November, 1933
19
A U T O M A T IC A G E
Beginning
A series of articles on
“Successful Operating Methods —
Old & New”
B y Ja m e s C a n t e
of
W . J . C. V E N D I N G C O M P A N Y
N ew Y o r k C ity
How Much on My Investment?
V ERY operator, old or new, seasoned
or green, experienced or inexperi
enced still ponders over this eternal
question.
Let’s go back a few years at the very
dawn of the pin game idea as a money
making investment. That was the time
when an operator would pay $37.50 and up
for a machine which today sells for half
the price and would be glad to earn $3.00
or $4.00 per week on each such machine.
Today, many operators want to spend $5.00
or $10.00 and expect a return of, at least,
$25.00 on this insignificant investment.
What a change has come over him? It is
highly unreasonable that any operator
should demand such a fantastic return on
so small an outlay. Show me any business
on earth of such possibilities!
It is high time that operators awaken to
the fact that the pin-game business is a
legitimate business and positively not a
get-rich-quick scheme. There is a comfort
able income to be derived from it by the
proper application of a reasonable amount
of diligent effort.
Successful operating
demands sound business methods and prin
ciples. The operator of old was satisfied
with a steady income of a few dollars per
week per machine. Today an operator will
go to a jobber with $20.00 and will want
about 10 machines with a guaranteed in
come of $25.00 per week! Besides being
unfair to the jobber, this attitude is des
tructive to the business as a whole. In
this and future articles I will relate actual
instances of operators’ unfairness to job
bers and to locations, all of which reflect
upon the operator’s business integrity and
E
© International Arcade Museum
distinguish him from the successful opera
tor, who very wisely avoids these question
able tactics.
There was an incident, with which I am
personally familiar, whereby an operator
lost a very good location through a pitiful
lack of good judgement. This particular
operator took $7.00 out of one of his ma
chines, which was the total take-in for a
certain week during the summer months.
He was so dissatisfied with this that he
told the storekeeper that he would have to
remove the machine for the balance of the
summer. Now this storekeeper was per
fectly satisfied with his end of the receipts
for the summer months, knowing that the
winter season would bring considerably
more, but the operator’s action in this case
so aggravated him that he went out and
bought his own machine. This operator
actually drove and encouraged this loca
tion to buy its own machine, and then
whines, kicks, and complains about store
keepers buying their own machines and
that “business is bad.”
Yes, it’s true that the jobber should not
sell to the storekeeper, and by the way, it
is not done by ethical jobbers. It is un
questionably an after-effect of unsound op
erating methods. So remove the cause and
there will be no after-effect.
Next month I will further comment upon
other unworthy methods actually employed
by unscrupulous operators, which have
promoted that abominable condition of lo
cations buying their own machines. Look
for this instructive article next month; and
until then — GOOD LUCK AND GOOD
OPERATING!
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