounting for only 3.2% of total industry revenue. This means that there are a lot of opportunities out there for an individual to start a side hustle with just one or two vending machines just like Gram did at the beginning. 

Next time you see a vending machine, think about all the other small functions in the world that everyone else is overlooking. Who knows? You just might find your next side hustle.