Wealth building through passive income is big in business circles these days and you'll often see vending touted as a way to build a passive income stream, but this is only part of the story. While vending is a great home based business that is fairly time efficient, it is far from passive. However vending is a great opportunity for people with limited financial means to become small business owners for themselves. Vending is one of the few business that can be started slowly and built up to whatever level of income or work that you would like, not a lot of businesses offer this type of flexibility.

One of the best things about vending is that the products are very inexpensive and they also have a good markup which makes it easier to turn a profit in even the toughest economic market. Vending also allows for a very flexible schedule which also makes it attractive to a lot of people. A lot of people would love the flexibility to plan their work schedule around their family or other obligations and vending definitely allows for that. The machines need to be stocked and serviced regularly, but the hours and days are completely flexible.

A bulk vending route is cheaper to start than a full line route. For one thing, bulk vending machines are a lot cheaper than full line machines, about $200-$250 brand new, or even cheaper if you buy used vending machines. Bulk machines are the small gumball type machines that you see selling loose candy such as M&Ms, peanuts, Mike & Ikes, gumballs, or small toys; you can see these machines virtually everywhere from big box stores to grocery stores. Getting good locations is essential to both types of vending; in fact, bad locations can actually end up costing you money in product waste. Gumballs have an especially attractive markup of about 75%, while other products such as M&Ms have a much lower mark up, but no matter what products you sell, it all hinges on the location.

Full line vending is selling soda, water and wrapped snacks like chips, granola bars and candy bars. The machines used in full line vending are much larger and heavier than those used in bulk, plus they're much more sophisticated mechanically than those used in bulk due to the fact that they have refrigeration and bill changers which makes then harder to work on. One benefit that full line vending has over bulk vending is that the machines make a lot more money, so you will need a lot less machines and locations to make a full time income.