This article takes a look at the competing independents and franchise eBay dropoffs. With a couple of employees, Rodriguez estimated that his little store needs to make $12,000 to $13,000 a month just to break even. Helping him out is the fact that he is selling a lot of his own merchandise, tools and imported electronics, using the SpeedeSale log-on name to eBay. Also, he is an authorized UPS and FedEx shipper. …this is exactly what we mentioned before at Franchise Pundit – this business should be coupled with other offerings that can bring traffic in the door. now onto mortality rates… The mortality rate in general is high, as the trading assistants struggle to pay rent on a storefront while trying to find the right balance: what business should they go after, what should they refuse and how much should they charge? One of Sarasota’s first drop-off stores, 1StopAuctions, has closed its doors. Its Web site, which still shows up high on search engines, is up for sale on the Net. Its owners did not return a call for comment. In South Florida, where more auction drop-off stores have existed for a longer time, Rodriguez guesstimates that the failure rate is 80 percent or more. “Of the 20 stores that used to be around two three years ago, only five are still in business,” he said. An 80% failure rate is higher than I would have guessed. But there is NO WAY a town can sustain more than a couple of eBay drop-offs, let alone 20+. All those involved in the drop-off game now realize that to succeed, they must do more than sit in their shops and wait for valuable objects to arrive. “The reason we are on Main Street is to go after business-to-business deals,” said …
Read More »Search Results for: play it again sports
Buy a franchise to get into the leasing business?
Winmark Corp (formerly Grow Biz), franchisor of the retail stores Play It Again Sports, Once Upon a Child, Plato’s Closet and Music Go Round, has a new franchise concept called Wirth Business Credit. It’s mission is to help small businesses lease equipment. Leasing can have many advantages for a small business owner: preservation of capital and credit for other expenses and investment in growth, simpler bookkeeping and tax reporting, tax advantages, improves financial ratios, etc. Why would someone choose to lease from Wirth Business Credit over any of the other many leasing companies? I don’t know, unless their rates are cheaper and terms are more attractive. However, I doubt whether the tight structural constaints of a franchise is the best means to compete in a business where most sales comes down to price and, to a somewhat lesser extent, customer service. Wirth charges around 9 percent to 14 percent today compared to a bank prime-lending rate of 8.25 percent, Morgan said. Winmark and its franchise owners earn a profit by building fees into the interest rate, much like points that are added to a home mortgage loan….. Wirth President Mark Hooley said the company stands out from rivals because of its local presence, its automated leasing system that provides approvals in four hours or less, and the ability to finance up to 100 percent of equipment value….. Wirth franchise owners pay an average of $60,000 to do business in a certain geographic area, including franchise, computer and marketing fees. In exchange, the company provides the brand, the business model, cash for leases, training, marketing and the collection of overdue leases. I especially agree with the final comment in the article: “Financing can be complicated and challenging,” Faras said. “But my part of the business is really about sales. You …
Read More »Franchisor Mentions
VERY OUT OF DATE. Do a search instead. This was manually updated March 21, 2006 Companies Mentioned in Posts (likely incomplete):Automotive 1-800 RADIATORS Oil Butler Lube N’ Go On-Site-Lube Business & Home Services 1-800-WATER-DAMAGE Bartercard Garagetek Help-U-Sell Home Instead Homewatch Caregivers My Girl Friday PropertyGuys.com Sears Carpet & Upholstery Tax Centers of America Cleaning & Maintenance none Computer & Internet (some are listed in “Retail”) Screenz Food and Restaurant Arby’s Auntie Anne’s Blimpies Cheeburger Cheeburger Chipotle Dippin’ Dots Dream Dinners Doc Green’s Gourmet Salad Dominic’s of New York The Dugout Durango Grill Fazoli’s Fire of Brazil Fogo de Chao Goldstar Chili Jamba Juice Jerq’zine Krispy Kream Lenny’s Sub Shops Mauwi Wauwi Original Hamburger Stand Panaderia Taza Papa John’s Pizza Factory Pizza Patron Pretzel Time Quiznos Red Rock Chili San Francisco Soup Co Shane’s Rib Shack Skyline Chili Smoothie King Smotthie Planet Soup Nazi Steak-out Subway Submarina Sub Station II Super Suppers The Soup Box Supercuts Suzanne’s Kitchen We’re Rolling Pretzel Company Wetzel’s Pretzels Z Pizza Zoup! Fresh Soup Co (List all sub franchises) Health & Fitness Curves Liberty Fitness Home Building & Repair Services See “Business and Home Services” above Personnel & Staffing none Pet Retail and Services Camp Bow Wow Doody Calls The Pet Pantry Wag My Tail Interquest Detection Canines Pets Are Inn Retail Franchises Ace Hardware AuctionDrop Battery Plus Best Cuts GNC Educational Outfitters Fantastic Sams Fastframe Foot Solutions Friendly Computers Geeks on Call GNC Hair Cuttery Herman’s World of Sports Imagine This Sold Orbit Drop Play It Again Sports QuikDrop Roosters Men’s Grooming Centers Screenz Snips Its Sports Clips Stone Mountain Carpet Mill Tom’s Foods We the People Categories: eBay drop offs (generally) Hair Travel & Hotel none Industry Lists & Research 2004 Same Store Sales Growth of QSRs (quick service restaurants) Royalty and Advertising …
Read More »eBay drop offs
I question at this early stage in the industry whether the ongoing franchise fees of 5-6% will kill the margins need to be worthwhile.
Read More »QuikDrop Closes eBay Drop-off Store Franchise
QuikDrop is closing its eBay drop-off store franchise business at the end of the month, but franchise stores will be able to continue to use the QuikDrop name, logos, and signage. A conversation with the company’s cofounder Jack Reynolds on Wednesday netted a laundry list of complaints about the challenges of selling on eBay that contributed to his company’s demise, beginning in 2006 with the Stores search and fee changes. QuikDrop storeowners did not seem surprised at the news of the closure, which arrived via email from QuikDrop headquarters on Friday night – and some actually seemed relieved. The number of QuikDrop stores shrunk from a high of 95 in mid-2006 to under 30 stores today. Reynolds said the store closings, combined with a number of stores who were unable to pay franchise royalties, led to the decision to close the corporate franchise office. In late 2005 and early 2006, Reynolds said eBay worked on joint marketing with QuikDrop and things were going well. eBay discovered that consumers who visited drop off stores became more active as buyers on eBay, so the auction site marketed to people who weren’t sellers to promote eBay Trading Assistants. But things took a downward turn in 2006, he said. Read more in an article by Ina Steiner in Auctionbytes.com Read an earlier article on Franchise Pundit about eBay Drop Off Franchises Cross posted at Let’s Talk Franchising <!– –>
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