23% of the Till Went to the Host: an exhibition centre Ledger

What Is in This Note

This note looks at legal for 6 units over 22 months at an exhibition centre, written from the buyer's side of the table. The figures are modelled rather than measured: cup volumes, price per cup and cost lines follow stated assumptions, and the arithmetic is left visible so a reader can substitute their own numbers.

What Was Assumed, and What Was Not

Cup volume is stated per unit per day. Revenue is cups x 30 days x units x price per cup, taken at 8.4. Cost is consumables, the site share, power and parts. Payback is equipment spend divided by steady monthly net. No figure here is a quotation.

The model keeps the ramp separate from the steady state: the early months carry a lower cup count, and the steady figure is the plateau the site settles into once regulars appear. A reader who expects a different ramp can replace it without disturbing anything else on the page.

Six Months, Seven Columns

The columns are shown separately because the argument is rarely about the total. It is about which line moves fastest when a site underperforms, and which lines were fixed before the first cup was sold.

What Moves First in These Rows

The best month in this model nets about 10332, the weakest about 5017. The gap is the site's own variability rather than a change in cost, and that gap is what a trial period exists to measure.

At the modelled plateau, payback lands at 16.1 months. Read it as a reading of these assumptions, not a forecast: halve the cup volume and the same placement reads very differently.

Consumables scale with sales, so they rarely surprise anyone. The site share and the route hours are the two lines that do surprise operators, because both are agreed before the first cup and neither moves when the site underperforms.

What the Numbers Say About compliance

Certification conversations go wrong when a component certificate is presented as a machine certificate. The distinction is checkable on the document itself.

Three clauses decide how a placement ends: access hours, the ownership of the cups and the power bill, and the notice period. Everything else is a courtesy.

Whoever pays for power and consumables should be written down, not assumed. The assumption is usually wrong by the second invoice.

The Question After the First One

A cost model that stops at the invoice is a shopping list, not a plan. The lines that decide whether a placement earns are consumables, the site share, power, parts and the hours the restock route consumes.

The useful test is per cup, not per unit: everything divided by cups sold is the only number that survives contact with a slow month.

Before You Sign: Six Checks

1. Write access hours and the power arrangement into the agreement
2. Agree the move-out term and the notice period in writing
3. Ask for the documents that cover the assembled unit, not just parts
4. List consumables, site share, power, parts and route hours as separate lines
5. Convert the total to a per-cup figure before comparing suppliers
6. Confirm the trial period and the move-out term before delivery
7. Write the modelled cup volume into the plan and review it after month one

Your Site, Same Method

Five steps, in this order, will reproduce the table above closely enough to argue with it:

1. Take a full week of cup counts, including the two dead hours nobody likes to record
2. Price one cup from the invoice, including the capsule, the cup and the lid
3. Put the host share, power and spares on three separate lines, never one
4. Divide total equipment and installation spend by steady monthly net, then round the answer into a range
5. Halve the cup volume and see whether the site still earns - if it does not, say so before signing

Four Site Types, Four Patterns

Put the same cabinet in four rooms and you get four different ledgers. These are the patterns worth recognising before the walkthrough.

None of this argues for one venue over another. It argues for choosing the menu and the restock window after the rhythm is known, not before.

What to Do with This

Start with this: a ledger is a negotiating document. It is only useful if the other side can see which line you disagree with.

The trial period does the work that due diligence pretends to do. Thirty days of real cups beats three months of projections.

Third, write down the cup volume you are planning for. A placement that hits its volume and misses its margin is rare; a placement that never reaches the volume is common, and a written number makes that visible in month two rather than month ten.

When This Stops Being True

Three inputs move the result more than anything else: cups per day below the modelled floor, a site share above the modelled band, and a restock route that cannot reach the machine inside the host's hours. Each is checkable before signing, and none requires a pilot.

If a supplier's payback figure is shorter than the one this model produces, the useful question is which input they changed - volume, price, or the cost lines they left out. The honest comparison is two models with the same inputs, not two headlines.

Common questions

What should a placement agreement cover?

Access hours for restocking, who pays for power, liability and insurance, the notice period, and the conditions under which either side can end the arrangement.

Do certification documents transfer with the machine?

They should be listed in the delivery documents. Buyers usually want the unit-level certificate or report, the food-contact declaration and the spare-parts list.

What do the modelled numbers actually mean?

They are the arithmetic of stated assumptions, not measurements. Every input is listed in the assumptions section so a buyer can replace it with their own.

Why show six months instead of a full year?

Because the first six months contain the decision: the ramp, the plateau, and the first sign of which cost line moves when the site underperforms.

Related reading

• Service at a factory floor corridor: What 14 Months on 3 Units Showed
• Before the Second Capsule Order: exit risk at a hotel lobby bar
• Payback in 5 Months: 4 Units at a library study area, on Paper
• The Host Took 22%: What Is Left on 32 Units at a motorway service area