Despite The Athlete's Foot being Atlanta-based, the signed Franchise Agreement is in Italian, not English. The clauses in Italian is where CEO Giuseppi Musso of Winsport S.A. says that the terms of the franchise agreement were not met by The Athlete's Foot or its subsidiary Athlete's Foot Marketing Europe, located in France. We make no claims to the accuracy of the English translation, which is done by the Italian Master Franchise.

Art. D pag 18. “L'affiliante (TAF) costituirà un comitato di selezione al quale parteciperanno rappresentanti dell'affiliante, dell'affiliato principale e degli affiliati principali degli altri territori. Tale comitato di selezione avrà per obiettivo quello di selezionare, per i negozi della rete di franchising The Athlete's Foot i prodotti piu' idonei alla stagione interessata, oltre a organizzare gli acquisti all'ingrosso."

Musso: The Franchisor must create a Committee together with the Franchisee (Winsport) that will select the products for every season for The Athlete's Foot Stores in Italy. The Committee will organize the wholesale purchasing of the products mentioned (by the way wholesale purchasing never made by TAF). 

Humans and pets go back probably to the beginning of the human race. In many families, the most popular member is their dog. Everyone may be upset at each other, but not at the family dog. Depressed senior citizens snap out of their doldrums when a dog, wagging its tail, comes to visit their nursing home. And it's not just dogs. A restaurant in the heart of Waikiki does a booming business because of its huge, two-story marine aquarium (and their good food).

According to a recent Business Week cover story, Americans now spend $41 billion annually on their pets. To put that into perspective, that’s in excess of what Americans spend on the movies ($10.8 billion), playing video games ($11.6 billion) and listening to recorded music ($10.6 billion) combined!

The Business Week story goes on to say that The American Pet Products Manufacturers Assn. reports that 42% of dogs now sleep in the same bed as their owners, up from 34% in 1998. Their menu has now gone far beyond the dog food of years ago, reflecting the variety of the diets of the humans they live with. Half of all dog owners say they consider their pet's comfort when buying a car, and almost a third buy gifts for their dogs' birthdays.

Hollywood's Movielink Services Acquired for Yet Undisclosed Amount

Blockbuster on Wednesday announced it has bought Movielink, a movie download service owned by Hollywood studios. A source at the Wall Street Journal says that it was for an amount significantly under the $50 million that had been expected back in March.

Hollywood wants to go a different route than the rampant illegal downloads of the music industry. But their 2002 start-up company, MovieLink, failed to get enough traffic. Blockbuster now wants to use the service to compete directly with Netflix's push into movie downloads.Says the WSJ:

But Continues to Sell Franchises 

Reporter's Note: Blue MauMau made arrangements for an interview via email with iSold It's CEO, Ken Sully. After receiving our questions, Mr. Sully declined the interview.

SOLANA BEACH, Calif. (Blue MauMau) - Earlier this year iSold It's CEO Ken Sully wrote an open letter to franchisees in which he stated that "the company has not been profitable since 2004" and that reorganization and liquidation were being considered. Since then a new, “redlined” version of iSold It’s California Uniform Franchise Offering Circular (UFOC) has appeared. Among its first amended words are:

"The iSold It franchise system is still new and unproven. We are concerned about financial losses incurred by many early franchisees. The system is subject to ongoing change as we work to lower overhead, increase revenue and generally improve the profitability of our stores. We cannot and do not guarantee that your store will be profitable, either under the present system or under the system as it evolves." - (page 2 of iSold It's redline UFOC, May 25, 2007)

Franchisees Expected to Spend Some $60,000 on Store Upgrades

NexCen Brands, a hedge-fund backed investment and management company of franchise chains and consumer brands, plans to give The Athlete's Foot franchisees more flexibility in customizing stores to target four separate customer groups - hard-core jocks, urban trendsetters, the skater crowd and suburbanites. Look for The Athlete's Foot stores to sport a new logo, in-store design and an overhaul of its merchandise mix. Other changes include hiring professional "trend spotters" to keep abreast of the latest fashions. and a network Intranet for franchisees to track of best practices.

Costco Connection To Feature Franchisee Responses From Blue MauMau

ISSAQUAH, Wash. (Blue MauMau) - As a follow up to a Blue MauMau article last month regarding retail giant Costco soliciting franchise stories from its members, CFO Richard Galanti said they were successful.  He said they had received responses from approximately 55 people, mainly franchisees, after their announcement in the Costco Connection magazine appeared last month. Because many of the responses came from Blue MauMau, he said he was now familiar with the site. Mr. Galanti also revealed that currently the article is scheduled to be published this Fall, but he did caution that it could get bumped to another time slot, depending on what other reports come in. When asked if Blue MauMau could reprint the Costco article when it does come out he said yes.   

Franchisors Expound on Their Companies

The rent to own industry is featuring franchising this week. RTO Online profiles franchise chains in the rental purchase / leasing sector.

Big, four-color full page ads from franchisors are running next to articles featuring their firms. CEO's such as Gilian Wilmot of Buy as You View (pg. 8), or Rent-A-Center CEO Bud Gates talks about becoming a master franchisor for a Canadian concept, Easyhome. (pg. 12) Premier Home Furnishings President talks about his concept (pg. 38) and there are more companies. Concerning franchising, RTO Online says the strength of franchising is this - process and operational standards.

Franchisees Have Healthy Sense of Skepticism When There Is Past Failure

The challenge for a retail franchisee is to be able to manage thousands of different inventory and a highly complex supply chain at the store level easily and without a huge team of supply managers. Ace Hardware Corp. has been trying to build a business intelligence (BI) tool to do just that. And it hasn't been easy. 

Ace has replaced an inflexible BI tool used by about 3,000 workers, which in turn had replaced an older version that wasn't doing the necessary job.

Anyone been stiffed for an invoice? So you know the difference between cash and a bill (ie. a positive court award).

Definition
This is a franchisor cost reduction strategy toward a specific group of non-secured creditors (ie. class action litigants). It relies on the misuse of lax federal insolvency laws via the best professional help money can buy to create the illusion of a self-created cash crisis.

The enabled franchisor seeks the federal Court's protection from his own franchisees; using money that he, allegedly, appropriated.

Blockbuster is trying to use its click and bricks structure as an advantage to gain marketshare over more virtual arch enemy NetFlix. Blockbuster announced that NetFlix customers can rent DVDs free of charge at Blockbuster stores until December 21 (see WSJ $$ article for details).