Today's news for the franchise & small biz owner

When politicians say their opinion on a particular subject has “evolved” you know you’re about to hear a complete flip-flop. I suppose it’s easier than saying “I was wrong.”  Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of a CEO in retail.  It’s only natural, really.  We’ve seen the [shocking] debacle of Ron Johnson as CEO at JCP, the apparent impending turnaround, (or at least, slowing death spiral) of Best Buy in the hands of Hubert Joly, and Apple falling from the stratosphere in the post-Steve Jobs era.  And so, I’m here to say today: “My position has evolved.”  I’ve gone from thinking the average CEO is [mostly] grossly overpaid to thinking “Hey… maybe they really are...

Walmart’s woes continue as more leaked emails reveal a growing concern among company executives over a new consumer technology that promises to completely disrupt the mass merchant’s business model. While retailers like Best Buy struggle to combat showrooming and retailers like JCPenney appear to be failing miserably at redefining the future of the store, Walmart’s greatest threat appears to be the next generation of 3D printers known as “replicators.” 3D printers have begun making a splash on the retail scene, as RetailWire noted in March. At the time, industry pundits believed the technology in its infancy, but a recent breakthrough has changed the game.Since 2005, MIT scientist and certified physics genius Neil Gershenfield, director of the...

Automobile dealerships were the first type of legally recognized and regulated franchises. In fact, in 1937 Wisconsin enacted the first state law protecting car dealers from wrongful termination and non-renewal. State laws protect auto franchisees The strong lobbying efforts of car dealers and the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) have achieved an impressive set of state laws that protect franchisees from manufacturers in 49 states. Legislation includes: Protection against termination or non-renewal without good cause Protection from encroachment by new dealers into a dealer's existing territory Prohibitions on manufacturer requirements that dealers accept unpopular models or unpopular accessories Protections on the right of the franchisee to...

Looks as if Office Depot is going to buy OfficeMax. That purchase would combine the #2 and #3 office supply retailers, leaving only the new entity and Staples (currently #1), in an industry that has been pretty much undifferentiated and, in the industry’s terminology, “overstored.”   We’d like to give you some engagement and loyalty facts about these category players, but we can’t. We stopped measuring them as a Retail Category in our annual Customer Loyalty Engagement Index last year. First, because there were only three national chains left, and second, because the expansion into the category of previously non-traditional, now more and more becoming more and more consumers’ default channels, of online retailers. (Amazon) and price...