FedEx Kinko's Rolls Out Small Stores to Outmaneuver UPS

UPS, a respected public corporation, bought MBE CHEAP with the view of capturing the market and increasing their profits in one grand slam with these thousands of stores that would wear the famous brand name of UPS.

Since UPS has no capital investment in these The UPS Stores that wear their brand and becaucse they also get the labor involved to increase UPS profits cheaply, they feel that they have an overwhelming competetive advantage over Fedex and that Fedex can't catch up.

Fedex will support their Fed-ex Kinko operations with the best expertise available and will go after small corporate business accounts for these stores to make them viable. The Fedex Kinko stores are a part of Fedex but The UPS Stores are just a cheaply purchased expendable resource for UPS who will continue to rely on the sheer number of "chumps" who bought the UPS promise and who are forced to stand at break-even or below to prevent the loss of everything they have invested in their businesses.

It is really disingenuous of Mr. Eskew and Mr. Mathis to suggest that The UPS Store owners who stand to LOSE EVERYTHING when their stores fail don't do everything in their power to make their stores work for them. This is why UPS originally decided to capture the market through the purchase of MBE and franchise the stores instead of using their own capital to build these stores and pay a living wage and benefits to employees who would work in these stores. Everyone knows that franchising is a source of cheap venture capital and cheap labor, etc.. for the big corporate idea people and that franchisees who finance and build the physical units have no protections under the law other than Workmen's Compensation. Franchisees can work 60 and 70 hour weeks with no pay or for minimum wage and this is not against the law. Franchisees have no work benefits ---no vacations and no benefits ---unless the business of their own provides the profits to provide benefits. Often they work for nothing and depend on PT help to staff the stores until break even.

The UPS Store is a return to the Mom and Pop concept and "living over the store" and a boon for MBE-UPS who profit on these stores whether they are operating at a loss, breakeven, or a profit. Therein, lies the essential flaw in the relationship that permits UPS to cannibalize its franchisees to maintain visibility on the American scene.

And, even now, UPS counts on this "one constant", i.e. that it is only The UPS Store franchisees who lose as long as these highly "discounted" stores can be sold and pushed by people like FRANMASTER and the IFA -- and as long as UPS can maintain their visibility on Entrepreneur as #5, and on the SBA Franchise Registry which bears an MBE testimonial and sell NEW franchises to NEW chumps.

This appears to be the plan to hold Fedex off. If this plan isn't illegal, it is certaily immoral and unethical and The UPS Board of Directors should take a look at this when their legal officers run around making speeches about ethics and morals in big corporations. The American people believe in fair play and this is not fair play. The color
brown has represented the good service and good will of UPS but it represents something entirely different to those who have been destroyed by the greed and arrogance and dishonesty of the UPS organization.