Exclusive Insight: In a snug nook of the digital world, a burgeoning Facebook group is emerging, assisting individuals in cultivating an unconventional side income.

Thousands across Australia are diving into the innovative venture of purchasing and operating snack vending machines as a source of extra earnings—a potentially profitable pursuit for the fortunate few.

The catch? Turning a profit might require managing more than just a handful of machines.

Jeff Constable, a former mining employee from Queensland, shared with nine.com.au how he ventured into this field after growing frustrated with a vending machine at his previous job site in Mount Isa.

In a mere three years, his initial venture burgeoned into a network of 63 vending machines.

“That vending machine was not getting filled up enough, it wasn’t really clean, and the note acceptor didn’t accept any new notes,” Constable said.

“I thought I could do more with it. I was deciding to leave the mines and put in a proposal and said, ‘Hey, look, I can’t be the only one annoyed by this. How about I buy a machine?’”

After some back-and-forth, Constable found himself the proud owner of a new vending machine.

It quickly became profitable because of its golden location.

“I then figured out the real value wasn’t in the machines themselves, it was in the sites,” he said.

An ideal location can turn around between $3000 to $4000 a week.

But one with limited foot traffic – which Constable tries to avoid – might only generate about $40 in sales.

“I’ve essentially got 60 cash registers out there making money,” Constable said.

Constable is now the owner IsaVend, providing machines to worksites across the Mt Isa region.

It’s not his full-time job – but it can sometimes feel like it.

He is a member of the 30,000-strong Vending Machines Australia group, where he’s noticed lots of entreprenuerial Aussies finding it difficult to make money.

“It’s definitely an economy of scale game,” Constable added.

“On these Facebook pages, you’ll see how many people are trying to sell their one, two, three or five machine fleets.

“It can be a good little side-hustle, but if you’ve got just one to 10 machines, you’re probably not quitting your job.”

Sydney business owner Andre-Christian Collett also began his own vending machine business in 2021 after spotting a video on TikTok.

After using his savings to buy a few units, he now operates a one-man business with 47 machines all over the city.

“When I first bought a machine, I was making around $250 every fortnight and that’s just total sales,” he told nine.com.au.

“Now I make $250 by 8am on Monday morning.”

Constable and Collett have transformed their vending machine side-hustle into profitable companies with warehouses and, in Constable’s case, his own staff.

But KeDazz Vending company director Karl Hayes warns Aussies wanting to make “easy money” from one or two machines might want to re-think their business plan.

“I’ve got a range of sites and machines around the Gold Coast, and I get calls, someone will call you and say, ‘My drink’s stuck at 11 in the morning,” Hayes said.

“You’ve got to be able to react to that and go and fix it.”

Hayes, who supplies vending machines to construction sites across the Gold Coast, has noticed online sellers trying to offload machines generating a little over $100 a week in sales.

If you did the math, he explained, that wouldn’t be very lucrative.

“A machine that’s doing $120 a week, once you take the GST off, you’re down to roughly $110,” he said.

“Then you minus probably $56, $57 in [stock costs] and then what you’ve got left is your gross profit.”

Collett agreed – he also discovered the vending machine industry was all about volume.

“If you buy one or two and the sites are only doing like a hundred bucks a week, then it’s going to be way more headache than it’s worth,” he added.

“And you’re probably going to end up selling them anyways.”

Constable said many people bought a machine with the thought that it was “free money” but ended up being disappointed or out of pocket.

“There is so much that goes into it,” he explained.

“I started with $15,000 – IsaVend is now in the seven figures.

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