Seven Questions to Ask a Micro Market Provider Before You Sign

Every provider you talk to will tell you the service is free and the food is fresh. Those are table stakes and they are easy to say. These seven questions find out what is actually behind them.

Ask us the same ones. Our answers are below.

1. Put the full cost structure on one page

Not whether it is free, which everyone answers yes to. Ask for every line: equipment, installation, the kiosk, the first fill, monthly service, electricity, repairs, removal if you end it. Free install with a service charge attached is not free, and you want that now rather than on the first invoice.

Ours: all of it is on us except the power. No setup fee, no monthly charge, no removal fee.

2. What triggers a restock, and who decides

This is the question that predicts whether the thing still works in month eight. A fixed visit every two weeks means empty shelves by day nine and nobody coming until day fourteen. You want stock data driving the schedule.

Ours: sales data from the kiosk sets the route. Fast-moving sites get visited more often, and that adjusts on its own rather than needing you to ask.

3. Where is the fresh food made, and how is it rotated

Fresh food is the hardest part of this business and the easiest to fake. Ask where it is produced, how far it travels, whether items are pulled before the date or on it, and who checks. Vagueness here is the answer.

Ours: made in our Logan kitchen, delivered on our own routes, dated, and rotated on every visit with anything close to date pulled.

4. Which depot serves me, and how long is a call-out

If you are the last stop on a route out of another region, you get whatever is left on the truck and you wait for repairs. Ask for the actual location the van leaves from.

Ours: Logan, for the whole footprint from Cache Valley down through Salt Lake Valley, Utah County and Park City.

5. Can I change the product mix, and how fast

A market stocked from a standard planogram will be wrong for your team. Ask whether you can request items, how long a change takes, and whether anyone reviews what is not selling.

Ours: ask and it goes in on the next visit. Anything that sits for a month comes out to make room.

6. What is the exit

A contract term is the clearest signal that a provider expects you to want out. Ask how much notice, whether there is a penalty, and who pays to take the equipment away.

Ours: no term. Tell us to take it out and we take it out at our cost. We would rather keep you because it is working.

7. Will you tell me not to buy this

The most useful question on the list. A provider who sells only micro markets will recommend one for a twenty person office, where it will sit half empty and make the room look worse than before. Ask what their smallest successful site is and what they would put in yours instead.

Ours: we run six services, so we have no reason to force one. Below about twenty five people on site we will point you at a smart cooler or refrigerated vending instead, and say why.

Use this on us

Take the list to whoever you are talking to, including us. Call (435) 512-2845 and ask all seven. If another provider answers them better, go with them.